The dreamlike, almost unbearable mixture of boredom and ‘Angst' accompanies the visitor throughout the exhibition. Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys successfully exploit and manipulate the surrounding space to prevent a viewer from feeling too comfortable.
The exhibition is presented in two separate suits of rooms, covered with gray linoleum and lit by rough, but insufficient, energy saving lamps. The first two rooms of each enfilade display the objects featured in the videos, which are demonstrated in the last one.
In their work, the artists explore some universal fears through the prism of their home country; to be more precise, through the window of a little brick house in a small town. The spaces and characters of de Gruyter and Thys are depicted in a very particular Belgian aesthetics, known from many Flemish films. The artists state that globalization, technical progress, and rapid expansion of the outer world cause anxiety. To overcome their fear, people hide in their old small homes, they return to their past, seek their national identity. This results in "a massive standstill, epidemics of autism".
The works presented in the show are ‘Der Schlamm von Branst' (2008) and ‘The Frigate' (2008). The minimal action of the first video shrinks to almost complete immobility in the second. ‘The Frigate' is a selection of tableaux vivants, edited in a seemingly homebrew manner. Moreover, the characters of the videos are deprived of speech. Monotonous lowing, or loud incomprehensible stuttering in ‘Der Schlamm von Branst', becomes a mute talk in ‘The Frigate'. This inability to communicate seems to be both, the reason and the cause of fear, one of the main constants in the world of de Gruyter and Thys.
For the artists, people, objects, animals and plants are equal in rights. They all experience a cataleptic consternation, caused by fear of the other. ‘Der Schlamm von Branst' is filmed in a sculptor's studio and shows eerie interactions between humans and clay figures. One of the scenes depicts a somewhat Kierkegaardian dialog, doomed to failure. A prayer is kneeling in front of a clay bust, the prolonged shape of its head reminds of a pagan demon; the clay god is looking arrogantly and unmoved over a loudly jabbering human. In ‘The Frigate', a group of greedy, threatening and inert men is posing around a woman or a black frigate, a symbol of female sexuality. A black-foiled tree, symbolizing both masculinity and fruitful femininity, stresses the idea of interchangeability and equivalence of protagonists, which is explicitly demonstrated in other parts of the video.
The viewer is relieved, he is able to escape; but, reminded of his own ‘Urangst', he will not easily forget those, who are trapped inside, in consternation.

Ekaterina RIETZ-RAKUL
Steve SCHEPENS

Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys till December 23rd in Culturgest, Edifício Sede da Caixa Geral de Depósitos Rua Arco do Cego Lisbon.
www.culturgest.pt