News

Instability of Fundamentals, 1990
Philippe Van Snick, Instability of Fundamentals, 1990, vinyl paint on wood, trestles, dimensions variable. Photo: Thomas Ost.

Philippe Van Snick.

Galeria Jaqueline Martins

Review by Wouter Davidts for ARTFORUM

For the May edition of the internationally renowned magazine ARTFORUM, Wouter Davidts wrote a review on the exhibition Instability of Fundamentals at Galeria Jaqueline Martins. Davidts is professor at Ghent University and teaches at the Department of Architecture & Urban Planning and the Department of Art, Music and Theatre Studies.

Instability of Fundamentals marks a key moment in Van Snick’s oeuvre. (…) Rather than drawing on the clear-cut contrast between black and white, Van Snick advanced the semantic tension between black and blue—manifested in the difference between night and day—as the binary basis of his system. The realm he thus opened up was not one of numbers and calculation but of poetics and transience—a realm he moreover did not limit to pictorial space but expanded into the real space of the gallery.

Instability of Fundamentals @ Galeria Jaqueline Martins [Brussels]

Instability of Fundamentals

04 February to 23 March 2023

Opening: Saturday, 04.02.2023, from 17h to 20h

Galeria Jaqueline Martins [Brussels] is pleased to present ‘Instability of Fundamentals’, a solo exhibition of works by Philippe Van Snick (1946-2019). Organized in collaboration with the Philippe Van Snick Estate, the exhibition will feature a large-scale installation, and a selection of significant drawings, paintings and documentation. The exhibition will provide an opportunity to experience a particular body of work, which demonstrates the scope of formal, poetic and conceptual invention within which the artist created.

dynamic project

October 22, 2022 – March 5, 2023

dynamic project showcases the wide-ranging oeuvre of Philippe Van Snick (Ghent, 1946 – Brussels, 2019). The exhibition is structured around ten clusters, a reference to the decimal system (0-9) that is intrinsic to Philippe Van Snick’s work. As an artist, he observed the complexity of life and the world around him. He translated his insights and reflections into a simplified visual language.

In the exhibition rooms, key works alternate with surprising and lesser-known ones. It is almost impossible to categorise Philippe Van Snick’s oeuvre due to the urge for freedom, openness and non-conformism that it expresses.