“No trace is permanent, eventually everything will fade away.” While this may sound dramatic, Koen Kievits (1996) primarily sees beauty in transience. Reducing the legacy of humanity to the level of a grain of sand in the desert creates space for the sublime; an appreciation for that which overwhelms us and goes beyond our comprehension. Kievits is, for instance, interested in how forces of nature can be both commonplace and intangible at the same time. In his work this is subtly reflected through the practice of peeling away layers. The artist works with existing landscape photographs that he subjects to sandpapering, thus paradoxically adding a new symbolic layer by first removing one. Similar to how erosion affects the natural landscape, Kievits uses an artificial force of nature to erode his own work.
At Prospects, the two works Kievits is showing both involve this method of ‘creative removal’. The first work is a frame filled with sand that will spill from the bottom corners during the exhibition opening. In this way the two-dimensional surface will be transformed into a four-dimensional work, with two small piles of sand slowly taking shape underneath the frame. The second work is a sheet of paper, the top layer of which has been torn off. Removing the top layer reveals a striking sculptural quality. Through his interventions, Kievits is helping these representations of natural landscapes to escape from their frames and become three-dimensional again.
Text: Milo Vermeire
Translation from Dutch to English: Marie Louise Schoondergang