Anonyms & Recent Works

Vernissage 27/02 in space60 (Klapdorp, 60, 2000 Antwerp)

JOHAN DAENEN (°1958) is indelibly rooted in the cultural landscape as the acclaimed stage designer of directors such as Jan Decorte, Jacques Delcuvellerie, Wim Vandekeybus, Charlie Degotte and many others. For decades, he delivered visual uppercuts to a living audience, but offstage, the unstoppable production of paintings, objects, installations and reflections has taken on a life of its own and now forms an impressive oeuvre of amazing diversity.
A selection of the collection was exhibited from October 2021 until March 2022 in the world-famous Verbeke Foundation in Kemzeke.
Space60 (Klapdorp60 in Antwerp) is honoured to have opened their new gallery with another tip of the many artistic icebergs that this artist has floating in still waters.

ANONYMS
In 1975, Johan Daenen was struck by 60 portrait photographs, sold publicly from a photo studio at a judicial sale of confiscated goods and bankruptcies. Because people were depicted in the portraits, a state official had to make the faces unrecognisable or anonymise them under the law on privacy.
And this is where the existential contradiction arises: literally everything has been done to erase these people, but this has actually made them indelible. Weathered, scratched, stained, they shine more than ever before. That is the alienating power of these images: the more anonymous, the more personal. The more efforts were made to eliminate the eyes, the more penetratingly the portraits look at us. Like visual relics from a recent past, they have transcended their earthly existence and look towards eternity, stripped of any temporary anecdote.

Johan Daenen has saved this anonymous treasure from oblivion; without his vision, these glimpses would have been irrevocably destroyed. Now it is time to confront them with an audience and give them a new existence.

In addition to the 'Anonyms', Johan Daenen will be showing a selection of recent work in space60: paintings, objects, reflections. Some works are interpretations of the 'Anonyms', others are interpretations of reality. They have one thing in common: through Johan's gaze, the everyday transcends itself.

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www.johandaenen.be

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