David Claerbout (born 1969,

Kortrijk Kortrijk ( , ; or ''Kortrik''; ), sometimes known in English as Courtrai or Courtray ( ), is a Belgian City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region, Flemish Provinces of Belgium, province of We ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

) is a Belgian artist. His work combines elements of still

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

and the

moving image A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

Early life and education

Claerbout studied at Nationaal Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten,

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

from 1992-1995. He trained as a painter, but became more and more interested in

time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

through investigations in the nature of photography, the still and the moving image (Bergson's

duree Duration (French: ''la durée'') is a theory of time and consciousness posited by the French philosopher Henri Bergson. Bergson sought to improve upon inadequacies he perceived in the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, due, he believed, to Spencer's ...

echoed in Gilles Deleuze ''

Cinema 1 ''Cinema 1: The Movement Image'' () (1983) is the first of two books on film, cinema by the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, the second being ''Cinema 2: The Time-Image, Cinema 2: The Time Image'' () (1985). Together ''Cinema 1'' and ''Cinema 2'' have ...

'' and ''Cinema 2'').

Work

David Claerbout is "best known for large-scale moving and still imagery that deals with the passage of time". In early works, such as ''Kindergarten Antonio Sant’Elia 1932'' made in 1998 and the last in a series, he presents an old, black and white photograph as a large, mute projection. In ''Vietnam, 1967, near Duc Pho (Reconstruction after Hiromishi Mine)'' (2001) time is suspended as an airplane caught by the camera moments before its crash, floats, the sunlight gently moving over a green and hilly landscape. In the book ''Visible Time'', David Green writes:

“What one actually experiences or indeed what one sees in this work, is not the conflation of photography and film but, a conjuncture of the two mediums in which neither ever loses its specificity. We are thus faced with a phenomenon in which two different mediums co-exist and seem to simultaneously occupy the same object. The projection screen here provides a point of intersection for both the photographic and filmic image.”

With works such as ''Villa Corthout'' (2001) and ''Piano Player'' (2002), Claerbout’s work moves towards forms of

narratives A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). ...

to describe ‘moments in time’ within the moving image, taking a more cinematic dimension. In the ''Bordeaux Piece'' (2004) actors repeat a given dialogue and a set of given movements, deconstructing cinematic time. It centers on a conversation between a couple that is repeated over and over in different parts of a 1996 Bordeaux house designed by the architect

Rem Koolhaas Remment Lucas Koolhaas (; born 17 November 1944) is a Dutch architect, architectural theory, architectural theorist, urbanist and Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Graduate School of ...

. The piece is in fact a 14 hours film made out of 70 shorter films shot at 10 minutes intervals throughout the day. The narrative slowly collapses, giving way to the movement of the sun over the landscape, architecture and people, thus creating a different temporality. One protagonist is played by

Josse De Pauw Josse De Pauw (born 15 March 1952) is a versatile Belgian actor, film director, dramatist, author and columnist. He was married to modern dance performer Fumio Ikeda for over thirty years. Theatre After graduating from the Royal Conservatory i ...

, who helped Claerbout write the script. In ''Sections of a Happy Moment'' (2007), Claerbout seems to ‘dissect’ a moment in the life of a Chinese family in the courtyard of a nondescript estate. A group of people are gathered around a ball suspended mid-air, all the faces turned towards it, smiling happily. Over the course of 25 minutes, this moment in time is analyzed from a multitude of different angles and perspectives, allowing the viewer an omnipresence that is paradoxical. The fragmentation of time in this piece, through freeze – frames of the same moment, creates 'visible duration'. In ''Sunrise'' (2009), Claerbout presents an 18-minute work in near-darkness, accentuating the dim tones by projecting the film on to a grey surface. For nearly the entire film, a housemaid goes about her chores in the muted light of pre-dawn, finally departing the house and cycling through a dimly-lit landscape, accompanied by

Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and Conducting, conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a compos ...

's '' Vocalise'' (1912). Set on the coastline of

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

, France, ''The Quiet Shore'' (2011) is a 36-minute black-and-white film capturing scenes that range from moments of minute detail to panoramic expanses of coastal landscape. The viewer experiences, frame by frame, a single moment from a multitude of different perspectives and viewpoints.Some Artists' Artists, June 26 - August 22, 2014
Marian Goodman, New York.

Exhibitions

Claerbout participated in the DAAD Berlin Artist Program in 2002–2003. In 2007, he showed five works at the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

in Paris; the exhibition later toured to the

List Visual Arts Center Established in 1950, the List Visual Arts Center (LVAC) is the contemporary art museum of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is known for temporary exhibitions in its galleries located in the MIT Media Lab building, as well as its admin ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

, to the

Kunstmuseum St. Gallen Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (English: ''Art Museum St. Gallen''), is a Swiss art museum founded in 1877 and located in St. Gallen, Switzerland. It is an important museum within Eastern Switzerland because of their expansive European art collection. ...

in St. Gallen, Switzerland, to the

Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the campus of the University of British Columbia. The gallery is housed in a building designed by architect Peter Cardew which opened in 1995 ...

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, to the

De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art The De Pont Museum is a contemporary art museum in Tilburg, North Brabant, the Netherlands. It was named after the lawyer and businessman Jan de Pont (1915-1987). After his death his estate provided for the establishment of a foundation (the Janivo ...

Tilburg Tilburg () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant. With a population of 22 ...

, Holland, and to the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo. Other solo exhibitions include ‘Diese Sonne strahlt immer’, Vienna Secession (2012); ‘David Claerbout: Architecture of Narrative’,

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

(2011); ‘The Time That Remains’, WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels (2011); and ‘uncertain eye’,

Pinakothek der Moderne The Pinakothek der Moderne (, '' Pinakothek of the Modern'') is a modern art museum, situated in central Munich's '' Kunstareal''. The building Designed by German architect Stephan Braunfels, the Pinakothek der Moderne was inaugurated in Se ...

, Munich (2010).

Selected solo exhibitions

* 2002 Kunstverein Hannover, Hanover * 2004 Kunstbau im Lehnbachhaus, Munich * 2005 Akademie der Künste, 'Background Time – Gezeiten', Berlin * 2005 VanAbbemuseum, Eindhoven * 2007 Centre Georges Pompidou, 'David Claerbout', Paris * 2008 MIT LIST Visual Arts Center, Cambridge MA * 2008 Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, 'After the Quiet', St. Gallen/Switzerland * 2008 Belkin Galleries at The University of British Columbia, Vancouver * 2008

National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens The National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST Εθνικό Μουσείο Σύγχρονης Τέχνης (ΕΜΣΤ)), is a national museum focused on exhibiting contemporary Greek and international art in Athens. It was established in October 200 ...

* 2009

, 'The Shape of Time', Tilburg * 2010

, Munich, Germany * 2011

Wiels WIELS is a contemporary art centre in Forest, a municipality of Brussels, Belgium. The centre opened in 2007 in the former Blomme building, which belonged to the Wielemans-Ceuppens brewery. It has three exhibition platforms with a total exhibit ...

, 'Le temps qui reste', Brussels * 2011

SF MOMA The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art, and has bu ...

, San Francisco * 2012 MART Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto * 2012 Parasol Unit, ‘the time that remains’, London, England * 2012 Secession, ‘Diese Sonne strahlt immer’, Vienna, Austria * 2013 Kunsthalle Mainz, Germany * 2014

Nederlands Fotomuseum The Netherlands Photo Museum () (NFM) is a photography museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that was founded in 1989. The museum collection consists of many historical, social and cultural images from the 20th and 21st century, from the Netherla ...

, Rotterdam * 2015

MAMCO The MAMCO () is the contemporary art museum of Geneva, which opened in 1994. The building is a former factory building, with 3000 m2 of exhibition space, it is the largest contemporary art museum of Switzerland. From 1994 to 2015, MAMCO was dire ...

, Geneva * 2016

Städel Museum The Städel, officially the ''Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie'', is an art museum in Frankfurt, with one of the most important collections in Germany. The museum is located at the Museumsufer on the Sachsenhausen (Frankfurt ...

, Frankfurt, Germany * 2017 KINDL, Berlin, Germany * 2017 Schaulager, Basel, Switzerland * 2018 The pure necessity: Rüdiger Schöttle Gallery, Munich * 2022 The Close: Rüdiger Schöttle Gallery, Munich

Literature

Selected Monographs/ Exhibition Catalogues ;2002 *Kunstverein Hannover (ed.), ''David Claerbout'', Brussels: A Prior, 2002 (exh.cat.) ;2003 * CGAC Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea (ed.), ''David Claerbout'' exts by Stephan Berg, Rachel Kushner">Rachel_Kushner.html" ;"title="exts by Stephan Berg, Rachel Kushner">exts by Stephan Berg, Rachel Kushner Santiago de Compostela, 2003 (exh.cat.) ;2004 *Gaensheimer, Susanne, Meschede, Friedrich et al. (ed.), ''David Claerbout'', Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2004 (exh.cat.) *Green, David, Lowry, Joanna, ''Visible Time: The work of David Claerbout'', Herbert Read Gallery, Brighton: Photoworks, 2004 (exh.cat.) ;2008 *Van Assche, Christine (ed.), ''The Shape of Time'', Zürich: JRP Ringier/Centre Pompidou/MIT List Center of Visual Arts/De Pont Foundation/Kunstmuseum St. Gallen/Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, 2008 (exh.cat.) *National Museum of Contemporary Art (ed.), ''David Claerbout'', Athens, 2008 (exh.cat.) ;2012 *Ardalan, Ziba, Hoelzl, Ingrid, Snauwaert, Dirk, ''David Claerbout. the time that remains'', Ludion, 2012 *Pacher, Jeanette/Secession (ed.), ''Diese Sonne strahlt immer'', Vienna: Secession, Vereinigung bildender KünstlerInnen, 2012 (exh.cat.) ;2015 *McMonagle, Christine/Sean Kelly Gallery (eds.), ''David Claerbout. Drawings and studies''. With an essay by Christian Viveros-Fauné, Hatje Cantz Verlag/Sean Kelly Gallery, 2015 *Davila, Thierry, ''Shadow Pieces. David Claerbout'', mamco: Geneva, 2015 (exh.cat.) *Vergne, Jean-Charles, ''David Claerbout'', Clermont-Ferrand: FRAC Auvergne, 2015 (exh.cat.)

Recognition

Claerbout has been awarded the Prize of the Günther-Peill-Stiftung (2010).

List of selected works

*''Boom'' (1996) Single Channel Video Installation, Colour, Silent, 18’44” *''Ruurlo, Bocurloscheweg 1910'' (1997) Single Channel Video Installation, Black and White, Silent, 10’ *''Kindergarten Antonio Sant’Elia, 1932'' (1998) Single Channel Video Installation, Black and White, Silent, 10’ *''Untitled (Carl and Julia)'' (2000) Interactive Video Installation, Black and White, Silent *Venice Light Boxes (2000) 4 Light boxes, Cibachrome, Black and White *''Vietnam, 1967, near Duc Pho (Reconstruction after Hiroshimi Mine)'' (2001) Video Installation, Colour, Silent, 3’30” *''Villa Corthout'' (2001) 5 - Channel Video Installation, Black and White, Mono Sound, 25’ *''The Stack'' (2002) Video Installation, Colour, Silent, 36’ *''Piano Player'' (2002) Single Channel Video Installation, Colour, Dolby Surround Sound, 7’ *''Rocking Chair'' (2003) Double Screen Interactive Video Installation, Black and White, Silent *''Bordeaux Piece'' (2004) Single Channel Video Installation, Colour, Dual Mono Sound, 13:43’ *''Shadow Piece'' (2005) Single Channel Video Installation, Black and White, Stereo Sound, 30’19” *''Sections of a Happy Moment'' (2007) Single Channel Video Installation, Black and White, Stereo Sound (Random Muzac), 25’57”

References

External links

Frieze Show Review

Frieze Review

Sean Kelly

Esther Schipper

David Claerbout
{{DEFAULTSORT:Claerbout, David 1969 births Living people People from Kortrijk Belgian contemporary artists Belgian photographers