Jan Vercruysse

Jan Vercruysse’s installation consisted of six rows of rectangular fountains about one metre high and containing water, from which reddish vapours emerged thanks to smoke machines and more than 400 spotlights placed in the water. As the artist explained, the pools were arranged in parallel rows far enough apart to allow one to walk through the paths of fog, “creating a poetic atmosphere and a pleasant mood”, but close enough for the red mist to be perceived as a “unified and not fragmented element.” 

Jan Vercruysse (Ostend, 1948 - Bruges, 2018) approached contemporary art after a debut as a poet and, as a profound believer in the spiritual nature of art, he has translated the same lyrical approach into his works, in an attempt to give expression to his inner space, as is also the case in the installation in Turin. It is no coincidence that he often used black and white photographic self-portraits in his early works from the mid-1970s, thinking of each work as the sentence of a visual discourse, analogous to the idea of a sonnet. From the 1980s are the series Chambres, wooden rooms in which the visitor is invited to enter, and Tombeaux, installations with musical wind instruments in blue Murano glass that, in the impossibility of producing sound, invite by contrast to silence and reflection. In subsequent years, the artist’s research continued with the series Atopies, M and Places. Exhibited in the world’s most important museums, from the Tate Modern in London to the MOCA in Los Angeles, Vercruysse’s works are now in some of the most significant international public and private contemporary art collections.  

Silvia Maria Sara Cammarata