Kasper Bosmans

Wolf Corridor

4 May 2021 - 30 January 2022
work in collection

Kasper Bosmans (Lommel, 1990) has a fascination with history ­– not as much with the well-known historical narratives as with events that occurred on the fringes. He makes associative connections between the most diverse topics and incorporates these into small, emblem-like paintings. They serve as keys to his spatial installations and collectively make up a new, visual ‘historiography’: one that is less clear-cut, lends itself to interpretation and, above all, invites us to observe and associate.

For Wolf Corridor Bosmans took inspiration from de Kempen, or Campine, a sandy region south of Tilburgwhich was once part of the Duchy of Brabant. In his research on that area, he takes a kaleidoscopic view. His eye, for instance, comes across the herdgang – a triangular square that played a role in medieval shepherding – and he immersed himself in the archeological discovery of the earliest drop of bronze in a Tilburg crucible. He also studied local household traditions. The ancient custom of women scrubbing floors clean with sand, first strewn about in decorative patterns, prompted Bosmans to create sand paintings.

Bosmans consults both historical archives and the Internet, feeling just as comfortable delving into legends about the saints as local gossip. By going off the beaten path he shows, in fact, that the present and the past constantly interact with each other. And that a new perspective on history allows us to look differently at culture and the socio-political developments in our surroundings. But with his work Bosmans, born and raised in the Belgian Kempen, also creates a world of his own in which he feels at home. A world that happens to be formed not on the basis of the heteronormative view, but rather the notion of a queer space, a place also familiar to the LGBTQ+ community. While Bosmans plays with meaning, he does fully accept the fact that meanings can change. His own misinterpretation of a work by Paul Thek, for instance – a fox with nipples shaped like lemons, which proved to be eggs originally – illustrates this well. It led to various versions of the sculpture, with plums, sugar cubes and blackberries. Each of those sculptures conjures forth a different association.

The mural 9 Sisters also deals with interpretation and the transformation of meaning. This work, a recent acquisition for De Pont’s collection, is based on a story from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which nine gossiping sisters turn into eternally chattering magpies. To that Bosmans then adds nine ducks – in nine colors – in response to a different version of this classical tale which involves nine different birds. With his small, inviting ‘legend paintings’ he seems to depict their gossip in the large dialogue balloons emerging from their beaks. They have the look of associative rebuses, recognizable and enigmatic at the same time. Occasionally Bosmans explains his work and lifts a corner of the veil, but the question is whether we should want to have everything explained. His work seems to ask viewers to make their own stories, so that new interpretations and personal perspectives can arise time and again. And keep everything in flux.