Leon Vranken

A classical showcase is left devoid of content and its shape slightly altered disrupting expectation (Oak Rumble, 2006); conventional homemade decorative items are replicated and placed mirroring their originals (The Garden With the Two-Forked Paths, 2005); an entire building has its structural measurements slightly skewed (First Rumble, 2006); a colossal sculpture is unhinged (Proposal for A European Sculpture for the Future, 2007); and an oddly paint roller stands awkwardly against a wall having marked a color sample or perhaps a subtle monochrome painting (Three-Fold, 2008). Encounters with such ambiguous objects and structures are at the heart of Leon Vranken’s practice which twists the logic of objects to challenge their perception away from re-interpreting their function. Leon Vranken is a classical sculptor, a visual trickster, and an appropriationist. Often, working with existing objects and re-interpreting them, Vranken’s practice revolves around an interest in form, its historical reading and the inherent meanings of materials and the shapes they inhabit. By literally shifting the formal readings of mundane objects on the one hand, and art-referential artifacts on the other, Vranken’s works emphasize the signifying qualities of forms and materials. By re-articulating their meanings, Vranken highlights the subjective nature by which qualities are rendered onto objects in our daily lives and in our art viewing experience. In the traditions of Gordon Matta-Clark and Michael Ascher, Vranken uses re-contextualization, doubling and DIY creativity to recompose the viewers relationship to the world. In his most recent works, Vranken’s practice is veering towards re-interpreting formalism in direct dialogue with the canon of modern and contemporary art and art-making.

Mai Abu Eldahab