Federico Acal at Bruthaus Gallery

Artist: Federico Acal

Exhibition title:

Venue: Bruthaus Gallery, Waregem, Belgium

Date: November 15 – December 20, 2015

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Bruthaus Gallery, Waregem

I’m a Gemini, so I suppose I have a certain tendency toward ambivalence, paradox, and tension tattooed onto my body. This is why I contradict myself all the time. I change my mind almost every moment. Decision making is a difficult task which I try to tackle as well as I can with the time which has been given to me.

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presents a selection of recent works which inhabit a vague sense of time. A temporality linked to speculation and mutation. The future of the works in the exhibition are not attached to technological advance or any kind of scientific progression but rather to a sense of intuition, soothsaying and imagination. We want to believe in possible futures. It is belief and faith more than certainty. We have a need to project ourselves into the past and future; we interchange them constantly. Past, present and future seem to have lost their meaning. Time is fragmented, changeable, esoteric and cosmic. Anticipating or going back in time belongs to the realm of magic.

is also a symbol. Like any other symbol, it suggests another idea, another belief, another action or entity. It hides and evades itself as well as evokes known and unknown meanings. It’s slippery and exchangeable. It’s vague and concise at the same time; brief but demands our attention. It shows a double aspect. Concepts and words are symbols but just as visions, rituals and objects. Symbols mirror society, we devote ourselves to them almost every day without knowing. We are influenced by symbols, magic and astrology. Our mood is always changing according to the rotation periods of stars and planets.

is the symbol of Aquarius. It also refers to the current or forthcoming astrological age. According to some Astrologers we are now in the Age of Aquarius. However they don’t seem to agree when it starts or ends. Astrologers believe that astrology affects mankind, possibly by influencing the rise and fall of civilizations or cultural tendencies. Traditionally, Aquarius is associated with electricity, computers, flight, democracy, freedom, humanitarianism, idealism, modernization, and a long list of contemporary qualities. An unclear concept that suits our lack of linear temporality.

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Throwing the bones on the floor is a beginning, it is influencing but not deterministic. We might foresee an image of happiness, so it is worth trying.