Jana Coorevits at Fred & Ferry

Artist: Jana Coorevits (with Lydia Hannah Debeer, Lot Doms, Saskia Van der Gucht, Lien Hüwels, Rosa John, Lola Pertsowsky)

Exhibition title: Matter on Its Dance Through Time

Venue: Fred & Ferry, Antwerp, Belgium

Date: November 25 – December 23, 2023

Photography: Tomas Uyttendaele / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Jana Coorevits builds poetic spaces, forging paths to alternative modes of communication. Seeking to make room for complex emotions and experiences, she looks for new narratives to define relationships and events. In the pursuit of the exact right nuance to reveal what’s going on within and around the body, she employs unhurried and intimate renditions. Silence supports the sensitivity of the rhythm. New realms of meaning emerge from the flowing analogy between landscapes and people. Shapes and ideas resonate, taking center stage in a lyricism that engages multiple senses. Intuition is never far away.

Coorevits’ film matter on its dance through time (2023) unfolds from an ongoing conversation between the artist and the landscape of Death Valley, California. Within the dialogue between image, words, and sound, a sensory narrative takes shape, lending significance to the fragility and intricacies of the vast scenery. In collaboration with writer Charlotte Van den Broeck, Coorevits researched the relationship between landscape and the human body. From this metaphorical space, the film talks about hurt and the impact of violence. Inner wounds find their equal in the gradual shifts of the landscape’s matter, so subtle we almost miss it. Coorevits captures the nuanced movements and (colour) changes in the environment without manipulation, allowing the surroundings to shape the cinematic image. The moon trembles, storms brew, and we are momentarily blinded by the rising sun – or perhaps the pixels are just overly saturated.

A voice pierces the silence: “(…) hurt is in the smallest of particles (…)” A hand carefully stacks stones.

Guided by associations and intuition, Coorevits brings together pieces from six other artists. This selection indirectly highlights various aspects of Coorevits’ own work. Take Rosa John’s Junge mit Sonnentalern (2021), for instance – it bears a resemblance to Coorevits’ landscapes that morph into bodies that morph into landscapes. It’s almost the twin of Flank^* (2020) . Then there’s Lien Hüwels’ triptych The Hunter (2017), where a galaxy is reflected in birthmarks on a person’s back. These images draw a direct connection between the human body and the cosmos, a theme echoed in Coorevits’ own work, grootste gemene deler (2023), where a pregnant belly meets the moon. The moon is reduced to the size of the expecting curve. Coorevits intentionally establishes a connection here: pregnancy, a commonplace yet profoundly personal experience, is juxtaposed with the unifying grandeur of the moon. It looms above us all, but here, it takes on a more palpable size.

Downsizing substantial elements reintroduces a vulnerability to what’s cosmic. It sparks a different way of observing and experiencing, a quest that Coorevits also retrieves from Lydia Hannah Debeer’s The View (2014). This piece zeroes in on subtle movements, capturing the delicate nuances between a couple. How they carry themselves. Their body language. Their exchanges. We don’t see what their gazes are directed at, but they are sharing the view. Details aren’t merely an exploration of intimacy; they are the essence. Saskia Van der Gucht also plays with scale and magnifies the little things. In her study On Sand: Unpacking Preciousness (2023), she delves into the value of sand, discussing how its temporary packaging and industrial transportation don’t reveal its scarcity. Surprisingly, desert sand is utterly unmanageable as a building material, since the grains have become too slippery from constant abrasion. The image of grains of sand that, much like people, slide away due to friction is not a peculiar one.

Jana Coorevits, Matter on its dance through time, 2023, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Lien Hüwels, The Hunter, 2017, Triptych, digital b/w Photo’s, mounted on aluminum, framed, 120 x 80 cm (x3)

Lien Hüwels, Contiguity, 2019, HD video, variable sizes, 2′ 25″

Lydia Hannah Debeer, The View, 2014, Single channel video 8′ 45”

Lola Pertsowsky, Magdalena, Rachel et Nastasia, 2018, Photo print in white aluminum frame, 30 x 20 cm

Jana Coorevits, Matter on its dance through time, 2023, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Saskia Van der Gucht, structures of memories: Lest we forget , 2023, collage, 25 x 19 cm

Jana Coorevits, Matter on its dance through time, 2023, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Jana Coorevits, grootste gemene dealer, 2023, Dyptich, analogue C-print in white wooden frame, 91 x 72.5 cm, 31 x 39 cm

Jana Coorevits, Matter on its dance through time, 2023, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Lot Doms, Jongleur, 2022, Gelatin silver prints, 32 x 24 cm, A series of 33 unique prints

Jana Coorevits, Matter on its dance through time, 2023, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Lien Hüwels, Fluid rib cage, 2023, Analogue b/w photo, printed on barite paper, framed, 60 x 40 cm

Jana Coorevits, Matter on its dance through time, 2023, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Saskia Van der Gucht, Surface visions, 2021, Object, wood cardboard, balsa wood, white sand, 21,8 x 30,4 x 1 cm

Saskia Van der Gucht, Weaving (A2), 2023 Polyester composite strips 65 x 42 cm

Jana Coorevits, Matter on its dance through time, 2023, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Jana Coorevits, Matter on its dance through time, 2023, Experimental short, video installation, digital projection, 19′

Jana Coorevits, Matter on its dance through time, 2023, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp