Artist: Michiel Ceulers
Exhibition title: Wenn es zittert wie ein Ente
Venue: DASH, Kortrijk, Belgium
Date: March 10 – April 2, 2017
Photography: Alexandra Colmenares, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and DASH
Asked about the meaning of the title, the artist is puzzled himself. I have an indication, but I am not sure. I ran an idea through Google translate and I ended with this one. It should mean something like shaking, but when I translated it back another result popped up. The literal translation isn’t really the point of the title, it’s logic transcends it. This stating the logic of the duck test with is mostly paraphrased like this;
“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck”
It’s logic implies that we can label a thing by adding up it’s different parts to make up the whole. One and one is two. One can use this way of thinking to structure our overstimulated surroundings and have the falls impression of understanding the world. This test is sometimes used to counter abstruse, or even valid, arguments that something is not what it appears to be.
Similarly, the term elephant refers to situations in which an idea or thing, is hard to describe, but instantly recognizable when spotted.
“It’s the Elephant in the room”
Michiel Ceulers likes to use language as a way to distribute idea’s rather then explanations. Language functions as a pretext for the work to function in a world that is made up of communication. In stead of using the modernist paradigm of the untitled, Ceulers his work is set out daily surrounding of our contemporary existence. Translating the works into titles is like pointing to it’s potential but at the same time misdirecting the reading of it. It’s like Vickey Pollard ranting;
“Yeah, but no, but Yes”
