The exhibition Binnen is het gisteren, buiten is het nooit (‘Inside is yesterday, outside is never’) by Rein Dufait (1990, Ostend) brings together a selection of sculptures from 2017-2018 with some recent sculptures and assemblage works. The sculptures are presented on different tables and pedestals throughout both spaces. Sometimes the tables are part of the work, sometimes they are purely functional. Occasionally they suggest the process of creation and work, as with maro (2018) (the wooden crate encloses the sand in which the cement sleeve is made) and worsteling I (‘struggle I’) (2017) (the worktable was not painted over so that the movements of the “cement rolling” are still visible). In some cases, the sculpture was anchored into the table (worsteling I, 2017 and colosseum I, 2018) so that they literally form a whole.
Inside-outside, hollow-full, rough-smooth, hard-soft, negative-positive… As the title of the exhibition also implies, Rein Dufait’s works regularly carry contradictions and reversals within them. Thus, in maro, the inside is presented as the outside (the inside is smooth, the outside is rough due to sand and shell debris) and both the cement and bronze versions of torso (2017) are shown as autonomous sculptures. The selection of sculptures is complemented by getorst (‘twisted’) en geduwd (‘pushed’), both from 2018 and never shown to the public.
These cement sculptures are a continuation of the so-called beach works, a series of interventions the artist did on the beach of Ostend in 2015. He took the experience of building temporary sculptures out of sand to his studio by, for example, using sand as a mold with which to immortalize sculptures in cement. Rein Dufait’s way of making sculptures and the accompanying curiosity about materials and forms is aptly summarized by author Zoë Gray in the beginning of her essay Digging upwards, which was published in Dufait’s first monograph, Things & Air (MER. Paper Kunsthalle, 2018). “For Rein Dufait, the definition of sculpture is the adding or subtracting of material. (…) His sculptures are never narrative, seldom figurative, but often refer to organic structures. Always human in scale, they reveal an efficiency in construction that is fundamental to their meaning,” Gray said.[I]
The group of sculptures, whose arrangement is reminiscent of a room in a glyptotheque (museum dedicated to stone sculptures), is flanked by the monumental vlotstaanders (2024), a horizontal “frieze” that was composed of three existing works, and kleurvlakaarde (2023), a smaller square-sized relief executed horizontally lying on a table. Both works are constructed, collage-style, mainly from wood (planks, boards and leftover material) and painted with green, red, blue, white and black paint. For the past few years, Dufait has also added ochre to his color palette. That he considers these colors as basic elements of his recent works can also be seen in staaksels (2023), a series of free-standing sculptures on high steel pedestals, of which three versions are arranged in the small space.
Some of the exhibited sculptures from 2017-2018 are described separately in the book Things & Air (MER. Paper Kunsthalle, 2018). These texts mainly focus on the creation process. Things & Air and the publication Strompelvast, the catalog on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at the Roger Raveel Museum in 2021, are offered for sale at Convent during the exhibition period.
The work vlotstaanders is described in detail in a text published in leporello format. Free to take away during the exhibition.
Thanks to the artist, Dirk Pauwels, Pauline Scharmann, Marijke Dekeukeleire, Daan Dufait, Godart Bakkers and Arnout De Vleeschouwer.
With the support of Duvel Moortgat.
Nearby:
– The monumental malkolos (2016) (cement, rope, cardboard, 400 x 45 cm diameter) was built on site outside at the side entrance of S.M.A.K., the museum of contemporary art in Ghent, a 20-minute walk from Convent.
– From November 9, work by Rein Dufait will also be on display at AYNITL in Ghent, a 15-minute walk from Convent. The exhibition is on view through November 17, 2024.
[I] Zoë Gray, “Rein Dufait: Digging upwards”, in: Things & Air, Ghent: MER. Paper Kunsthalle, 2018, p.49.
