Toon Leën at Fred & Ferry

Artist: Toon Leën

Exhibition title: Sarah Bal

Venue: Fred & Ferry, Antwerp, Belgium

Date: February 6 – March 12, 2022

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

Colour-blind painters will usually think twice before specializing in the study of colours. But some are unaware of their limitations and others are in denial. It took the Swiss painter Sarah Bal many years before she mustered the courage to face her partial colour-blindness. The realization that her colour vision would always lag behind the average viewer’s caused a crisis in her self-confidence. It was only after she let go of her obsession with abstract art and consciously directed her gaze towards the world that she managed to overcome this state of doubt. She became increasingly fascinated with the flood of images coming through news websites and social media. Drawing connections between all manner of images found on the internet and her own abstract paintings, she gradually found new ways to express herself. Through a process of systematic reduction, an elementary shape emerged that became crucial to her practice: the figure of the dash.

This punctuation mark plays a central role in Sarah Bal’s first public presentation since the start of her crisis. The dash functions as the connective element between a series of abstract paintings and two video lectures in which she brings together a reflection on the rhetorical device of interruption with a subjective iconography of coups d’état.

In this way, the exhibition juxtaposes images from artistic and political contexts, inviting viewers to compare both types of images with regard to how they generate meaning and gain significance.

An element of fiction is involved in the above narrative: Sarah Bal is a character who was imagined ten years ago by visual artist Toon Leën. Such staging of authorship is a recurring method in Leën’s practice, which explores the figure of the artist as an intermediary between images. One of his earlier projects, Personally, I’m Most Interested in the Shapes and Colours (2011-2015), that resulted in a publication and a lecture performance, featured a group of six artists––among them Sarah Bal––, who were only implicitly revealed as fictional characters. In his first solo exhibition at Fred&Ferry Gallery, however, the suggestion is offered from the start that its protagonist––Sarah Bal–– doesn’t really exist.

In two video lectures created for this exhibition (both titled Homage to the Dash), Sarah Bal is played by the actress Mathilde Irrmann. The third video in the exhibition (titled Sarah Bal, Student of Colours) documents a lecture performance from 2019. In it, Leën discusses colour-blindness with Sarah Bal’s work as a case study. Alongside these three videos, the exhibition features fourteen abstract paintings. They were created by Leën between 2019 and 2021 and attributed to Sarah Bal. Through a judiciously organized interaction of colours and a strategic use of complementary contrasts, they prompt the viewer to look at them in comparison with one another.

Toon Leën (1981) studied painting at Sint Lucas Antwerp. He lives and works in Berlin. Since 2021, he has been a PhD candidate in Artistic Research at Hasselt University and PXL-MAD, School of Arts. His work moves between painting, video, and lecture performance. Recent projects include the concert lecture Correspondances mystérieu-ses (2019-2021), in collaboration with pianist Lucas Blondeel, and the video Zwischen den Bildern (2020).

Toon Leën, Homage to the Dash –– I, 16’50”, video lecture / two-channel video installation on two screens, Full HD, 16:9 (2021-2022)

Toon Leën, Sarah Bal, 2022, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Toon Leën, Homage to the Dash –– II, ca 20’, video lecture, two-channel video installation on two screens, Full HD, 16:9 (2021-2022)

Toon Leën, Sarah Bal, 2022, exhibition view, Fred & Ferry, Antwerp

Toon Leën, Homage to Squares and Dashes, # 1, oil on canvas on wooden stretcher, 160x140cm (2018-2019)

Toon Leën, Homage to Squares and Dashes, # 2, oil on canvas on aluminium stretcher, 160x140cm (2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Dash, oil on canvas on aluminium stretcher, 70×50 cm (2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Dash, # 1, oil on canvas on aluminium stretcher, 70×50 cm (2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Dash, # 2, oil on canvas on aluminium stretcher 70×50 cm (2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Dash, # 3, oil on canvas on aluminium stretcher, 70×50 cm (2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Absent Dash, # 1, oil on canvas on aluminium stretcher 70×50 cm (2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Dash, # 4, oil on canvas on aluminium stretcher 70×50 cm (2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the x, # 2, oil on canvas on wooden stretcher, 70×70 cm (2018-2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Square, # 2, oil on canvas on wooden stretcher 70×70 cm (2018-2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Square, # 1, oil on canvas on wooden stretcher, 70×70 cm (2018-2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Square, # 3, oil on canvas on wooden stretcher, 70×70 cm (2018-2021)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Dash – I, two-channel video installation on two screens, Full HD, 16:9, 16’50” video lecture (2021-2022)

Toon Leën, Homage to the Dash – II, two-channel video installation on two screens, Full HD, 16:9, 20’50” video lecture (2021-2022)

Toon Leën, Sarah Bal, Student of Colours, video of a lecture performance, 35’, HD, 16:9 (2019-2020)