Dead Seconds, with Willem Oorebeek

In 2015 I asked Willem Oorebeek if we could make an exhibition together in the project space SHANAYNAY in Paris, France. After seeing his work on several occasions I became convinced that, although we are from different generations, we have a common approach in developing work that interrupts the flow of visual information. We both use materials and adapt techniques, that are related to printing, to explore the limits of readability. The exhibition Dead Seconds was made to pair these mutual interests.

Personal annotation

The language that is used in watch making is not only highly technical, it is also psychological. When you are concerned with the mechanical side of visualizing time, thoughts about mortality, temporality and memory seem to seep in automatically. The works in the exhibition Dead Seconds are appropriated texts and imagery found in watchmaking journals. They emphasize moments when the use of language is mechanical, personal and poetic in the same time.

The title of the exhibition is Dead Seconds, which is the little sliver of silence that is artificially produced to make the distinction between one second and the next. Other articles, that have titles such as Split Personalities or Pressing Issues, have been silk screened, burnt to the brink of disintegration and scattered over the floor of the exhibition space.

Personal annotation

This condition of instability often occurs in Lahuis’ practice, when it deals with the subject of text and its reproduction. The relation between a complex technique that often demands a lot of preparation and the way to perceive these texts, often based on a ‘fragility’ of the gaze, are symptomatic of a special balance ... between the production of the work and its consumption, between the medium and the message, between being and meaning. Lennart Lahuis’ works form a subtle critique on easy consumption and build awareness that fragility is the lifeline connecting artwork and viewer.

Lorenzo Benedetti An attempt to measure the fragility of time.