Unraveled Entanglement - Liesbeth Henderickx
04.04 - 01.05.2021
As a collector of stones and pieces of concrete, Liesbeth Henderickx has a great admiration for natural and raw materials that she brings together. She creates connections that she crafts and shapes. What does this mean for our relationship to stone and concrete? When are we attracted to it or do we value it or not? Henderickx' explores it.
Stone and concrete play a central role as building materials in our current society. Henderickx questions the original functions or purposes of the materials by breaking them down and reassembling them. We are attracted to stones in their natural form, in addition we like to bend them to our will to make them a functional and reliable object for commercial purposes. That's where you notice how we start ranking stones according to designations and qualities. When naming stone types, pleonasms and banal names suggest a first reading of the stone. Why do we choose these superficial names Henderickx wonders. For the mural, she enters into a collaboration with Vincent Van Meenen. He writes a story based on a list of names of commercial natural stones in Belgium. This is about a dream of Donatella, a name for a stone. Henderickx creates tableaux from a number of these stones and again refers to the story with her inlay work. What happens to the value and meaning of the designations when they are given a platform?
Although their origins differ, Henderickx sees many similarities between stone and concrete. Both are rough, but the applications we perform on them determine whether or not we appreciate the material. In whatever state she finds concrete or stone, Henderickx recognizes them as equivalent, treats them and finishes them in the same way. She focuses our attention on the surface of the materials, revealing colors, patterns and textures. Henderickx has a penchant for artisanal techniques that allow the combination of various stone types and highlight the surface of stones and concrete. One of these is "pietra dura," in which a stone is inlaid with stone fragments of other stone types and with different colors. Henderickx creates sculptures in which she assembles the same types of stone from different makers. Through the finish, she reveals differences in colors and patterns, creating an alienating effect. The purer the surface of a stone, the more reliable and the higher its quality and value for commercial purposes. By unifying the stones, Henderickx seeks out impurities. She points out the appeal of the unexpected and exposes textures and drawings in the stones.
To bring stone and concrete together, Henderickx uses granito, a technique composed of natural stone and concrete. She uses inexpensive paving stones and stone rubble. With a thorough finish, she exposes the composition of the materials. She scours and polishes discarded or undervalued materials and gives them appeal. Henderickx lets the subtlety of materials speak for themselves. When do we attach ourselves to a material and consider something precious? Our relationship with the surface and form of materials, play a crucial role in naming and appreciating. We see this in the concrete sculptures in the form of a knot, a loop and a very tangled knot. The concrete behaves not as a rigid, architectural construction material but as a tangled thread winding through space. Or how stone and concrete can deceive in the guises in which they appear.
April 2021, Indra Devriendt
