Fred&Ferry is an artist-dedicated gallery showcasing and promoting national and international artists. The gallery is run by Frederik Vergaert and Ferry Saris and has its focus on emerging artists that work across various mediums, including painting, sculpture, installation and digital art.
At Art Cologne 2024 the gallery Fred&Ferry (Antwerp, Belgium) presents two artists: Leyla Aydoslu and Antoine Waterkeyn. In this video, Antoine Waterkey talks about his works that are featured in the gallery's booth in the Neumarkt sector of Art Cologne 2024.
Antoine Waterkeyn / Fred&Ferry at Art Cologne 2024. November 8, 2024.
At Art Cologne 2024 the gallery Fred&Ferry (Antwerp, Belgium) presents two artists: Leyla Aydoslu and Antoine Waterkeyn. In this video, Antoine Waterkey talks about his works that are featured in the gallery's booth in the Neumarkt sector of Art Cologne 2024.
Antoine Waterkeyn / Fred&Ferry at Art Cologne 2024. November 8, 2024.
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CreativityTranscript
00:00I'm Antoine Waterkens, welcome to ArtCurlen.
00:17I'm showing here with Fred and Ferry Gallery, together with Leila Aydoslu, we have here
00:23a duo booth and I'm very happy to be here.
00:27So we decided to put a big central piece in the middle to get a bit the attention.
00:35And this piece is in fact, this kind of pyramid structure is part of a series of four, three
00:42pyramid structures and one more apart that you will see later.
00:48So this, we could call them cutouts or in fact we could also call them theatre props
00:56for a hypothetical theatre play.
00:58So a theatre play will never happen or exist.
01:04So now you see them presented this way, but normally when I have a solo show or a bigger
01:10exhibition I would take different of this series of theatre props and mix them together,
01:18mix all the stories together, shovel the cards, I call it shovel the cards, to make new composition.
01:24But then they are more presented like a theatre depot, like a stockage of a theatre.
01:31And this is important for me, the stockage, because there the pieces just are in rest
01:37and lie, they just are resting until the theatre happens.
01:44It's like the time before the theatre play and for me the time before the theatre play
01:50creates more possibilities, because then the viewer can come in and activate the theatre
01:55play by its own.
01:58But every series, like this series is based on a story, but the story doesn't need to
02:04be clear for the viewer.
02:07And here I started with the book of Victor Hugo, Le Notre Dame de Paris, The Hunchback
02:13they say in English.
02:15Victor Hugo was somebody who did a lot of research before he wrote books, and in this
02:21book there is a court of miracles, La Cour des Miracles.
02:25These were real places that existed in different medieval cities, it were in fact like favelas,
02:33where all criminals, all beggars, all prostitutes gathered and lived.
02:39And they had also a caste system, so there were kings following with vassals.
02:45Why was it called the court of miracles?
02:47Because the beggar who couldn't see or walk outside of the court, suddenly could see or
02:54walk when he...
02:55So that's why miracles.
02:56Yeah, it were places where nobody dared to go, even the police at that time, or the knights.
03:02And so here I started with this series.
03:07So there were already Romas in that time in Europe, and this is the Roma king, which
03:16I found a kind of Indian Roma image.
03:20And that's what I always do, I mix the pieces, I cut them, so I still cut the cutouts in
03:26different figures that refer to their own cultural history or other references.
03:33For example, the Roma king has magical powers in the book.
03:37So downstairs I put this witch who's drawing this summon circle to summon demons.
03:44There's also a king or a vassal of the mutilated soldiers, or the pretending to be mutilated
03:52soldiers, because you never knew.
03:55And he's represented in a book like a drunkard who likes to touch women, and there's a prostitute
04:02sitting on his lap.
04:04That was a difficult figure to find.
04:06I don't know if you know, I took then Falstaff, you know the book?
04:11That's also a drunk guy who likes to touch, a drunk knight who likes to touch women.
04:17And this is in fact Orson Welles playing Falstaff in Chimes in Midnight.
04:22And the under part is a series of the eight big vices in medieval times.
04:30And one is gula, of eating and drinking too much.
04:34So this is why you have this Eberschwein in a wine ton, and the wine already coming out.
04:43So this is what I mean.
04:45They refer to each other, but they're different characters.
04:48And they're also painted in a different way.
04:51And here you have from the same series, that's also a nice one, it's Avarice.
04:58I don't know how to call it in English, when you don't like to spend money and you keep
05:03your money.
05:05So this is a begging frog, and he's so avar that he has his house on his back.
05:14Because this is a mattress that I wanted to paint in a bit Mondrian way.
05:20And then in the back you again have another witch.
05:24So yeah, there's all these interconnections.