The landscape and imagination seem to be opposite. I think of the difference between the software and the hardware, the mental and
the physical, between a thought and a rock.
But I also think of their equivalence, with the transformation of the one into the other.
For example, a thought can move a rock. A mountain can inspire a thought.
I think of infinite and the limits. Imagination is infinite; the landscape is limited. [...] But also, the landscape is infinite and imagination is
limited. I see an endless plain under a blue sky while thinking of all the inaccessible places on the earth in the space of only one life.
And despite all my efforts, I cannot imagine the moment of my death. [...]
Bill Viola in Revue Trafic n°3 été 1992
presentation
The vivid and constant rhythm of the first actions indicates from the beginning the continuous sequence of enunciations that Theo
Kooijman’s activity, single performer of the piece, evocates.
From the sweep becoming paintbrush, to redraw the shape of a territory, to the gathering of sponges, to create a tiny house (a foyer) on
a bunch of fallen ashes, the solving of questions being asked to the spectators finds its answers in the formulation of new enigmas…
Martine Pisani, through the exploration of the inside/outside relation, calls upon analogue surfaces, differential spaces, mirror
temporalities where a pullover thrown to the outside announces a folded plastic cover, thrown to the inside, unfolded, laying, displaced
by air then mixed with the rest of the elements on the territory of Jardin et Travaux.
The functional act of the performer finds its poetic from the first minutes by literally sweeping 20 cm over the ground. This direct
approach of fiction enables the concretisation of concepts by basic accessories. A white pipe, semi flexible, embodies a forth dimension
and allows a bottle to empty itself 3 meters away from where it stands. The liquid disappearance through a gardening disposal evocates
an ex nihilo which subterfuge happens with our complicity. Science revealed by DIY, housing art in pop philosophy.
Tools’ purpose is deflected sometimes, perfectly useful always. The broom sweeps, paints, carries, draws, and sweeps again…
the performer advances inexorably, his task is urgent, directions are clear, sometimes disorientated, quick, careful, drawing on the space
a surface, a volume that will be the score of this solo. The path is being built beneath the feet of the performer under the swifts, the water
falls, the ashes fall, the sponge pieces, the unrolling of a wire.
This wire that Theo Kooijman will roll up again such like he would roll up the time line of an history, taking away with him everything that
remains on his territory, or nearly everything…
Yann Gibert, April 2013
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