INBOX: Jan Carlier – Ocean Highway

The duel with infinity on a slack rope

The lemniscate: a hanging rope representing infinity. An object taken out of its everyday context and sublimated into a lofty symbol. It is Jan Carlier’s oeuvre encapsulated in a symbol. It is probably no coincidence that this very symbol adorned the window of the artist’s façade for many years. Two circles filled with glass that define his view of the world: a delineated field of vision through which one peers into infinity. A gaze which he translates into his work. Work through which he wants to make us aware that the world as it presents itself to us can often be misleading. Like a contemporary Galileo, the artist, through his oeuvre, exclaims “Eppur si muove”. Even though our observation would seem to suggest otherwise, it is not man but rather the sun that is the central point. One could argue that in Carlier’s oeuvre, it is not the object but rather the perception of it that is the central focus.

This is probably most evident in the work “Het Zien” (Seeing) (collection SMAK, Ghent). The line pattern of the two frames seems to spell out the word “SEEING”. On the foreground in thick black lines. On the back plan made up out of soot and burn marks. The two mirrored diagonals on the left and right create the impression of open windows, typical of many Flemish facades. Here too, like with the lemniscate, the artist offers the viewer a choice of different ways of viewing the work, and consequently the world. The first reveals itself very directly, in a black that becomes visible precisely because it absorbs light. The other as a blackened afterimage of a once-present fire now extinguished. As with Rubin’s vase illusion, the viewer is given the choice to view the work from two different perspectives. First, from the perspective of an intentional darkness that arises from black pigment absorbing light, through which — as in the case of a black hole — it is rendered visible. And second, as a symbol of hope: the black blackening of soot evoking the light of a once-present fire. Just as the knife not need to be a weapon, but might as well be a fish with a feather in its mouth.

Carlier is constantly duelling with himself. Whether in his sculptures, drawings, music or writing. This arises not from any pivotal idea of wanting to induce a certain awareness in the viewer, but as a thought exercise for the artist himself. Jan Carlier is searching. Searching for meaning, for truthfulness, for beauty. Like a shaman who ventures into nature in search of elements that can ward off evil, Carlier explores the everydayness of existence in search of symbols that, through the manner in which they raise questions, provide us with answers.

Similarly, in his work “De blinde en de doofstomme” (The Blind and the Deaf-mute), the artist leaves the choice to the viewer and echoes Galileo’s call. The latter describes wine as “sunlight contained in water”. In this work, the blind man is represented by a vinegar maker. A vessel that transforms wine into acid through heat and the absence of light. Carlier, from shaman to alchemist. Next to it, the deaf-mute is portrayed as a galvanised bucket. The latter is at odds with the icon of The Steel Flower Potter made famous by Willy Vandersteen: a secret order of former ministers and government figures who claim to have brought prosperity through their incessant prattle and aim to build the Tower of Babbellar with the proceeds generated. This is against the will of the people of Amoras, who live by Flemish traditions and prefer a replica of Antwerp’s Tower of Our Lady. This story, which clearly refers to the construction of the Tower of Babel, was used at the time by Vandersteen as a metaphor for the Royal Question. Yet also Carlier employs this imagery. Not just to question existing hierarchies, but also our perceptions. Does the eloquent, despite the use of speech, really say anything? And is the blind really blind? Or is it precisely because of this that he is able to orient himself better in the dark? It is only in the faculty of touch that the two find each other. Here, Carlier portrays the impotence of communication.

An impotence that, in today’s times of mass communication and disinformation, we might better describe as a danger.

Carlier takes the viewer through the process of building a new Tower to show that the word is not with God but a profane concept that we ourselves must give meaning to.

Carlier, however, certainly does not want to present us with a dystopian future. In the work “Bird / Birth”, we see the artist’s back with a tattoo of a horizontal brace. The symbol reduced to a form. The symbol that stands for containment now depicts freedom as a stylised bird. The Blue Bird. The artist repeatedly refers to this play by Maeterlinck. Is it the traveller Jan Carlier who is entrusted by the fairy Bérylune to find the Blue Bird to cure her little daughter? It would seem so. With the Bird on his back, the artist will never find him, rather, he takes us on a quest for healing to the most amazing locations. With the Bird on his back, the artist offers us ultimate freedom, while intimately embracing us.

Jan Carlier, a Tamino in search of a Papagena.

– Mike Carremans, Ghent, December 2022

The impetus for this exhibition is the donation to the M HKA by Bob & Hélène Coppens – de Zàgon of the works “Ocean Highway”, a transatlantic journey of a ghost rider and “De Keuze”, a simulacrum.

Exhibition in collaboration with Frank Hendrickx, arteVentuno archives.