‘Le Palais Idéal’

Alice Vanderschoot

Discover the exhibited works

BARBÉ gallery is very pleased to organize the first solo exhibition by Belgian artist Alice Vanderschoot (BE, 1989) who lives and works in Bruges.

Opening: Saturday 21st of September from 15.00 - 19.00
On view until 20 October 2024
Penitentenstraat 29, 9000 Gent, BE

Her first solo exhibition is titled ‘Le Palais Idéal’ and is an ode to the now-historical monument in France that was single-handedly built by a postman in the 19th century. Alice Vanderschoot reflects on the use and circulation of visual communication in current times. She questions the authenticity, meaning, and origin of everyday objects coming from her personal environment such as work gloves and pocket knives .

Alice Vanderschoot researches lost visual languages and symbols, disappeared customs and rituals such as votives that play an important role in her oeuvre. 

Exhibition text by Goedele Bartholomeeusen (director Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle Belgium)

Alice Vanderschoot (born 1989, lives and works in Bruges) works primarily in the medium of sculpture. The wall pieces and sculptures for the solo exhibition Le Palais Idéal at Barbé have been created in her studio over the past year. The title of the exhibition refers to Facteur Cheval, a postman who spent 33 years building Le Palais Idéal in south-east France, which is considered a remarkable example of naive art architecture. The quotation 'Ce n'est pas le temps qui passe, c'est nous' was found on one of the walls of Le Palais Idéal and is the title of one of the sculptures.

Inspired by an encounter with the work of Claes Oldenburg and Robbert Therrien, Vanderschoot developed her approach to sculpture. Transcending earlier models of the readymade and the objet trouvé - and discarding the symbolic protocols of art - she turns to that mode of psychic symbolism that transforms the theatrical strangeness of the world into a strangeness we can recognise because it is of our own making.  

Vanderschoot shows recurring motifs, such as a panoply of sculptural wall pieces depicting gloves that gesticulate with ex-voto like hand signs. Swiss army knives mark am and pm, a myriad of glyphs, graphemes and motifs adorn the surfaces of Vanderschoot's sculptures, as if they had swarmed through the exhibition and taken up residence at will. 

One of the most illuminating aspects of her work, however, is the peculiar prospect of exquisite productivity it offers. Cocoon, a self-portrait, shows a pair of overalls. They appear to be buffeted by the wind like a scarecrow, something familiar twisted into the uncanny.  It stands erect, floating on the shapes of an absent figure, as if carried by an invisible person, winking at classical Greek sculpture. 

The juxtaposition and interpenetration of consumer culture, cartoons, popular and medieval culture appears as a central motif, behind which lies the question of how to deal artistically with patterns that are reproduced in one's own values and imagination.  The uniformity of the materials (acrylic resin, oil and enamel paint) and manufacturing processes (casting) that Vanderschoot uses to transform each form or object into her own sculpture has often been noted.

Alice Vanderschoot graduated with an MFA Sculpture from KASK, Ghent, BE. A selection of past exhibitions includes; various group exhibitions at BARBÉ, Art Antwerp, Plus-One gallery, Felix Art & Eco Museum, Sculpture Garden at Rubenskasteel, Archipel, St-Denijs City, Ponti, Ballroom gallery, Diskus andEveryday gallery. In 2023 she had a solo exhibition at De Poortersloge 'All That Glitters' in Bruges after winning the laureate of CC Brugge.

More information:

Download CV

Listen to the interview on RADIO 1 at “Culture Club Zomer” with Aminata Demba”

Knack article by Thijs Demeulemeester “Drie talenten in de kunstwereld om in de gaten te houden”

BARBÉ GALLERY
Penitentenstraat 29
9000 Gent - BE
Open from Thu. - Sun. 2-6pm and outside opening hours by appointment

Contact us:
📞 +32 (0) 9 391 39 13
✉️ desk@barbegallery.be