Hasta La Ideas

Artist Esther Stocker has built a disjointed grid of black blocks across the floor, walls and ceiling of Z33 – House for Contemporary Art in Hasselt, Belgium.

The arrangement of the blocks suggests a grid that’s only half visible, leaving the viewer to mentally piece together the remaining elements.

‘Based on a Grid’ is part of Z33′s current exhibition ‘Mind the System, Find the Gap’, in which more than 30 international artists offer their interpretation on the idea of gaps in the system.

The exhibition continues until 30 September 2012.

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Here’s some more about the exhibition:

‘Based on a Grid’ , commission 2012 – Esther Stocker In ‘Based on a Grid’ (2012),

Esther Stocker creates a spatial system from a series of black painted wooden blocks in the entrance hall of the Z33 exhibition building. The visitor is drawn into the installation, as it were, and is challenged by the system, the grid that is there but not immediately visible. For Stocker, the system is implied as much by its gaps as it is by its contours. But do we want to look for the system or are we happy to lose ourselves in the chaos of scattered elements drifting apart? A decision which according to Jan Verwoert, contributing editor at Frieze Magazine and freelance author, depends on the position one takes or is willing to take with regards to ordering structures. He therefore concludes: “Using abstraction as a medium, [Esther Stocker] formulates a critical position with respect to the authority of ordering structures.”

‘Mind the System, Find the Gap’ is this year’s summer exhibition at Z33 – House for Contemporary Art. More than 30 international artists seek out the gaps in the system.

Our society is governed by all sorts of systems and structures that organise and steer life. No system, however, whether political, judicial, economical, socio-cultural or spatial, can comprise life in its entirety. Every system has gaps, leaks and ambiguities.

The artists in the exhibition Mind the System, Find the Gap seek out these gaps. They set forth from this intermediate position to unveil, circumvent or criticise ruling systems and structures.

‘Mind the System, Find the Gap’ does not proffer an overly simplified critique on the notion of systems and structuring principles, but aims to seek out its complexity.

For the past few years, strong thematic exhibitions on societal issues have been Z33’s trademark. It is Z33’s ambition to challenge the visitor to look at the day-to-day reality with a different set of eyes, as do the artists in ‘Mind the System, Find the Gap’.

June 3 – September 30 2012
Z33 – House for Contemporary Art
Zuivelmarkt 33
3500 Hasselt
Belgium