Claude Closky
Private View
STUK Soetezaal, Leuven
10.11.2012

Starting in the ‘60s, written texts were used increasingly often in the visual arts. For his book Private View, French artist Claude Closky collected over 10,000 quotes. Each selected quote was a verbatim transcription of a text in a visual artwork, mostly paintings and neon lights. Closky composed a coherent text using just these fragments from the works of Ed Ruscha, Lawrence Weiner, Barbara Kruger, Tracey Emin, Rirkrit Tiravanja and many, many others (over 300 artists are quoted). The text is constructed in such a way that it becomes a lengthy discussion, while keeping the chronology of the artworks (from 1955 to 2006) intact.

Firstly presented at the Louvre, Claude Closky, together with 8 actors and director Yves Lefèbre, created a performance based on the text of Private View. The result is a minimalist piece that detaches the words from their original, visual context to propose a new reading. Playground Festival 2012 will, for one night only, feature a new version of this unique performance.

Staged by Yves Lefebvre

With Simon Allemeersch, Dolores Bouckaert, Hans Bryssinck, Peter Connelly, Davis Freeman, Ina Geerts, Vanja Maria Godée, Felipe Mafasoli, Pierre Van Heddegem