The Quiet Story (Kochi)

Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck works with installations, sculptures, films, drawings, paintings, photographs and texts. According to Op de Beeck, his work is a reflection on society and the universal questions of meaning and mortality that resonate within it. The artist regards man as a being who stages the world around him in tragic-comic ways and is keen to stimulate the viewers’ senses by inviting them to experience the image through what he likes to call ‘visual fictions’.

In a departure from the monumental installations and videos for which he is primarily known for, The Quiet Story (Kochi) (2014), the work Op de Beeck has created for the Biennale, consists of a series of large black and white watercolours on paper presented in two rooms within the Aspinwall House. While the world that these works produce alludes to the Kochi’s local environment and history, the construction itself is entirely fictitious; being one of the Op de Beeck’s ‘visual fictions’.

According to the artist, the images were made through free association, creating a cinematic world where vast environments and anonymous figures are starting points to many possible stories. The images are meant not to judge or limit, but to act as suggestive and challenging invitations to the viewer. The water colours were all realized overnight as the artist worked in isolation and in silence for hours. “That night, with both its peaceful tranquility and its latent derailment can be felt throughout the entire series”, Op de Beeck said.