Dirk Skreber

German artist Dirk Skreber rose to fame in the 1990s with his very large paintings depicting various disasters in desolate landscapes: floods, sinking houses, burnt-out caravans, runaway locomotives, car crashes, and more. These works are painted in a hyperrealistic and highly contrasting manner, focusing not so much on the human drama but on the spectacular and sensational aesthetic that makes these disasters 'attractive.' For example, the car crashes suggest a dynamic of destruction with flying debris and tires, yet they also possess the qualities of still lifes due to the absence of any human presence. Dirk Skreber presents horror but does so in a very glossy way, turning them into exceptionally photogenic images. In this way, the works exert a very perverse attraction.

For his project at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Dirk Skreber created two new sculptures. He used typical company cars, and expertly crashed around poles. Skreber determined how the car should crash, but chance naturally played a significant role in how the car would be deformed by the pole. Once placed in the museum space, they become artificial realities where the notion of sculptural beauty is at least as powerful as the gruesome reality of destruction. Although the initial formal impression of the sculptures is spectacular, after a while, an oppressive sensation of the space around the sculptures prevails, due to the existential fears it evokes. Soon, fascination turns into horror, and we are confronted with an apocalyptic postmodernity. The sculptures are charged with references that destabilize our thinking about progress, technology, and art.

In connection with the sculptures, Dirk Skreber presents two paintings from his Superhero series. On a black background, horizontal strips of synthetic foam are attached, featuring comic-like figures in heroic poses. In this series as well, he plays on the voyeuristic gaze of the viewer: one must take the right distance from the work to see the image properly. The enticing image hovers somewhere in an indefinable space and plays with visibility. Like the car crashes, the Superhero paintings also create a tension between abstraction and representation.