Imaginair Ballet [Imaginary Ballet]
1998
Installation, ca. 300 x 600 cm.
Materials: mixed media
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp / Collection Flemish Community (Inv. no. BK7206).
Guy Mees comes from a generation of artists who shaped their ideas during the Zero Movement. This group reacted against existing conventions and sought a new visual idiom. The method of forgetting and not conforming generated new insights which also became visible in Mees’ work. He used various media to arrive at this postulation. Nevertheless, however varied his work may be, a personal dialectic regarding painting is always visible. Mees seems to want to break painting open, to question and examine it. In recent years the artist has appeared to formulate his artistic message in a way that is less abstract. Here too the work has a figurative legibility. Mees has cut the coloured paper and hung it up on the wall like a rhythmic game. Taking the title into account, it seems indisputably to be all about dresses and light clothing. Guy Mees has always supported the idea that art can be interpreted without endless explanations. He is evidently trying to make something clear to us. We see a sunny spring day in which the girl’s clothing turns into blossoming colours. It is an imaginary ballet that unfolds before our eyes.