GENT.- Kunsthal Gent presents Bootleg Paintings, an exhibition by Ghent artist Dieter Durinck. With a series of some 40 green works from recent years, Durinck pays critical homage to different eras and movements within 20th-century painting.

Works by well-known and lesser-known masters were reinterpreted on new formats and overlaid with a green colour, a reference to the green computer screens of the 1980s and to the typical American night scenes of the First Gulf War. It also unwittingly echoes Thomas Ruff’s famous series of night shots that refer to that same war.

The series is also a personal exercise into different possibilities within the act of painting. It functions both as a tribute to the history of painting, and as a veiled critique of how knowledge of this history is acquired mainly through reproductions.

Bootleg Paintings contains references Picasso’s Les demoiselles d’Avignon 1907), Magritte’s L’usage de la Parole (1927-29), Fernand Léger’s Le movement des billes (1926), René Daniëls’ Zig-zag Zigzag (1987), Philip Guston’s The Studio (1969), Luc Tuymans’ Käthe Grüsse (part 2/3) (1990).




‘Bootleg Paintings’: The Book (Posture Editions)

In the course of the exhibition, the book Bootleg Paintings, published by Posture Editions, will also be launched. It is an overview of this significant collection of paintings, with texts by Céline Mathieu and Gabriela González reflecting on Durinck’s interpretation of art history. With its A4 size and linen cover, the book functions as a classic art history reference work on the 20th century. It is not only an ode to painting, but also a closing of an era and at the same time a reflection of our contemporary obsession with the unending game between reproduction and original.

Dieter Durinck

Dieter Durinck is a visual artist, designer and publisher. He lives and works in Ghent and has exhibited at Simon Delobel Gallery, Extra City, LLS Paleis, Museum M and Pizza Gallery. His practice encompasses a variety of media. In his paintings, he regularly combines digital elements or screen printing and often refers to a visual language derived from the advertising world.

In addition to paintings, Durinck creates posters and publications which he publishes in small editions. He is also responsible for Social Harmony, a non-gallery and non-music label where music and visual art meet. Originally located in an old hotel in Ghent, Social Harmony currently coincides with Durinck’s home. He has shown work by Maya Strobbe, Dieter Ravyts, Elke Van Kerckvoorde and Bert Huyghe, among others. The label mainly releases cassettes, with music by Gerard Herman, Victor De Roo, DJ Michel Gentil and David Edren, among others. The album covers are each designed by Durinck.