ANTWERP.- The Belgian artist Peter Rogiers (b. 1967, Oud-Heverlee) shows a selection from his body of work produced over the last 20 years in the Middelheim Museum. But Cluster is more than a classical retrospective. Rogiers combines his own work – he made 17 new pieces specially for this solo project – with several carefully chosen works of art from the Middelheim Museum's permanent collection. The clusters are presented, almost like new ‘Gesamtkunstwerken’, on large pedestals in the Braem Pavilion, the Hortiflora and Het Huis.

Middelheim Museum recently started bringing temporary projects together that concentrate on a common theme. Those themes help explore certain aspects of the collection in depth and the museum's raison d'être. In 2016 the theme is ‘stop-motion’: the simultaneous experience of time constantly advancing contrasted with the halting perception of one recurring moment.

Time as a sequence of moments: Peter Rogiers’ oeuvre can provide special insight into this theme. On the other hand, this theme is also a key to the artist's assembled work. That becomes clear when you combine his work with trend-setting moments in (recent) sculptural history.

Moment to look forward and backwards
Peter Rogiers is not an unfamiliar figure in the Middelheim Museum. The artist was awarded an indoor presentation of a compact series of abstract works in 2000 and after a group exhibition in 2006, Two reclining figures on a Calder base was added to the permanent collection. The fact that the Middelheim Museum is now dedicating a solo exhibition to him proves that the museum attaches importance to his oeuvre. By following an artist closely, the museum accumulates expertise on that artist's work and can continue to actively share its insights with recurring and new visitors and with a new generation of artists.

That is particularly rewarding for a productive artist like Rogiers: for this solo project he created 17 new works. The colourful, more figurative and extroverted work that made Rogiers famous has been 'reduced' over the last few years into a complex and layered oeuvre. Colours become more subtle, proportions become accentuated, and figures must be read differently.

Rich breeding ground
Peter Rogiers acquires inspiration for his own work from movements as diverse as Gothic, Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the Romantic tradition of Northern Europe and Art Brut. He also gains inspiration from the comic and low culture ranging from the 1960s to today: the mythological, divine or apocalyptic as it appears in comic strips, horror films, science fiction, heavy metal music, etc. “Combine those influences with his sober, working class background and a materialistic society... His wonderfully deformed interpretations of monstrosity arise from the hard collision of ecstasy, mystery and the apocalyptic. He seasons his creatures and golems... with a healthy portion of irony, scepticism and dark humour” (Preface Lilly Wei in: Peter Rogiers, ed. Sara Weyns, Lilly Wei, 2016, publisher: Kannibaal). His work balances between alarming and innocent, between dislocation and amazement.

Peter Rogiers on the importance of humour in art: “Humour is a form of your consciousness (of the seriousness) of a certain situation. It is the only way to give everything a place. Someone without a sense of humour cannot take distance” (Peter Rogiers in conversation with Sara Weyns in: Peter Rogiers, ed. Sara Weyns, Lilly Wei, 2016, publisher: Kannibaal).

Inspiring dialogue
When Rogiers' work comes into contact with works in the permanent collection he sees this as a dialogue with the history of art from the last 100 years. Rogiers is mainly interested in those artists who are not embraced by or are less popular with the general public, the Fremdkörper, who undeniably make an important contribution to sculpture. They are detached from every hype and still relevant today. Using his intentionally subjective and surprising selection from the Middelheim collection, the artist instigates an inspiring dialogue about good taste versus bad taste, mainstream versus marginality and convention versus creativity. Through this intensified attention to the ‘sidelines’ of art history, which still had not been analysed or discussed extensively, Rogiers wants to encourage observers to come up with a unique value judgement of the permanent collection works and of his own works.

Peter Rogiers on ‘the margin’:“It's always about escape. If I consider myself – at the present – as a sculptor then I am very conscious of the fact that if you speak in terms of a medium, if you propose a medium like painting or sculpture, then you must look at it historically. It is not my ambition to be an iconoclast or to propose a new vision. But by placing yourself centrally, sometimes you end up somewhere very different.” (Peter Rogiers in conversation with Sara Weyns in: Peter Rogiers, ed. Sara Weyns, Lilly Wei, 2016, publisher: Kannibaal).

Cluster
The title Cluster refers to the way that the exhibition is arranged. That literally occurs by bringing different works together (and therefore different paradigms, materials and scale ratios) on one large pedestal. The concrete floor in Het Huis can also be viewed as a pedestal. In doing so, the artist constantly composes an area of tension. Cluster also stands for combining (contradictory) forces and the reinforcing effect when the right elements are brought together.

But this process also involves risks. Power cluster refers to a powerful energy network; the military term clusterfuck indicates a chaotic situation where everything seems to go seriously wrong. Peter Rogiers moves between these extremes: between vulnerable and inaccessible, between conventions and laws, between the familiar and the surprising, essence and abundance, between perception and smoke screens.

Encounter between abstract and figurative
Pointed, aluminium palm trees contrast sharply with the soft foliage of the museum park. Figures, which border on the abstract and the representative, play hide-and-seek in and around the hedge rooms of the Hortiflora. Rogiers created strategically placed "sculpture islands" in the formal garden of the Hortiflora. For a long time the artist balanced between figurative and abstract work, but for the time being he seems to have landed somewhere in the middle. This ‘dilemma’ is also expressed in the combination of his own work and his selection from the permanent collection. Rogiers selected Tree of Bowls (1947-1954) by Jean Arps in juxtaposition with his own female figures. Five new works by Rogiers are displayed in a cluster with collection pieces like Philip King’s Bali (1977), Josuë Dupon’s Condor (1908 – 1909) and Eugène Dodeigne’s Kneeling Figure (1970). Combinations that result in tranquillity as well as grating clamour. The multicoloured mix of coated steel, roughly hewed stone, distinguished bronze and light aluminium liberates sculptures from conventions and the consensus of the canon.

Peter Rogiers on abstract versus figurative: “Figurative or abstract works, it hasn't mattered for some time. Yet I find purely abstract works a strange anachronism in some way. I could say that you can only understand my work if you look at it in an abstract manner because I work from the psychology of the form. I have always enjoyed looking at things three-dimensionally.” (Peter Rogiers in conversation with Sara Weyns in: Peter Rogiers, ed. Sara Weyns, Lilly Wei, 2016, publisher: Kannibaal).

Peter Rogiers on the importance of perspective in his work: “The key to my work is the succession of viewpoints. The observer must walk around the work in order to stitch all the perspectives together. That's why I bring together very conscious and controlled works on large pedestals in the Middelheim Museum. Almost like new sculptures” (Peter Rogiers in conversation with Sara Weyns in: Peter Rogiers, ed. Sara Weyns, Lilly Wei, 2016, publisher: Kannibaal).

Action figures and travel shots
Rogiers makes a combination of collection pieces and his own work, including a large number of small sculptures, in the Braem Pavilion. Ten of them, the Figurines, are new, black bronze sculptures with an unruly, closed overtone. They place the artificiality of the object before every animistic quality. Other objects stimulate visitors' greed. They combine the great allure of a gem, a toy or a collectable with humoristic titles like Swamp Thing Fighting Off Text (2006 – 2007), Ragtime (2008) and Samurai (2008). The new work is presented together with Rogiers’ older work, like an early self-portrait and Rogiers’ interpretation of the little Degas dancer (Degas-piece, 1995) with which he initially gained the attention of the general public (and the Flemish Government collection).

Peter Rogiers on Figurines: “I call them Figurines because the word is easy to associate with small toy figures. Indeed, if you look at a work like Craft Morphology Flow Chart (1991) by Kelley, in which he arranges stuffed animals in such a way that you can only see their artificiality, there is no room for animism. I want to see my sculptures as a form of existential parody. Elaborate, like acts in a play. The artefact seems to make them more realistic.” (Peter Rogiers in conversation with Sara Weyns in: Peter Rogiers, ed. Sara Weyns, Lilly Wei, 2016, publisher: Kannibaal).

The Braem Pavilion allows for a compositional experiment with the scale and colours of the works. Above all, the pavilion invites observers to look for the more hidden elements that are revealed to attentive viewers.

That same ‘slow look’ is rewarded when observing the more than 100 drawings and etches that were gathered together for this exhibition. Motifs from the sculptures appear here too, but from a cinematic rhythm. Repetitions, close-ups and the alternating perspectives of a travel shot stitch the works together and create one long ode to looking. An ode to movement too. This creates a bridge to his sculptures, which also require a circular movement from the observer.

Old, new and updated
Those who are familiar with the work of Peter Rogiers will enjoy discovering the new sculptures that the artist is presenting to the public. Other works, like Planet Misfit (2007), Monument (2008), Souvenirs (1999) and Tommy Cooper (2006), are older but had not been shown in Belgium up until now or are in private collections. Others, like Coconuts for Dendermonde (2008), Degas Piece (1995) and Green Figure (1993 – 1995), were quickly included in important Flemish public collections but remained behind closed doors for a long time.

Here, in contrast with the old park environment or inside the distinct architecture of the Braem Pavilion or Het Huis (by Robbrecht and Daem architects), they will enable a totally new experience and interpretation.

“The intention is to realise arrangements with a certain neutrality. I want to create distance with regard to the environment. Because sculptures are so concretely present in our own space, I want to realise a closeness and emphatically see the work in its own mental field. That's why you have to be able to push aside that surrounding space in some way or another. Despite the fact that my work is often described as being Baroque, energetic or exploding, that introvert aspect plays a very important role. Even if you think you understand what is going on, in actuality you cannot come to grips with it.” (Peter Rogiers in conversation with Sara Weyns in: Peter Rogiers, ed. Sara Weyns, Lilly Wei, 2016, publisher: Kannibaal).

From time to time the artist goes one step further in his new look at older work. He updated existing sculptures like The Governess (2009) and Sergeant Disciplinary (20013-2014) into new sculptures.