Moving Image on Canvas Series

A video is projected on a canvas, thus combining two media in one work of art. The video brings the canvas to life, the painting loses its static character and the colours intensify.

 

In order of appearance:

Happy Heartbeating Versus The Wisthlers (2005)

The ‘characters’ in this work are lines. The red one is the Happy Heartbeat line, whose heartbeat audibly accelerates. The other lines are the Whistlers – when they appear, they whistle Monty Python’s ‘Always look on the bright side of life’. After a while an assault takes place.

The theme: terrorism.

 

Nu descendant par un ascenseur (2005)

This work is a modern interpretation of Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Nu descendant un escalier’ from 1912. Hendrickx made two versions of it: a painting and a spatial work. On the canvas the viewer sees a lift go down, and colourful horizontal and vertical strips moving around. The painted parts are shots from the video. Every time one of these shots hits the corresponding painted part, the colours light up.

 

Scanning Cows for the Next Revolution (2007)

The activity described in the title – scanning cows – is literally visualized in this work. We see cows in a meadow and two bars moving from left to right and back on the canvas. A monotonous ticking accompanies the moving bars, which illuminate the faces of Stalin and Mao. A laptop screen in the foreground shows Hitler’s face. The scanning causes some slight interference on the screen and a threatening noise.

The theme: people’s indifferent and uncritical attitude toward their leaders.

 

The Luxury of Replaceable Goalkeepers (2006)

The scene is the roof of a skyscraper in a desert. Someone kicks a ball at a goalie. Sometimes the keeper is successful and catches the ball, the next time the ball goes wide and the keeper falls off the building while loud laughter resounds. A helicopter picks the goalkeeper up and brings him back.

The theme: excessive luxury destroys human values.