Gravitational Bending

source: maartenvandeneynde

Gravitational Bending was made for the exhibition project Smooth Structures, which explored the unexpected intersections between a new dark matter and dark energy hypothesis by mathematician Martin Lo and its conceptual visualization mediated through art. By entering and taking position inside the work, the spectator takes position at the center of an invisible force, as if their sheer presence pushes the aluminum poles outwards until they bend under enormous (dark) energy.
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source: maartenvandeneynde

Leuven, Belgium 1977

Lives and works in Brussels (BE) and Saint Mihiel (FR)

Since the dawn of man, progress has been the main driver for evolution. The contemporary globalisation bearing daily changes at an unprecedented speed favors a linear model as the only applicable frame to comprehend time. The world of the present is being pushed and pulled towards the future, leaving the constant growing past behind. In a collective frenzy of euphoria we are all together building a better and more convenient world. Or are we?

For more than a decade I study the current geological layer we will leave behind for future generations. The Anthropocene, a new geologic chronological term for the epoch that began when human activities had a significant global impact on the Earth’s ecosystems, is my main area of interest. In my work I stop the clock and try to unravel the process and consequence of time. Collaboration is of vital importance in my art-practice and life in general, and embodies our incontestable survival strategy as herd animals. Enough Room for Space was founded by me and Marjolijn Dijkman in 2005 with the specific intention to be able to work together with different people (we initiate and coordinate residency/research projects worldwide). Not necessary in the sense of physically making a work together, but being somewhere simultaneously, thinking, looking, communicating and transcending a certain vision or concept.

Since 2003 I study the concept of Genetology (The Science of First Things) and try to define this non-existing opposition of the existing Eschatology (The Science of Last Things). My work is situated exactly on the borderline between the past and the future; sometimes looking forward to the future of yesterday, sometimes looking back to the history of tomorrow. The execution or final form, as well as the location are strongly dependant on the concept or original idea. I use ceramics as well as stone, metal and wood, but also video and photography, installation and performance, and recently also writing to give shape to my Genetologic Research.
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source: bamartbe

Maarten Vanden Eynde (°1977) is a Belgian artist, living and working in Brussel (BE) and Saint Mihiel (FR). Vanden Eynde’s artistic practice consists out of sculpture, photography and installation, and is often context related. From the perspective of changes brought about by globalisation, Vanden Eynde asks question about evolution; what is progress? Are we moving forward? Where to? And why did we start moving in the first place?

His work is situated exactly on the borderline between the past and the future; sometimes looking forward to the future of yesterday, sometimes looking back to the history of tomorrow. He studied Free Media at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His postgraduate studies have included a year at the Mountain School of Arts in Los Angeles, USA, and two years at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. In 2005 he founded the organisation Enough Room for Space, a mobile platform for site-specific projects, together with Marjolijn Dijkman. He is represented by Meessen De Clercq Gallery in Belgium.