Surrender

Surrender

03-07-2016 - 16-06-2017

Keteleer Gallery Antwerp

This first ever exhibition of photographic art & the companion feature length documentary was held at At the Gallery in Antwerp and curated by gallerist Frederick Keteleer. The series of works in Surrender are about giving up all resistance to the moment..letting go of ego & self-image. This is a surrender that finally leads to the revealing of the inner self. The search into what is hidden behind the face, eyes and skin of a person.

Mount Olympus, a 24 hour theatre performance to “Glorify The Cult Of Tragedy” by controversial Flemish Artist Jan Fabre, took 12 months rehearsals with 27 performers to create. The exhibition & companion film feature length art film “Surrender” was shot entirely by hand on a single camera and a crew of one.

The images and movie captured onstage, backstage and in Fabre’s Atelier offer a quiet & intimate glimpse of the working process of one of the wrlds most radical artists.

 “The photos  present painting-like characteristics. and in these works, Phil Griffin successfully combines drama, fragility and stability in an utterly unique manner that is all his own.” De Morgen

The companion and trigger of the exhibition is the film Surrender created during an extended period as artist in residence at Troubleyn.

In this, the photos become moving images. It depicts a wonderful conversation between two artists years. A conversation of revelation, epiphany and precision to the concept of honesty on stage as a life choice, the film is a conversation that is both verbal and non-verbal. Surrender on film and in single art image conveys a feeling of a life: time, (I’m)mortality and the final surrender of man not only to his fears but also to his true potential.

“I believe this Surrender series is about truly giving in to a shared vulnerability. About finding trust in letting go. As a process, I believe that only by offering my own vulnerability will my collaborator offer me their own. This presents in the form of a deep truth shared between us. It is sometimes ephemeral, intangible, even disturbing, but always deeply open. Often the portraits feel like conversations rather than photographs, like feelings rather than pictures. For me, it is the single moment that both I as observer and performer as observed relinquish all power and for one single moment trust in each other completely that our shared truth with all its fear, hope, tragedy and beauty can be revealed.”

– Phil Griffin

Exhibited at:

Keteleer Gallery
Leopoldstraat 57, 2000 Antwerp – Belgium
Web: keteleer.com/exhibitions/past/phil-griffin-surrender

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