Willy Vanderperre’s New Show in Brooklyn
CreditCourtesy of Willy Vanderperre
Willy
Vanderperre moved to Antwerp in the early ’90s to study fashion design
at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts before switching to photography. Since
then, he’s distinguished himself as one of the most influential artists
of his kind — shooting editorials and campaigns for renowned
publications and fashion houses. This week, he opens a show, “prints,
film, posters, and more" at Red Hook Labs in Brooklyn, consisting of
nearly 60 pieces that span his more than 20-year career.
The
exhibition features work not only from his fashion spreads, but also
from recent, and lesser-known, projects in the worlds of contemporary
dance, theater and film. Pictures range from a sequin-clad model washed
in eerie red light from a recent editorial, to two crowned men
passionately locked in a kiss from a scene in the 2012 production of Jan
Fabre’s 1984 masterpiece, “The Power of Theatrical Madness,” to tightly
cropped shots of the bandaged foot of French ballet dancer Marie Agnes
Gillot. “Each image talks and carries an emotion and is an image on its
own, but I think when people walk through the show — even though the
images are not really connected to each other — they will find a
connection.” Though varied in subject and source, all exhibit the
intense, sometimes dark and confrontational emotion associated with
Vanderperre’s work.
Red
Hook Labs, a 7,000-square-foot studio and gallery space, was
established in part as an educational initiative for creative young
adults. On opening night, video footage of the Belgian post-metal band
Amenra will be projected on a screen behind a chain-link fence in an
adjacent parking lot. Inside, limited-edition merchandise (including
T-shirts, pins and removable tattoos) will be for sale — as well as
posters that are interspersed with pictures on the gallery walls. For
Vanderperre, however, these things are not simply merchandise — a word
he’s wary of using. “It will feel like you are buying a piece of art
equally and to the same standards as the fine art prints themselves,” he
says. “If you take something as simple as a patch or a bag and put it
next to a fine art print, it elevates its meaning.”
He
is also known for his affinity for youth culture; for this reason, it
was important to him that the art be presented in an approachable way,
and that the art for sale be accessible to the younger generation.
“Sometimes people forget who their audience is,” says Vanderperre. “It’s
important to reach out to those kids — those are the people you work
for, who inspire you and who you try to inspire. It should be an
emotional journey, right?”
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