A Gothic hall with odd objects: Koenraad Dedobbeleer at De Vleeshal (Middelburg)

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Leaving De Vleeshal (Middelburg, Netherlands) felt like leaving a power plant, buzzing with electricity. Objects, shapes, colours… just too many things communicating, sending out signals. I probably had even started linking things that weren’t linked at all. Was it really a coincidence that the light of the evening sun, through those ancient windows, was of the same pale pink as those steel tubes?
Or what You Export Reality to Where It is You Get Your Money From, by Belgian artist Koenraad Dedobbeleer, did to me. What I liked about it, apart from all that buzzing, was its edginess. Not so much brought about by the surreal twist the exhibition leaflet attributes to the sculptures, but caused by the fact that you can’t help thinking that you’re missing what’s going on. That this is a riddle that can’t be solved. That, in the end, it’s all one big joke, being played on you.
You export… (through June 23) is Dedobbeleer’s first Dutch exhibition. It’s the last part of a trilogy of shows (St. Gallen, Paris), for which a book, Oeuvre Sculpté, Travaux pour Amateurs (2013) (by Roma Publications), was the common starting point. The curator of the Dutch part is Vleeshal-director Lorenzo Benedetti, who is also the curator of the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennale, with Mark Manders.