Peter Buggenhout

Peter Buggenhout, one of the major artists on the Belgian scene, discovers analogies and world pictures in transformational processes. Waste products and organic materials such as dust, found objects, hair, animal blood or intestines are translated by Buggenhout into contemporary sculpture. With an experimental method of production, he exploits the immanent transformability of objects and the cyclical structures of nature and makes them his own.

In his engagement with the sculptural, Buggenhout follows the history of our concept of form in art and culture as shown in ritual practices. Interested in the abstraction of gestural and anti-form tendencies, he explores the specific properties of materials and deploys qualitative aspects as well as a process-oriented method of analysis to give them form. The different substances and textures of the amorphous bodies shimmer in nuanced shadows as Buggenhout seems to re-interpret the “sfumato”, that fluent transition from a light to a less light part of a surface that softens contours and—applied to sculpture—has an exponential effect on three-dimensional form.

Buggenhout’s work ethic is one that oversteps boundaries. In 1990 he turned away from painting in order to apply himself exclusively to sculpture. He develops intimate conversation pieces and sculptural tableaux that in their abstract vocabulary and voluminous form have an autonomous and omnipresent effect.

For “caterpillar logic”, his current exhibition at Kunstraum Dornbirn and his first presentation in Austria, Buggenhout has devised an in-situ installation that is an experience all its own. An organic sculpture, seemingly afloat and with a utopian-like dimension, invades a hidden sphere that then becomes tangible to the viewer at various levels of perception.

Barbara Martin, Curator

Peter Buggenhout war born in 1963 in Dendermonde, Belgium. He lives and works in Gent, Belgium.

Finissage and presentation of the exhibition documentation: 7. November, 11am