With SPECTRUM, Belgian photography and video talent Pierre Debusschere has continued his photographic experiments on the abstract body, searching for representation and identity through colours. The exhibition marks a new stage in Debusschere’s artistic process. At once insightful, inclusive and generous, the SPECTRUM provides an intimate encounter with the artist and a simultaneous invitation into today’s world.
What makes good photography for you?
I don’t think I have the perfect answer to this question, as it is a constant process. In relationship to the work I am making today, I would say: photography with a message, that aims at universal reflection. Before, I probably would have said photography that makes you drift, that provokes a feeling.
What makes your work such a good match with the fashion industry?
I think this connection lies in the fact that I am able to switch my photographic language and creative universes quite easily. I’m always interested in the now, in what it is that makes an image ‘today’. I guess it is important in fashion to be able to translate our world and to always look for the new.
You make music videos and films as well. What is it that attracts you in film?
When I was in art school, I started with video works before even getting into photography. I have always been especially interested in the link that film and music have: a moving image combined with music is a great way to convey emotions and allow you to drift. Music has always been my main inspiration. I have always linked it to moving images, to film and music videos.
Lately, music has even become a language on its own for me. It gives me the chance to translate my feelings about certain things in a more verbal and direct way. I’m thinking I might create something musical in the near future.
What are your favourite subjects to photograph?
This again is a constant evolution and a matter of reflection to me. I think one of the most important things is to always think and rethink everything, to see all things as in constant movement. Right now, the question of identity is very important to me: the body and its features are at the centre of my research.
Where did the idea for the work you show in the SPECTRUM exhibition come from? I can imagine your work as a fashion photographer made you think further on themes like body and identity.
I started this body of work two years ago, right after my previous exhibition. I believe that the research I am showing here is more universal, even though it started from personal questions. What you can see in the exhibition is a very small part of the research I have been doing, but it makes a good entry into it. The Room, the project space of 254Forest, is a good first location for this work as well: it is my work space and I have access to it all the time, which made it possible to develop the space around my work. I see it as a sort of laboratory where I can further develop my language.
I think indeed that fashion has drawn my attention to the body on itself, allowing me to understand its sculptural lines and shapes through the camera. Yet, SPECTRUM goes further than archetypal fashion norms and bodies. Instead, the work focuses on all bodies and genders, shapes, skin tones and elements that can define it.
What makes the (abstract) body such an interesting subject for you?
What I like about the body – and the colours an abstractions I show in the exhibition – is that it can be a vessel for reflection on a personal as well as on a universal level.
…
SPECTRUM
254FOREST
Chaussée de Forest 254 1060 Saint Gilles Brussels
Opening night on Wednesday 2 Septembre.
End of the exhibition on Saturday 26 Septembre.
Open to the public on Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 2p.m to 6p.m and on
private visit.
Interview by Laura Bonne
