‘Lemniscate’ from Yannick Verhoeven

With Lemniscate Yannick Verhoeven is presenting the sequel to his previous exposition Enchantement. For this new mix of light installation, object and prints Verhoeven got inspired by Nadja (1928), a novel that can be seen as an attempt by the French writer and poet André Breton to describe surrealism as a way of life. Similar to this literature, Verhoeven’s work is dreamy, colorful and playful, and hovers somewhere between dream and reality.

Previously Verhoeven explored the methods of Breton and other Surrealists in musical form, and now visually. Using elements from books, magazines and the internet, his collages combine the unlikely, providing the apparently arbitrary combination of diverse images with a unique context. The end result is a completely new work, which has been digitized and printed for this exhibition.

Alienating elements from reality return in a new surprising context, with a meaning that can only be derived from the interpretation and the field of association of the visitor. It is not remarkable that surrealism inspires Verhoeven; Lemniscate is the imagination of the dream world, the improbable and the enchanting, offering an escape from the cold reality.

The name Lemniscate was chosen as a result of a piece of music that Verhoeven recorded with the French poet Maud Sztern. That piece can now be heard on Nadja, a new album that he has released under his solo-alias Ramses3000 in collaboration with Intercept Records. On this album Verhoeven explores electro, afrobeat and nu-jazz and collaborates with artists from Sierra Leone, Uganda and France.