M HKA Ensembles

Installation, 10 x (100 x 120 cm).

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK006895).

Colours and numeric code by Philippe Van Snick consists of ten painted wooden panels. In each panel only one colour is used: the primary colours red, yellow and blue, the secondary colours orange, green and violet, the non colours white and black and the metallic colours gold and silver. Since 1980 Van Snick has been using these colours systematically. White and black, for example, stand for immaterialism and gold and silver refer to materialism and material wealth, but can also be interpreted as ‘alchemistic’, ‘inert’ or ‘pure’ metals. In this manner, the colours denote a mental as well as a physical meaning. The panels are not completely covered in paint. ‘Signs’ have appeared on the places where paint has not been applied. Van Snick also didn’t painted the edge of the panels so that a kind of frame appears around the work. Colours and numeric code is typical work of the eighties, which were characterized by a renewed interest in the status of the painting, whereby, among others, the use of colour and material, the painting as an object and the definition of form and frame were discussed. As the ‘signs’ appear to be randomly divided over the panels, the work issues a certain dynamic. Together with the saturated, bright colours this results in a feast for the eye.

Text by Ph. Van Snick, dated Brussels 11.2.1996: 

-Each panel represents 10 different broken lines. Each broken line a number from 1 to 9. The number 0 is in the unpainted edge. 1 is the broken line with one angle. 2 is the broken line with two angles. 3 is the broken line with three angles. In this way up to nine.

-All represented numbers are different from one panel to the next. Not a single panel has the same representation. But do they have the same initial formula? 

-All panels stay together!! forming a single work.

Bron: Hilde Van Gelder en Liesbeth Decan, Philippe Van Snick - Dynamic Project, ASA Publishers, 2010.