The Hand, the Eye and It
2013
Installation, 25 x 40 x 70 cm, 175 x 105 x 15 cm.
Materials: video, object, plasticine, table, wood, metal
Collection: Courtesy of the artist, 1646, The Hague and Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam.
The Hand, the Eye and It documents the performance lecture the artist made as part of the major conference at M HKA on 14 June. In the talk, a plasticine replica of the artist’s own hand takes on the role of the mediator in a collaboration between the performer, the creator’s eye, and the elusive ‘it’ – the thing that wants to be made, which is present here as an amorphous flesh coloured plasticine object. Describing the complex relations at play, Houben foregrounds the way the various elements take on both literal and symbolic roles, the lines between subject and object, performer and creator, hand and eye. (NH)
