M HKA Ensembles

Photography

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK7170 - BK7183).

Auto-Mio is a series of 14 color photographs on paper.  Verhoeven combines photographs of germinating seeds and plants with drawings and text.  The titles are written in a sort of Italian-like script, with all words ending in 'o', and the inference seems apparent.  'O' refers to zero, the starting point.  Verhoeven begins from zero, placing no importance on what went before, on the past.  Freely translated, Auto-Mio means ‘Self-I’, the text here thus referring to the artist himself.  The bean sprout, for instance, is a metaphor for Verhoeven's place in the art world: he seeks a piece of ground there, where he can flourish.

The photographic series is based on an amalgamation of botanical elements yielding all manner of strange and erotic 'tableaux'.  At the same time, they are provided with playful and enigmatic words in felt-tip.  Playing with words is a typical characteristic of Verhoeven's work.  He makes unexpected associations between words and things or between words amongst themselves (for example, through the use of portmanteau words).

In the foreground of each photo-page, a small event is shown against a pink or violet color field, for instance a head of lettuce or a pot with white beans.  Originating from here is often a line of drawn beans or germinating seeds: the drawings themselves propagate in ever increasing series that one may compare to the series Copy-Boules.  The photo-series can also be seen as an escape route, wherein nothing is predetermined and everything can evolve independently.  Hastily written annotations on the drawings accompany or support the process, Auto in Extremio, Imaginatio tinto, Imaginatio una, duo, tres, …

This ambiguous and intriguing play with language and image ensures that the photo-series cannot be pigeonholed into having any single, specific meaning.