M HKA Ensembles

Sculpture

Collection: Courtesy of Annie Gentils Gallery, Antwerp.

1. SECTION D’OR I, 1999 (200 x 10 x 9 cm, wood, gesso, gold leaf)
2. SECTION D’OR II, 2000 (diam. 90 x 4 cm)
3. SECTION D’OR III, 2004 (190 x 78 x 8 cm, wood, gold leaf)
4. SECTION D’OR IV, 2004 (77 X 20 X 1 cm, metal and gold leaf)

Four sections of doors of the successive studios occupied by the artist between 1999 and 2004. They can be shown separately or together.
Sections III and IV reference Magritte’s The Unexpected Answer, 1933.
Sections I, III and IV are constructed using the original dimensions, while Section II is a circle cut from a real door creating a porthole.

Webb refers to these objects as 'doors'. As he writes in an essay:
"Thinking of the doors that I make specifically: they lean against the wall because their frames are absent. And I think of the absent frame as a form of metaphysical bracketing. Even though it is no longer present it nevertheless continues to frame the door simply because the door is a door... albeit a door that can neither be opened or closed."

Beyond this they are exactly what their names – in English – suggest. Gratuitous and tautological. So why a door? Certainly not for reason of its material nature. Not because of its easily identifiable form. Not because it is made of wood... or metal. Not because it is ergonomically sound...hinged and hung...fastened and functioning. But because it enables the passage between the inside and the out. It has the power to give or deny access; make or block passing from here to there.

"The soul of the commonest objects," Joyce wrote, "the structure, which is so justified, seem to us radiant. The object achieves its epiphany." These sections of doors, then these facts and fissures, can only be radiantly what they are when they are named. As Broodthaers said: "The language of forms must be united with that of words." The obvious pun, ‘section d’or’ is a reference to the divina proportione of Luca Paciolo, the outright intention to anchor them in the art of the past.

"These, my doors, are my attempt to enrich by illumination, that visible thing, which is hidden within their inner darkness."Andrew Webb in the press release for Section d’Or; Gilding the Lily, Annie Gentils Gallery, Antwerp, 2004.