Denmark : anarchives

Denmark the Artist uses discarded archives are made unreadable and transformed into new ones. Not to be consulted, but rather to be observed. To prompt the viewer to pause and reflect. Text in English, French and Dutch.

How many newspapers and magazines do people throw out every day? How many unread masterpieces appear on your bookshelf? How many old exams and assignments are gathering dust in the attics of schools? For 50 years, the Belgian artist Denmark – the pseudonym of Marc Robbroeckx – has transformed tons of printed paper into art. He creates sculptures and installations using books, newspapers, and magazines. His main ingredient is always paper – cut, pressed, stacked, or folded. Since the early seventies, Denmark has been cutting up, dissecting, and (re)assembling books, magazines, and newspapers. His archive installations are a critical reaction to the overload of information we are confronted with daily, opposing the abundance of information, symbolized by the gigantic masses of discarded - and often unused - paper. These surplus newspapers, magazines, books, and archives are cut up, folded, glued, bound, pressed, sanded, and ground,... by the artist to create new visual archives, no longer for consulting but purely for viewing beauty as resistance to excess. ''anarchives'' provides a sober and in-depth overview of the artist''s many years of practice.

Text in English, French and Dutch.