Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal

Volume 5 Issue 1, 2020

A REVIEW OF KAREL VERHOEVEN’S “SCENES (COUR

JARDIN)”: AN OPEN INVITATION TO PLAY

Jakob Van den Broucke

Independent artist/researcher

vandenbrouckejakob@gmail.com

Jakob Van den Broucke (°1993, Ghent) was trained as a sociologist and now focuses on

photography and writing. Concepts, methods, language games and contexts provide him

with the starting points for new projects. As such Jakob explores and develops processes

and methods for understanding daily complexity in order to create meaningful objects. As a

result, books (for instance De mentaliteit is van plastiek), autonomous and serial works,

installations and speeches are thrown towards the public sphere.

Abstract: This is a review of “Scenes (cour jardin),” an ongoing project series by Belgian

visual artist and designer Karel Verhoeven. The series consists of different architectural

sculptures that are placed in (semi)public spaces. This review evaluates the project in terms

of its relevancy for socially engaged artistic practice, and the more fundamental questions it

raises: What can be learned from situations created by art in public space? How does an

observation guide artistic practice? Is it hypothetically possible to assume that the essence

of the work of art is not in its appearance, but in how the work is used? What are interesting

opportunities for collaborations between artists and social scholars?

Keywords: socially engaged art; public space; objects; playful design

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In 2015, Belgian visual artist and designer Karel Verhoeven (°1982, Ghent) realized

the first setup of the series “Scenes (cour jardin)”: five white modules made of wood, each

incorporating staircases ranging from two to six steps. This review will focus on the ongoing

project series “Scenes (cour jardin)” which has travelled across Belgium ever since.

Figure 1. Scenes (cour jardin) 2015

In its first round of production, “Scenes (cour jardin)” was temporarily installed in three

different locations: a city square (Fig. 1), a primary school playground and a public park. In

each location the modules were arranged in a different constellation or “scene.” A second

setup of “Scenes” was created for, and temporarily installed at, a music festival on a public

square in the city centre of Ghent, Belgium (Fig. 2). The installation contained five differently

shaped modules made of various types of wood, and had three different colors. For the

occasion, the artist invited jazz musicians to perform musical interventions amidst the

installation throughout the course of the festival. A third, more permanent version of

“Scenes” was created for a public cemetery (Fig. 3). Borne out of the lack of open space in

the neighborhood where the cemetery is located, the city decided to transform part of the

cemetery into a public park. Starting from this incentive, Verhoeven built twelve modules: ten

of them have staircases and two are more chair-like pieces, made of inox, pigmented

concrete and padouk hardwood. In 2017, the fourth and latest installation of “Scenes” was

realized in the form of nine permanent architectural sculptures commissioned for a

residential care centre in Poperinge, Belgium (Fig. 4). The modules were made of wood and

inox and include a stove and a block game. Based on the environment of the centre,

historical walking trails running through the domain and collaborative design practices with

the inhabitants, these “Scenes” are part of a longer-term art integration project.

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Figure 4. Scenes (jardin) Poperinge 2017

Different versions of “Scenes” exist, and each new production includes more modules

that become more diverse in nature. For every new assignment, the design concept is

adapted to the spatial environment proposed by the commissioner; what existed before is

appropriated and extended to function in the new environment. All installations were placed

in (semi)public spaces, inviting citizens into playful engagement with the installation. Some

of Verhoeven’s “Scenes” are permanent, some were temporary. The modules are grafted

onto architectural materials and typologies we find in our shared daily environment such as

blocks, stairways, seats, benches, tribunes, platforms, stages and pedestals. By playing with

level differences, the modules connect the earthly with the unearthly, and are a way of both

framing and carrying the spatiality of a place. Throughout the process of making “Scenes”

Verhoeven has had to balance the projects’ autonomous aesthetic qualities and their

functionalities. The variable use of materials is of course informed by technical, financial,

site-specific and other practical realities, but also presents an opportunity for the artist to

experiment with and learn about the relationship between form, material and environment.

A first important aspect of

“Scenes” I want to bring forth is that by installing a

sculptural scenography the artist aims to create a situation rather than an installation; not

just an object for the viewer to look at, but a temporary point and place in time wherein

something can happen. Inspired by the observation that public space is often considered a

sterile, passive and empty space, “Scenes” aims to activate (people in) these places and

provides temporary places to play, to act and to look. On some occasions the artist takes

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control of what happens. For example, when musicians or performers are invited to the

installation, it is the artist who curates and stimulates other artists to interact with the

situation. During the music festival in Ghent, the musicians played in, above and around the

“Scenes” using them as a stage, device and instrument, playing with distances and

acoustics of the sculptures and the environment. However, on most occasions a “Scene”

gets installed and the work of the artist as “maker” is done, and his power to control is over.

The installation itself becomes an agent of expression and the viewer is indispensable for

the works’ completion. The viewer is left without an instruction manual and gets confronted

with a scenery of objects, objects with seemingly familiar esthetics and functions. What are

the objects for? Am I allowed to touch them? How am I supposed to behave? Ambiguity

arises and the range of possible interactions between the public and the objects is infinite:

children climb and hide in them, tourists take pictures standing on top of them, business men

eat their lunch while sitting on them or people just pass by. By creating a “Scene,” the artist

formulates an open invitation, an obstacle, for the viewer to play and display, to interact with,

to encounter another, to see the surroundings from a different perspective, and as such to

explore and direct the situation.

The choice of location and context of where the situation is created is a second

important aspect of

“Scenes,” as the interaction between object and viewer is highly

influenced by context. When the work is installed in a well-defined context, we assume that

people will be more inclined to engage with the above-mentioned questions or to question

the objects as art objects, and behave accordingly. More often, “Scenes” is placed in a non-

traditional art context, in public space, a space were random dwellers are possibly

confronted with a “Scene.” When installed on a public square the objects will not necessarily

be conceived of as art objects and therefore may invite a more spontaneous response from

the public. This creates an interesting tension for those involved in socially engaged artistic

practice. Art in public space is instilled with the specific aura of being art. This is, for

instance, the case with statues placed on high pedestals, or the classic roundabout art one

sees in the streets. These clearly are art objects. A natural reflex of the casual passer-by,

therefore, could be: one does not mess with artworks. This would be counterproductive if the

intention of the installation was to invite people in. A project like “Scenes,” however, creates

a doubt in the random dweller. “Scenes” is in essence an artistic product. However, it comes

with a certain functionality as well, for example, the possibility to climb, to sit, to hide. The art

objects balance between the functional and the autonomous, the common and the less

common. If we give up the idea that something needs to be perceived as art, we might

induce more spontaneous and playful interactions. In addition, the context of where it is

placed has an impact on people’s perceptions for what the art can be used.

A third interesting aspect of “Scenes” revolves around the impact and evaluation of

the work. After the phase of the artist as “maker,” the artist becomes an observer of his own

work. Given that the public is invited to touch, enter and experience the work, the traditional

division of roles is turned; the spectator becomes the performer and the artist takes the role

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of observer. For understanding this aspect of “Scenes,” the preferred type of documentation

Verhoeven engages with serves as insightful. For instance, the first installation of “Scenes”

on a public square in Brussels is documented through a video montage1. The documentation

does not solely show the work, but focuses on the interaction between objects and viewers.

As such, the artist uses video as one way to observe human behavior. The different potential

interactions are visualized; the viewer activates meaning, and by way of documentation the

artist as observer tries to entangle this production of meaning. It provides an answer to

different types of questions: Who engages? Who does not? What can I improve for the non-

engagers to consider interaction? What role does the context play if I compare data across

different settings? The scholarly importance of this work is that it sparks an interest in more

fundamental questions to consider: How does an observation guide artistic practice? What

can be learned from socially engaged artistic practice about human behavior in the public

sphere? Is it hypothetically possible to assume that the essence of the work of art is not in its

appearance, but in how the work is used? “Scenes” offers reasons to consider the many

ways we perform physically in daily life, and how our habits, movements and emotions are

exposed when we interact with art in public space.

When evaluating “Scenes” in terms of socially engaged artistic practice, the triptych of

aspects discussed here leads to three guiding conditions. “Scenes” offers situations: the

viewer not just looks at the modules, but is invited to handle. The invitation for interaction is

crucial; the artist looks for dialogue and opens up space for social interaction to happen.

This “happening” is linked to the second condition, the context of installation. Each “Scene”

is fittingly and deliberately placed in a (semi)public space and the choice of outside locations

makes for a wide and diverse potential of viewers. The modules are too strange to be “good

design” and too functional to be “good art," though they are ultimately both. So, the question

if “Scenes” is art or not becomes irrelevant. Since there is no “art” context, only pedestal-like

objects are leftover, and as such, situations in public space are created. A relevant question

is: what can be learned from these situations? Thirdly, the investigative approach of the

artist, the importance of evaluation, learning and improvement throughout the series is a

crucial aspect. The investigation starts during the preparation: what is the history, the

typology of the environment, and how do people interact with the existing environment?

What is missing, and is an intervention desirable? A modest approach, taking into account

what is already there and what could be emphasized, characterizes Verhoeven’s practice.

For example, the observation that kids love to put their legs through holes, has been acted

upon in a few modules. Or, the observation that elderly people perceive the modules as

opportunities for a shared coffee moment led the artist to add a stove and block game to the

installation in Poperinge. These examples attest to the use of participatory trajectories that

enable interesting learning opportunities during the production process. In the preparatory

phase, the artist also uses video for his research. For the first “Scenes” on the school

playground a video montage shows children playing on their school playground2.

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Both in terms of preparation and documentation, Verhoeven’s use of video opens up

interesting opportunities for further research. A collaboration with social scientists or

methodologists might produce added value in this regard: for data production and analysis,

or in measuring the impact of the work. For now, the videos are solely observational, and the

analysis is not explicit. What if the artist were to create the situation, and collaborate with a

researcher to use this situation for data gathering and analysis? As such, information to

improve the work could be generated, but findings could also be generated about the

tension between humans and material, or about more general aspects of social binding

among humans. One could think of “Scenes” as an experimental setup, wherein different

contexts and different constellations could be explored in order to analyze aspects of an

intuitive approach, of danger, risk or behavior in a public space. In this sense, the artist can

improve his practice and progress in working with material and form, building newer

modules, evolving the project with an open ending that might invite scholars in at

unexpected moments in time. In the end, the meaning of “Scenes” is in its use, and for all we

know it is “meaning” that both social scientists and artists are after.

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