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“I don’t know exactly what it is I am doing. It seems to me that I am changing my ways all of the time. But I am a self-taught, very hungry auto-didact in the domain of the moving image, animation, film, video, and what we could call virtual image-making.” — David Claerbout
Acclaimed Belgian artist David Claerbout (b. 1969) prides himself – and even builds his practice around – being self-taught in most areas of his practice and study. He is known for his often hauntingly beautiful and deceptively simple videos, photography, and installations “that provoke questions of time, memory, and truth.” Recently, the Louisiana Channel visited Claerbout in his home and studio in Antwerp, Belgium, where he discussed his work, including a deep dive of some recent highlights, such as the pieces King (after Alfred Wertheimer’s 1956 picture of a young man named Elvis Presley) (2015-2016), The Pure Necessity (2016), and The “Confetti” Piece (2015-2018).
From Louisiana Channel:
Claerbout works with what he describes as “virtual image-making.” Early on, he knew that his work would be a sort of resistance against information in images as well as a fight between “clock-time” and the plurality of duration: “Which is frightening in a way because it means that you no longer can define a space of time.” In a medium that is “over defined by clock time,” Claerbout makes pieces that last a millennium, fifteen hours, or a loop of ten minutes […]
“I’ve always thought that one of the privileges that an artist has is to have time to waste.”
