AN OFFSITE EXHIBITION
BOULEVARD EMILE BOCKSTAEL 204, 1020 BRUSSELS
OPENING
FRIDAY 28.10.22 AT 7PM
EXHIBITION
29.10.22 – 06.11.22
OPEN
MON-FRI / BY APPOINTMENT
SAT-SUN / 2PM-6PM
For appointments please contact:
goodpolobeltprep@gmail.com
.
Etablissement d’en face is pleased to present GOOD POLO BELT PREP, an exhibition of four sculptures by Jakob Brugge.
Welcome
This is an exhibition of clothing hanging in cases leaning against things. The clothes are sculptures of objects made of their same material – fabric used to depict fabric. The cases follow a similar logic and are used to display evidence in a courtroom. And the things belong to a group of young men.
A. A Boy Scout’s uniform — a proxy for an organization that both enables boys to learn to become men and for men (primarily scout leaders) to pretend to be boys. It is an image of adolescence, of growing pains. An image of the tension between individual achievements (the mountains climbed) and collective identification (the friends made along the way). It’s a higher calling in khaki — whereby shared knowledge becomes shared values and in turn a shared sense of duty.
B. A uniform of a different sort, a kind of camouflage of the conventional. The polo is a calm, confident communicator of social equilibrium, but despite this and its ubiquity, it’s somehow still untrustworthy. From the classroom, to the convention center, to the country club, it manages to be both victim and perpetrator, bully and bullied, both aspirational (an Arnold Palmer please) and also dismissively indifferent (that’s enough thank you). A nostalgic picture of assimilation or maybe more of a cleanser – a kind of cotton equivalent to antiseptic.
C. Denim was designed to be durable, an ideal cipher for identity. Jeans are about expressing “who I am” and “how I feel”. Self-identification from the waist down. An off the shelf individualism at any price point. Their legacy is utopian, but their history is unsentimental. Backbreaking labor turned into a pre-ripped fantasy. Casual Friday rolling into dad behind the barbecue Saturday. Stylized subversion becoming an identity crisis for sale.
D. A source of warmth and protection from the elements (or whatever life might throw your way) — a peaceful and fuzzy feeling on the inside, a teflon coated windproof polyester on the out. The jacket communicates a kind of prepared competence that evokes the military alphabet – Papa Romeo Echo Papa. It’s a tactical approach to the weather. It answers a need, a personal concern for protection and visibility without the implications of being highly visible (hi-vis). It’s the ideal barrier between a fragile, permeable self and the so-called-real-world.
E. The case gives structure, puts it all into context. Its a format taken from the judicial system of the United States. An institutional framework lending credibility to otherwise ordinary objects. They are pedestals made for specific things, for a specific place, designed to emphasize physical traces and communicate feelings. Scratches, spots, specks, and flecks — indicators searching for a Here there’s no signs of use, no marker of the life behind the thing. It’s just an outside-in armature emphasizing emptiness.
