ENGLISH
CHRISTOPH FINK
Atlas of Movements | ARCHIVE / images, stills and preliminary sketches
23.02.12 >< 06.05.12
“What we know is that we perceive something, no more than that.”
From: ‘Truth is the invention of the liar, Conversations for Sceptics’, Heinz von Foerster interviewed by Bernhard Pörksen
ATLAS OF MOVEMENTS
Christoph Fink’s world travels are at the centre of
his oeuvre, which he calls an ‘Atlas of Movements’.
That oeuvre consists of maps, but also of notes, tables,
calculations, photographs, sculptures and sound
recordings. These are based not purely on objective data,
but also and above all on his own subjective experiences
while travelling. His journeys – on foot, by bicycle, car,
train and plane – are much more than just a means of
reaching a chosen destination; the whole route, all the
intermediate stops between the ‘here’ and ‘there’ are
important. So these carefully-documented intermediate
stops in their entirety are the ultimate objective and
essence. Fink jots down all the stimuli received along
the way, later expanding upon them and incorporating
them into drawings, diagrams, tables and sculptures. He
meticulously notes down what he sees and experiences
at chronometrically measured times: the surroundings
and landscape as they glide past (the position of the sun,
the cloud cover, nature, cities in the vicinity, etc.), the
travel conditions (going downhill or through tunnels,
jolts caused by air pockets), his own feelings (wonder,
weariness, irritation),and so on. The combination of all
these aspects makes for a fascinating travel document
and one that combines external factors with a certain
introspection. What is important to the artist is the notion
of the world and ‘reality’ as a poetical construction within
which the cohesion of the various elements surrounding
us is called into question.
Would you say something about your ‘Atlas of Movements’,
your interest in travel and your working method?
“When I look back I realize that even as a child I had a
passion for putting together what has become an atlas. I
drew my surroundings and kept detailed accounts of my
travels. I loved being on the move, but I also wanted to
keep a record of that experience. Gradually I broadened
my horizons. Only after the academy did I see the
potential of all those things and the project gradually
began to take a clear direction. But it was ten years before
I gave my work the collective title ‘Atlas of Movements’.
Gradually the idea came to me of working according
to a system. During my early travels I started to see the
importance of the time and space coordinates of every
journey. Literally recording them in time and space
seemed to hold a truly poetic potential. A working
procedure evolved which centred around keeping strict
chrono-geographical records. That system means I can
now go back to earlier itineraries and compare things.
Only later did I start to call each journey a ‘movement’
and to give each one a number.
I can work anywhere really; in principle the whole of the
earth’s surface is my work terrain. With every journey
I make, I begin a new ‘movement’. Like a painter in
his studio I concentrate on my study material. I often
try out mathematical patterns, plotting my itinerary on
maps in advance. What fascinates me is to see how these
patterns are reorganized and changed by circumstances.
The pattern is often created according to what I want
to see (for example, in Istanbul: first walking diagonally
alongside the Bosporus and then in a very large
circle round the city through the urban sprawl on the
outskirts). I try and understand or experience why a city
is located on a particular spot, what the tensions are, the
mentalities, what is happening there.
In practice I accept invitations from museums, artists and
curators but I also work out routes for myself taking in
geographic reference points. My volcanic journey from
Belgium over the Puy de Dôme, the Ventoux and the
Italian Riviera to Vesuvius and the top of Etna in Sicily is
an example of the latter. And then of course there is just
the sheer pleasure of going somewhere.”
How do your travels fit into the bigger picture?
“My working method alternates between object and
subject. I want to say something that goes beyond and
abstracts my own experience by means of very personal
observations. I want to extrapolate something from them
that can be meaningful for mankind as a whole. One of
my methods is to measure time with a chronometer. Time
– that agreed abstraction which gives us a hold on the
ubiquitous disorder (or lack of order) – provides me with
a seemingly objective space. Recently it has also allowed
me to place my work within various ‘histories’ and
wider time frames and in that way extend my patterns
of comparison. So my notation method is a means of
bringing a degree of structure or order from which
to reflect further; or rather, it allows me to enrich the
experience of time and space.”
MERCATOR
The exhibition of Christoph Fink’s work entitled ‘Atlas of
Movements. ARCHIVE / images, stills and preliminary
sketches’ is being mounted as part of the Gerard
Mercator (1512-1594) commemorations taking place in
Leuven. The exhibition is an initiative of Museum M and
the K.U. Leuven Arts Commission. Among other things,
the exhibition will juxtapose a map Mercator made of
Palestine with Christoph Fink’s ‘Movement # 97 The
Palestine Walks’.
Would you tell us about your interest in the work of the famous
cartographer, Mercator?
“As well as his invaluable contribution to modern
cartography, Mercator also played a role in the emergence
of humanism. He was an early-day modernist who
lived at a time when man was increasingly aware of
his own place in the world and seeking rational ways
of solving human problems. Because of a succession
of emancipation movements, I believe we are now at a
similar point again and we are looking back for a link with
that time. People are again looking for a place for ‘man’
who is being pushed aside by a production system that
has got out of hand. I also see my ‘Atlas of Movements’ as
a basis for a contribution to that bigger story in the world
and the question of a new and wider humanist outlook.
For me Mercator’s work is even more important from
a political standpoint than a cartographic one. He left a
vital legacy (namely the new projection method) and I
see myself as carrying on that sort of investigative work.
It was also Mercator who introduced the word ‘atlas’
into cartography. The political dimension of his work is
that it brought about shifts in thinking which landed him
in difficulty. Mercator interests me as a figure because
he took a clear stand, in so far as that was possible. As
a result of changing views, people at the time gradually
began to challenge religion as a frame of reference and
the Church as a dominant power.”
How do you see yourself as a ‘map-maker’?
“It seems to me that cartography is a highly
underestimated conceptual art form. The wonderful
thing about it is that it is so closely linked to the direct
experience of or with ‘realities’. Cartography helps us
ascertain our bearings on a daily basis and broadens
our outlook. You might say that cartography merges
abstraction (in so far as this notion exists) and the
narrative. My map-making relates to our rereading of the
environment and constant search for new perspectives.”
Your ceramic sculptures seem to be a sort of alternative globe.
How should we interpret them?
“The ceramic work was triggered by an exhibition about
the history of the earth. I was looking for a new way of
creating an image of the earth. I had been thinking of
doing something with ceramic material for a long time
and the earth/ceramic connotation was an obvious one.
Instead of the accepted ‘modern-day’ shape of the earth
(usually projected as a sphere), I developed a disc shape
which contains earth’s full time span (4.5 billion years).
I linked time and space in a single form. What is unusual
here is the notion of the future: the Common Era runs
from year one on the outer edge of the ceramic disk to the
present day in the innermost circle. In the middle of the
disc I left an opening denoting the future; it’s like seeing
the potential of future time. An analogy can be drawn
with looking at the star-spangled sky where we actually
have the (often very distant) past in front of our eyes.
Gradually I realized that I could also apply this new time/
space model to a number of history theories and to my
‘movements’ or my travels. By choosing a geographical
orientation point, I can plot all kinds of routes and
movements (political, economic, cultural, etc.) in time
and space (both literally and figuratively). By changing
the orientation point you can look at the same pattern
from a completely different angle. As well as these discs,
a number of years ago I also started making spinning
objects: sculptures which spin like a vortex round their
axis, often combined with sound compositions. This new
direction is really exciting.”
THE EXHIBITION AT M: ‘ATLAS OF
MOVEMENTS. ARCHIVE / IMAGES, STILLS
AND PRELIMINARY SKETCHES’
“The exhibition at M is divided into two sections: there
was the invitation from the university and M to do
something relating to Mercator (to mark the anniversary
of his birth in 1512). While studying Mercator’s reference
books at home, I came across his first work - the Map of
Palestine - and I intuitively felt a certain affinity with it.
Unlike me, Mercator almost never travelled, but he did
believe it was important to test myth against reality and
in that sense to compare the biblical Palestine with real
travel accounts. What you might call an indirect empirical
method. This first map set the tone for the rest of his
work; man assumed or reassumed control.
In the exhibition at M I show a sequel to this. I test the
Palestinian/Israeli reality in my own empirical way by
means of Mercator’s original Map of Palestine (on loan
from the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris) and
I try to represent it. Alongside Mercator’s map I show
one of my latest works: ‘The Palestine Walks’ (20092011). This work is the start of a larger study in which
I want to chart the whole history of the Middle East
(and eventually inevitably the world) in relation to the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As always I start from my own
experience. For me it is essential that I cover ‘the ground’
myself, look, measure, feel, smell, etcetera. This is the
basis of my thinking and the incubator for my work.
In the second section I try to open up and present the
foundations of my working method. Initially I wanted
to show my archive, but I soon realized that my whole
oeuvre is an archive, a sort of poetical databank. So
I picked out lesser-known aspects of my work: my
analogous visual archive (with some of my 85 000 slides),
sources of inspiration, drawings I did as a child *, a part
of my video archive, sketches, marginal notes, etcetera.
In fact, what I provide here is a glimpse of my so-called
‘oeuvre’ and in that way I show something of the origin of
my work and my passion for space and time, for exploring
in-depth our understanding of and views on landscape
and man’s place in the scheme of things.
Your work consists of lots of notes, lists, texts, etcetera.Would
you like visitors to read them all and do you expect them to?
“As well as the information, there is first and foremost the
aesthetic aspect, the pleasure of the graphic artistic idiom.
I flatter myself that I make something that is beautiful to
look at but then it still has to communicate what I want
to communicate. I hope that when people take a look
they will find it so fascinating that they will want to read
and lose themselves in the texts, and that the way they
think changes as a result.
It is important to know that there is a link between all the
descriptions and that all the details or every description,
however minor, together form the context. So every detail
is important. I intend to extend that context in my oeuvre
in future.
I increasingly find that contexts are spontaneously
extended and that for example my studies or ‘movements’
overlap, link up and complement each other (the
European bicycle journeys, Istanbul, Montreal, Korea,
Palestine, etcetera.). Everything is linked and in motion.
I try and turn that jumble into something legible, but
without losing sight of its complexity. In that sense my
work is also a testimony to the age we live in, but it is also
questioned by the spirit of our age: are my tools (such
as the slides) and is my search still in kilter with all the
changes that have taken place over the last ten years?
That’s another way of looking at my exhibition at M. A
try-out as a way of rounding off a specific period, after
which I need to think differently about images so that my
work takes a new turn.”
* Christoph Fink, Misgereden, 1971
BIOGRAPHY
Christoph Fink (Ghent, °1963) is now centralizing his
activities in Brussels. As well as many other exhibitions,
lectures, performances and publications, his work has
been shown at the biennials in Venice, São Paulo and
Istanbul, at Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt and in reputable
institutions like Witte de With (Rotterdam), S.M.A.K.
(Ghent) and The Drawing Center (New York).
In 2003-2004 Fink exhibited in Leuven with ‘Atlas of
Movements: The Leuven Walks (#61), the Cleveland
Walks (#59) and other fragments; a walk through
archives’.
Christoph Fink would like to thank Joëlle Tuerlinckx for her essential
contribution; Jonathan Rosic, Valentin Fayet, Diogo Monteiro, Annelies
Bruneel, Xavier Aupaix, Quentin Gubin, Christian Kieckens and Bruno Van
Lierde; the team of M - Museum Leuven for their logistical support and Hugo
Eva Wittocx, curator M, talks to Christoph Fink, January 2012.
Meert for the creation of the ceramic discs.
This exhibition is an initiative of the
KU Leuven’s Arts Commission and
Museum M as part of the Gerard
Mercator (1512-1594) commemorations
in Leuven.
NO MAN’S LAND. CARTOGRAPHERS IN
THE FOOTSTEPS OF MERCATOR
22.03.12 >< 05.05.12
The Arenberg Campus Library is showing a parallel
exhibition entitled ‘No Man’s Land. Cartographers in the
footsteps of Mercator’ consisting of some twenty maps
from the sixteenth century to the present day, drawn from
its own collection. Inaccessible tropical forests, mythical
hiding places, forgotten islands and infinite arctic ice
fields. No one’s Land tells the story of explorers and
cartographers and their quest to chart the unclaimed
territories.
Curator: Geert Vanpaemel
PRACTICAL
Campusbibliotheek Arenberg,
Willem De Croylaan 6, 3001 Heverlee
Phone: 016/32 81 81 - Fax: 016/32 29 88
Opening Hours: Monday - Friday: 08:30 >< 22:00,
Saturday: 9:00 >< 13:00
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
HTTP://BIB.KULEUVEN.BE/CBA
AND WWW.MERCATORINLEUVEN.BE
GERARD MERCATOR (1512-1594),
CARTOGRAPHER FOR THE XXIST
CENTURY
Lecture | 15.03.12
by Professor Geert Vanpaemel (KU Leuven))
In het kader van de herdenking van Gerard Mercator To
tie in with the Gerard Mercator commemorations, Geert
Vanpaemel is giving a lecture on the life and work of
this famous cartographer, focusing on his desire to find
sense and meaning in troubled times by mapping the
construction of the universe. Afterwards artist Christoph
Fink will give a guided tour and presentation of his ‘Atlas
of Movements’ exhibition at M.
PRACTICAL
M – Museum Leuven
Forum M, 20:00
Free entrance
Please reserve at bezoekm@leuven.be
M . L.VANDERKELENSTRAAT 28, B-3000 LEUVEN . T +32 (0)16 27 29 29 . WWW.MLEUVEN.BE
Partenaires: Stad Leuven, Provincie Vlaams-Brabant, Vlaamse gemeenschap