MMP: Honoré d’O

The observer is invited to use these things: to take them and play with them. In many exhibitions he works with the same selection of materials and things which are restructured every time, like a huge three-dimensional anagram. With a great sense of humour – but also sensitivity – d’O sets up more or less extreme situations which centre on people’s behaviour.

Recently Honoré d’O has been turning his attention to video. For his Moderna Museet Projekt he is making a personal and poetic video diary from Stockholm where he will be during the month of January (on a month-long IASPIS residency). The title of the new work is “Joy Sticks Serious Video”, and it will be located in the in between areas in Moderna Museet’s main building, accessible to the public but not used for art. Visitors can affect the showing of the video diary by increasing or decreasing the speed, playing the video backwards or freezing the picture. Outside the museum’s main entrance Honoré d’O will simultaneously stage another site and weather-related related work, “False Blackhole Parball Snowdonation”, which involves snow.

Honoré d´O calls himself a composer, someone who seeks the “right” tone, regardless of whether it is harmonious or dissonent, through combining things and situations. The general title he has given to his work is “total communication”, that is, he strives the greatest possible contact with those encountering his art. His work appears in what is an almost organic process, but with a sort of mad logic. Instead of primarily viewing an exhibition as an opportunity to show his art, d´O sees each exhibition asa creative situation, a summons and an incentive not to have total control – to allow for chance.

Honoré d’O was born in 1961 in Oudenaarde in Belgium. He lives and works in Ghent.

Curator: Maria Lind