Thomas Raat: selected works

 

Available works

'Babel', 140 x 200 cm, plastic tape on paper, 2010

 

'Babel 2', 93 x 64 cm, plastic tape on paper, 2010

 

New Order, 2009, plastic tape on paper, 88 x 68 cm

 

Holy P., 2009, plastic tape on paper, 88 x 68 cm [x2]

 

z.T., 2009, plastic tape on paper, 78 x 68 cm

 

About Thomas Raat: The Persistence of the Present

Thomas Raat turns to the parameters of contemporary art locating sites of adjustment and revision, points of rupture that scar and mark, exposing readings indeterminable within the initial proposition of works. Beyond replication and re-manufacture Raat’s works are vehicles of trajectory, retrieved marks that collapse the given or implied histories from which they draw source, retaining these as inherent and intrinsic but considering them as solvent and subject to revision. Raat locates the motifs and conceptual agendas of existing works as starting points for his own works, adopting visual code as a point of activation and trigger rather than as a point of retrospective return or backward gaze. Raat’s work sits aside from parody as an endgame in itself drawing on disclosures of interruption, intervention and vandalism, as points of temporal revival through which works break from their own histories. Raat proposes continuing and continual readings in the here-and–now above readings harboured and contained, as relic, within the past.

Adopting systems of binary opposition and inversion Raat renovates ruptures that amplify the past in the persistence of the present, redressing representation and reconfiguring authorship. [Charles Danby]

 

 

'Mondriaan 45 graden - 3' & 'Mondriaan 45 graden - 4', each 123 x 123 cm, 2008, oil on canvas in wooden frame

 

'There', 40 x 50 x 155 cm, wax and metal, 2008, edition of 3, including new wax piece of 155 cm

 

'MUMU', typewriter text on paper, A4[29,7 x 21 cm], 2008 & 'Pamphlet and Moor etihw eh't, 156*310 en 179*128*42, plastic and tape, sound and speakers, cables, 2008

 

'Lethal Label', c-print on aluminium,
ed 4 + 1 e.a., 100 x 150 cm, 2008 or 'Lethal Label', c-print on aluminium,
ed 10 + 3 e.a., 50 x 70 cm, 2008

 

Underpainting: White / Black 2007, plastic tape on paper, 23 x 18 cm (x2)

 

Emmausgangers, 2006, 115 x 127 cm, plastic tape on paper

 

 

Alteration: exhibition in Transit 28/10 - 16/12/2007

Thomas Raat is gefascineerd hoe met kunstwerken omgegaan wordt, nadat ze het atelier hebben verlaten:  hoe ze bijvoorbeeld het doelwit worden van agressie of corruptie. Niet zozeer de normale toestand van een schilderij in het museum interesseert hem, eerder vindt hij zijn inspiratie bij werken die door vlijmscherpe messen of bijtende zuren werden verminkt, of eenvoudigweg werden vervalst.  Het zijn deze subtiele elementen in de geschiedenis van een schilderij die tot thema’s werden voor zijn eigen creaties.  Wat Raat bij de vervalsingen eveneens boeit is dat men net uit de vergelijking van het originele met het vervalste beeld de ware essentie van een meesterwerk kan ontdekken.  Uit dit onderzoek ontwikkelt Raat zijn nieuwe ”schilderijen” die zich als omgekeerde röntgenopnamen en dwarsdoorsneden van denkprocessen aan de buitenwereld presenteren. Vertrekkend vanuit een klein detail, weet hij middels plakken en knippen tot het uiteindelijke beeldmotief door te dringen.  Het welslagen van een werk hangt ervan af of men aan het einde van dit proces nog de energie van het originele beeld kan “voelen“. (vrij naar Erno Vroonen)

Kataloog beschikbaar, 96 bladzijden met teksten van Erno Vroonen en Allart Lakke/Thomas Raat

Broadway Boogie Woogie 45°, 2007, plastic tape on paper, 200 x 150 cm, pc & Victory Boogie Woogie 45°, 2007, plastic tape on paper, 200 x 150 cm, pc

 

Fragment of a text by Erno Vroonen, 2007:

It fascinated him to see how works of art were handled once they had left the studio: how, for example, they became the object of aggression and corruption. It was not the normal state of a painting in a museum that interested him; his inspiration came more from works mutilated by razor-sharp knives or corrosive acids, or which were simply forged. It was these subtle elements in the history of a painting that became the subject of his own creations. Another thing that fascinated Raat about forgeries was that it was precisely by comparing the original with the forged picture that one could uncover the true essence of a masterpiece. It was from this study that Raat developed his new ‘paintings’, which presented themselves to the outside world as reverse X-rays and cross-sections of thought processes. Starting from a small detail, he was able to penetrate to the final visual motif by means of cutting and pasting. The success of a work depended on whether one could still feel the energy of the original image at the end of the process.

 

The Letter, 2007, plastic tape on paper, 57 x 48 cm, pc & Woman Playing Music 2007, plastic tape on paper, 59 x 49 cm, pc

 

Mondriaan 45° 2007, plastic tape on paper, framed, 43 x 33 cm (x5), all pc

 

Selfportrait in Front of One of my Paintings, 2007, plastic tape on paper, 165 x 220 cm, pc & 'Smoker', plastic tape on paper, 2007, 45 x 35,5 cm, pc

 

 

 

 

2007 more works

 

Last Supper (Hondius - Van Megeren), 2007, diptychon, 184 x 244 cm (x2), plastic tape on paper / click here for larger LEFT image or RIGHT image, pc

 

Malle Babbe (Hals - Van Megeren), 2007, diptychon, 75*64 & 78*66, plastic tape on paper, pc

 

Kantwerkster (Vermeer), 2007, 45 x 40 cm, pc & Smiling Girl (Vermeer), 2007, 40 x 30cm, pc & Portrait of a Woman (Goya), 62 x 48 cm, 2007, pc
all mixed media on paper

 

  Mansportret, 2007, 30 x 25 cm, plastic tape on paper, pc &   Vermeer-Signature, 2007, 25 x 34 cm, pc

 

© 2010 - Transit