S t u d i o F i v e B e e k m a n

sound and intermedia gallery

Jacques Bekaert

War

Guest Curator David Behrman

Thursdays & Saturdays

2 - 9 PM

May 27 - June 17, 2000

These pictures were taken at the Army Museum in Hanoi. Some in 1996, the rest in 1999. These photos are not about Vietnam. The text by Robert Ashley was written for the portfolio Left Over published by Transedition (Paris)

What interests me in photography is what the eye of the camera sees. What we would miss if there were no cameras in the world. Of the original photos, nothing has been modified.

J. B.

The subtle framing that calls our attention to what is left outside of the frame is wonderfully unique to Jacques Bekeart's understanding of what he is seeing.

Also, there is the merciful relief from context. (in his experience as a journalist he has seen too many things, and so he is no longer a tourist in the world.

In these photos he has avoided the curse of photography, which is to make the present into a permanent, untouchable past in a fraction of a second.

These pictures reach out to the viewer from the present.)

And in escape from the context he has deliberately sought beauty.

He has forsaken the irony of ugliness. He has made something that is purely beautiful. He has made us believe, because there is nothing to contradict such a belief, that what is outside of the frame is also beaufiful.

In other words, the world is beautiful. This is a wonderful message.

Robert Ashley

Jacques Bekaert was born in Belgium in May 1940. As a journalist he covered American politics, before moving to Southeast Asia in 1979. He worked for the BBC, le Monde, and wrote a weekly column for The Bangkok Post (1983-1993). Some of these columns have been published in two volumes under the title "Cambodian Diary". Since 1993 he works as a diplomat, posted in Cambodia.

As a composer, he studied with Henri Pousseur and worked or performed with the Sonic Art Union, John Cage, the Merce Cunningham Dance Co, George Lewis, Rae Imamura, Transition (with Takehisa Kosugi) and Tom Buckner. He has composed the music for two short films by Akiko Iimura. Several of his compositions have been published by Lovely Music. His photographic and graphic works have been exhibited in the USA, Vietnam and Belgium.

For more information:

web site: home.earthlink.net/~jbekaert