2018

Fifth & final chapter

In 2014, HORST Arts & Music starts as an experiment in which electronic music and site-specific visual art are presented together on the historical location of the Castle of Horst. The starting point is that both components are of equal importance. Artists of diverse backgrounds and ages are invited in the process to make new work or to reinterpret already existing work in this particular framework, with modest means but with sheer enthusiasm and support of the organization and volunteers. The past four editions of the festival have demonstrated the new possibilities and cross-fertilizations can that arise from this.

HORST has grown to be an alternative and unique format in the (inter)national festival scene. Nevertheless, this edition is the last on this location. After 5 years, HORST will choose for a change of scenery, to treasure the momentum here. It will look for a new space where it can begin the second chapter of this story, with the same philosophy and open mind.

The art exhibition of the fifth and final edition of HORST Arts & Music festival is themed Archetypes. With this idea, we refer to the concept of variations on an idealized primal model. The term is derived from Greek and is used across many fields, including philosophy and psychology. In architecture, the term denotes a historical continuity of ways of building, but with own modifications given certain times and styles. The theme stems from the castle of Horst and its surroundings, which read as a collection of archetypal structures and landscape elements. 

First and foremost, there is the castle, based on the model of an enclosed castle with donjon, but there is also the coach house, based on the typology of the barn, the artificial pond, the orchard and the tree-lined driveway. Opposite of these historical elements, the art exhibition manifests itself as a temporary collection of new, contemporary archetypes. A first series of works take classical architectural archetypes as subject matter: the shelter, the wall, the column, the window, and the roof all make an appearance. A second series of work rather thematize important landscape archetypes: the bridge, the tree-lined driveway, the pond. These are complemented with two archetypes hors catégorie through the work of Atelier Bow-Wow and Katja Mater.

This year too, Horst challenged artists or architects to work on the design of a temporary music stage, in which music and visual art are directly related. There were three stages, of which the main stage was conceived by the Japanese architecture firm Atelier Bow-Wow. Central to their work were the archetypes from the Japanese architectural tradition, but with a modern twist. Their Lakeside Dancers Club took inspiration from the universal archetype of the ark.

Ghent-based artist collective 019 was asked two things: the design of a stage and the scenography of the festival. Their answer was one monumental construction: a wall of scaffolding piercing through the site from orchard to pond. The wall took direct inspiration from the typology of the castle wall, including banners and tilts. At some points, this wall was a walkway, at others a panoramic viewpoint, a carrier of festival services (such as the entrance and the bar). 019 however took it even one step further. The wall was also a vehicle for existing flags, designed by different visual artists, making it an exhibition within the exhibition. 

The third stage was the result of research of Collective Practice, a design studio with students mentored by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh and Michiel Helbig (KU Leuven). They looked into the ways in which an informal shelter could be used to create new spaces on the festival. A quest to the essence of ‘the roof’ in architecture.

Besides a stage, a yearly commission is also the artist’s poster, which could also be considered an archetype in the visual arts. For the artist, this is always a challenge, because the work is no longer unique and autonomous, but needs to take into account a wide range of other parameters. For this edition, Katja Mater designed, in collaboration with the usual graphic designers Ronny & Johny, a poster based on her two-dimensional work. Mater also shows a large-scale flag in which this image is given a second interpretation.

Erki De Vries and Pieter Huybrechts showed BookProject #9 HA&MF 3220, a spatial installation positioned in the open field and directed towards the natural environment. Inside the wooden installation, actual perspectives and photographic deformations of those perspectives are staged alongside, hence challenging the interpretation of the outside space and the relation between reality and representation – what is real and what is not. 

It could be argued that the column, together with the wall, is one of the most fundamental archetypal elements in architecture. With The Questioning Column, Sheila Hicksconfronted the heaviness and stasis of the column with the lightness, flexibility and colours of textile, hence offering us a different perspective on the notion ‘column’. 
 

Architects de vylder vinck taillieu took the opportunity on last year’s edition of HORST to not only design a music stage, but also a pavilion. Huge amounts of bricks were piled (not glued or cemented together) between the concrete floor and roof plates. The pavilion was a new place to stay, to find shelter, and framed the view on the ponds and green surroundings. However, under pressure from the Heritagen Agency the pavilion was demolished a few months after its completion. 

Caronline Coolen is a Belgian sculptor who compresses the kaleidoscopic impressions of the outside world – what she calls “Umwelt” – in one single image. Chum depicts a primitive hut, made up of porcelain plates in birch bark pattern and referring to the adventurous, nomadic existence, a shelter in the wilderness. To festivals, but also to the temporary stays for refugees. The birch plays an important in this: these fast-growing trees shoot out first on derelict lands and hence could be considered pioneers – just like the first tents were pioneers’ work. 

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The top-drawer music program gathered over 40 artists from around the globe. The line-up combined the avant-garde, local talent and the ones experimenting with new trends in dance and electronic music. Among them are Motor City Drum Ensemble, Hunee, DJ Fett Burger, I-F Josey Rebelle, Mr Scruff, Palms Trax, Octo Octa, DJ Python, Ron Morelli, DJ Stingray and many others. Explore the feel of the various artists in this recap full of bursting beats and matchless atmospheres.