Nocturnal Journey

In Nocturnal Journey, visual artist Hans Op de Beeck (b. 1969) invites us on an extraordinary journey through a desolate, mysterious landscape. His monochrome grey sculptures appear petrified or dusted with ash, as if frozen in time.

These works draw the viewer in and invite contemplation on the poetry of everyday, unguarded moments. But there is more. Behind the serene beauty lies an enigmatic, dark atmosphere of impending derailment. The frozen figures—characters, still lifes, objects, animals, nature, and architecture—come together to form an uncanny, surreal world that compels us to reflect on our humanity.

This book presents a remarkable visual record that captures the unique mood of the exhibition.

With texts by Annelien De Troij, Stéphane Symons and Hans Op de Beeck.

Hans Op de Beeck (BE) produces large installations, sculptures, films, drawings, paintings, photographs and texts. His work is a reflection on our complex society and the universal questions of meaning and mortality that resonate within it. He regards man as a being who stages the world around him in a tragi-comic way. Above all, Op de Beeck is keen to stimulate the viewers’ senses, and invite them to really experience the image. He seeks to create a form of visual fiction that delivers a moment of wonder and silence. Over the past 20 years Op de Beeck realised numerous monumental ‘sensorial’ installations, in which he evoked what he describes as ‘visual fictions’: tactile deserted spaces as an empty set for the viewer to walk through or sit down in, sculpted havens for introspection. In many of his films though, in contrast with those depopulated spaces, he prominently depicts anonymous characters. Hans Op de Beeck was born in Turnhout in 1969. He lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. Op de Beeck has shown his work extensively in solo and group exhibitions around the world.