'Bridge' 2024: Thomas Kuijpers

The Project

In Giverny, Normandy, the grounds of Claude Monet’s former house host carefully-landscaped gardens, devised and arranged by the artist himself. A Japanese bridge straddles a pond of water lilies – a scene forever crystallised in Monet’s verdant hues and impressionist brushstrokes. For Thomas Kuijpers, the immortality of these images – and their extension beyond the reality they reference – was an intriguing starting point for his own visual investigations; Kuijpers’ wider practice pays close attention to the ways in which (dominant) images come to shape our perceptions of reality.

Following a preliminary visit to the gardens, Kuijpers’ research turned up another important thread: alongside hundreds of known paintings of water lilies, many more of Monet’s canvases – 26 in total, some unfinished – depict the Japanese bridge. Where particular images have perhaps displaced others in the finite disk space of art historical memory, all are considered originals – in contrast to perceptions of photographic works, which are routinely thought of as inherently reproducible. 

To encapsulate these reflections – on originality, on images and referents, on the changing means of disseminating photography and its subsequent understandings – Kuijpers returned to the gardens with a Sony Mavica, an early digital camera that he first encountered in the 1990s. This camera stored images directly on a floppy disk, bridging the gap significantly between capture and reveal, and signalling the cusp of a new photographic era. Unlike its analogue predecessors, the Mavica’s grainy images were far less likely to culminate in print – their magic lay in the relative speed with which they could be examined and admired on now-obsolete computer screens.

Shot across the seasons in Monet’s gardens, Kuijpers’ ongoing project will feature 26 of his own ‘original’ images of the iconic Japanese bridge (which itself was replaced in a recent renovation), framed alongside the Mavica’s data-laden floppy disks.

The Presentation

“When I came home from the gardens, my memories were overwhelmingly with the paintings, as opposed to the place I’d just visited. When and why do images obscure reality? Is it because reality falls short of the image? Questions of authenticity in relation to images, as well as how we deal with them, have often steered my practice, but I’ve never approached them quite like this.”

Does the production of more images, the creation of more replicas, further muddy the notion of authenticity? The proposed presentation at Art Brussels will display a selection from Kuijpers’ 26 garden/bridge pieces, shot exclusively on his Sony Mavica. He conceives each image as an original – challenging the way in which photographic work is perceived in relation to other media, namely painting. Not only do the Mavica’s grainy results allude to the impressionist qualities of Monet’s paintings, but the application of a bespoke printing technique will underscore a unique sense of tactility in each piece. 

In further dialogue with questions of originality, Kuijpers’ prints derive their scale from the particular dimensions of Monet’s own works. Presented alongside a corresponding floppy disk – onto which the image data was first transferred – a juxtaposition emerges between the ‘unique original’ and its carrier, which is open to distribution. Returning to the technical photographic innovations of the 1990s, Kuijpers’ project probes at the changing flows of image-making and dissemination, which have transformed irreversibly in the years since his childhood encounter with the Sony Mavica.

During his visits, which will continue in the months ahead, Kuijpers produced a series of audio recordings that document visitors’ reactions to the famous gardens. Illustrating the influence of Monet’s paintings in shaping expectations of the site itself, the material becomes another pertinent layer – a soundscape to accompany his printed works.

For more information on available works and prices, please contact the gallery via email at info@theravestijngallery.com