Ria Verhaeghe is a Belgian artist
Episode 503: Ria Verhaeghe‘s recent book Provisoria, published by Art Paper Editions (APE), has been a revelation to me. I was sent the book by the publisher recently, though he had mentioned that he had been working on it some months ago and thought I might find it interesting.
When the book arrived, it confirmed several conceits in my own work and, more generally, in art, that have been on my mind. For example, the work itself is a meditation on media, the use of images, both traumatic and damaged, and how the artist has assembled an archive of these images over the last thirty or so years in her journals, which now, in its vast 60,000 images, forms a cogent examination of press, newspaper, and media images and how they have been used to discuss many different topics, but in Ria’s hands become something different, decotextualized, and more enigmatic when assembled in her books. Ascribing a new categorization to images, the artist presents these mediatized images as fodder for a rearranging of the world and its images.
Our conversation spanned the length of Ria’s career, with a deep focus on the categories she speaks about and the idea of repairing images when decontextualized from their situated forms in newspapers, etc. We spoke about her history and touched on her family history, as well as her history as a mother and an artist. It was a rewarding discussion, and I believe people will begin to understand the complexity of Provisoria through our conversation and may understand a bit more about Ria herself. Please Tune In.
