Managing Accidents, Incidents and Claims

Who doesn’t know them: the large green square bags with a zipper and an isolating material on the inside that are used by couriers to deliver meals to your home. They usually pass by with high speed on their bikes and scooters. But here, in the presentation Managing accidents, incidents and claims by Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen, the courier came to a halt. His head is resting on top of his Deliveroo bag, his bike has been dismantled and folded into the bag. time out!

A constant throughout the multidisciplinary work of Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen is their fascination with human behavior, the coded structures within it, the influence of time, place and socio-economic structures on human relationships, physiognomy and body language. Their work departs from the notion that people are essentially always playing a role. Sculptures almost become persons and function as performers in a both realistic and imaginary theater of the commonplace. The gestures are based on observations in public spaces, like art fairs.

Breure & Van Hulzen take on doing nothing as a state of being in which an idea can be born and something new can arise. Mees is sitting on the dishwasher, doing nothing. Chris leans against the wall with his headphones. Whether these time outs are just for a short time or a fundamental decision not to participate in the system is not immediately clear. These figures seem – after the famous example of Bartleby, the office clerk from a short story by Melville who one day when asked for the umpteenth job refuses, saying ‘I prefer not to’ – to step out of their role to seek the confrontation with themselves. [Pietje Tegenbosch]

Exhibition at Art Brussels, 2019, winner of the Discovery Prize