Lydia Hannah Debeer

the view

Lydia Debeer - video - The View

Lydia Debeer, The View

The View 2014

looped video displayed on a lcd screen, silent, 08'45''

A couple, distant and yet affectionate, stares intensely at nothing. They swap places, sink in posture, lean more heavily against the little white wall or against each other. They neither communicate nor look at each other. She makes a quick phone call, but they constantly remain focused on the blank foreground.

“ [...] The work The View, of 2014, together with The Undertaker, forms an almost contrapuntal pair. In The View everything is clear, spatially open, instead of being dark, oppressive and closed, but at the same time the space here is just as geometrically architectonic as in The Undertaker. Here, too, all manner of associations arise, such as for example the 19th century panorama, or the film The Truman Show, which both impart a certain unreality, however much they wish to portray reality in a faithful manner. The accidental presence of two people in the image acts as a painterly repoussoir that increases the sense of space and depth in the image. Just as the building plays the leading role in The Undertaker, in The View the wall is the protagonist. The people who are present by chance, who stand leaning over it and gaze off into the distance, are merely the confirmation of this. They see what we cannot see. Nothing changes in this work, and because there is almost nothing to see, the eye looks for distractions. The grid of a drain, an irregularity in the paving, some grass that has nestled itself between the stones, maybe a seagull that passes through the image. The view of both people who gaze into the distance stays hidden from us, and the title of the work refers more to the action of looking than to the view itself.”

- excerpt from the text of Frank Lubbers for The Empty Foxhole publication ↳ full text

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