RING LIGHT NEW TESTAMENT: NEW BOOK BY PETER DE POTTER

The new book by Belgian artist Peter De Potter is about the performative body.

With contemporary visual culture a constant context to frame De Potter’s work, this volume contemplates and grasps the way the current generation represents itself on platforms like TikTok and Onlyfans.

In the realm of socials everyone is performing – and everyone is decidedly in on the act. The performance itself has turned into a complex yet universal language creators and viewers alike speak, decode and use.

In this book De Potter conjures a series of micro-actions and situations, blurring the line between staging and documentation.

His cast, isolated in abstracted stripped-down interiors, interacts with specific objects, some heavy with symbolism (a scythe representing harvest as well as death and war), while more mundane objects (a motorcycle tyre, folding rulers, an pair of army overalls or a gaming chair) are used as props to perform puzzling, slightly absurdist scenes. Everone is pictured mid-action, absorbed in the ongoings – it’s unclear the viewer witnesses spontaneous or instructed gestures.

The body here is the main communicator, unabashed and free. Conscious of being documented and critically aware of the referential power it holds over the very image it’s being featured in.

RING LIGHT NEW TESTAMENT is a tribute, a fascination.

hardcover
256 pages
24 x28,5 X 4 cm
sewn bound
Edition of 450
mature content
Published by visual art services & peter de potter
July 2023
ISBN 9789082587722