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"Night Time (extended)" - Hans Op de Beeck 2015 Full HD video, black and white, sound, 2015 (19 minutes 20 seconds) ‘Night time (extended)’ is a dark, enigmatic animation without text based on a large series of monumental monochrome watercolours which Op de Beeck steadily realised over the past five years, in between all his other multidisciplinary projects. All the watercolours were painted by the artist at night in complete solitude and concentration.This nightly atmosphere is a tangible presence in the metropolitan landscapes, the images of nature, the buildings, interiors and characters which the artist brings to life in the film. "Night time (extended)" is conceived as a mysterious dream in which all proportions, perspectives and environments are fictitious. In this way, intimate close-ups are made to alternate with sweeping images; every image clearly and visibly the product of deliberate construction. The film is comforting and soothing, yet also exudes a sense of dormant danger and derailment, just as in the film noir tradition. Here, Op de Beeck brings together an anachronistic whole of both classical and distinctly contemporary themes into an effortless blend of both highly cultivated and more visceral subcultural elements.

Hans Op de Beeck produces large installations, sculptures, films, drawings, paintings, photographs and texts. His work is a reflection on our complex society and the universal questions of meaning and mortality that resonate within it. He regards man as a being who stages the world around him in a tragi-comic way. Above all, Op de Beeck is keen to stimulate the viewers’ senses, and invite them to really experience the image. He seeks to create a form of visual fiction that delivers a moment of wonder and silence. Over the past fifteen years Op de Beeck realized numerous monumental ‘sensorial’ installations, in which he evoked what he describes as ‘visual fictions’: tactile deserted spaces as an empty set for the viewer to walk through or sit down in, sculpted havens for introspection. In many of his films though, in contrast with those depopulated spaces, he prominently depicts anonymous characters. Hans Op de Beeck was born in Turnhout in 1969. He lives and works in Brussels and Gooik, Belgium. Op de Beeck has shown his work extensively in solo and group exhibitions around the world. He had substantial institutional solo shows at the GEM Museum of Contemporary Art of The Hague, The Hague, NL (2004); MUHKA Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, B (2006); Centraal Museum, Utrecht, NL (2007); the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, US (2010); KunstmuseumThun, CH (2010); Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos, ES (2010); Butler Gallery, Kilkenny, IRL (2012); Kunstverein Hannover, D (2012); Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, USA (2013); the Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, FL, USA (2013); FRAC Paca, Marseille, F (2013); MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Boston MA, US (2014); MOCA Cleveland, OH, US (2014); Sammlung Goetz, Munich, D (2014), … Op de Beeck participated in numerous group shows at institutions such as The Reina Sofia, Madrid, ES; the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ, US; the Towada Art Center, Towada, JP; ZKM, Karlsruhe, DE; MACRO, Rome, IT; the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, GB; PS1, New York, NY, US; Musée National d’ArtModerne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR; Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Köln, DE; Hangar Bicocca, Milano, IT; the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, JP; 21C Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, US; The Drawing Center, New York, NY, US; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, AT; Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, CN; MAMBA, Buenos Aires, AR; Haus der Kunst, Munich, DE; Museod’ArteModerna di Bologna, Bologna, IT; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn DE, … His work was invited for the Venice Biennale, Venice, IT; the Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, CN; the Aichi Triennale, Aichi, JP; the Singapore Biennale, Singapore, SG; Art Summer University, Tate Modern, London, GB; the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, IN, and many other art events.