Karl Philips, born in 1984 (BE)
From 2011 onwards, Belgian artist Karl Philips has been developing a growing international artistic practice using a wide variety of media. This vast body of work (containing drawing , sculpture, scenography, architectural interventions, video, performance etc.) stems from investigating places where public and private space meet.
Philips’s artworks seem to be constructed as conceptual antitheses to societal algorithms, to ways of behaving, we often take for granted. He sheds light on the tipping point between action and activism, between the psychological and the physical and between the metaphorical and the concrete. Philips often approaches the intersubjective as a formal language, allowing him to use, attack, rearrange or rethink society's connective tissue in compressed shapes.
These carefully organised "visual manifestations of will" seem to speak of the artists' desire to revalue common sense and also hint at Philips' dissatisfaction with solipsistic studio artistry. In this light, the artist's motivation for choosing a broad and expansive toolbox, ranging from autonomous 'pictures' to theatrical projects, seems most clear.
The artist mostly collaborates with a diverse, flexible group of professionals on a semi-permanent basis. Because of their specific skills, all of those involved play an important role in the development of Karl Philips’ artistic practice.