Bent Van Looy

Born in 1976 in Antwerp, Van Looy studied painting at the St.Lucas in Ghent. He became well-known as a musician playing in bands such as Soulwax and Das Pop. Looking at the landscapes and figures inhabiting the surfaces of his paintings we are reminded of Edgar Allan Poe’s visions, the Période Vache of Magritte or Walt Disney’s early movies. Throughout the practice Van Looy thoughtfully deploys hindsight, left in our time, to evoke a Disneyfied ersatz version of Romanticism. The beauty of his paintings resides in his ability to balance the weight of their fundamentals and the fragility of his subjects. In the end, the hodgepodge cast of seemingly naïve and impassive characters move in a world that, much like ours, is a terrible place but where the cruel reflections on Plato’s cave wall bathe in the gooey magenta hue of a Hollywood sunset. ...

Super Dakota is a contemporary art gallery founded in 2013 supporting both emerging international artists and established leading artists. The gallery presents multi-disciplinary works with an emphasis on new technologies. They collaborate with galleries and institutions around the world and are committed to developing the career of the artists they represent. Their practice, ethics and integrity are the very core of their project. The galleries program highlights contemporary issues embedded in the zeitgeist and their exhibitions explore cultural, political as well as social contents. Artists exhibited at Super Dakota include but not exclusively: Mark Leckey, Paul McCarthy, Elizabeth Peyton, Adam Pendleton, Jeremy Deller, Alberta Whittle, Wade Guyton, Alexandra Domanovic, Julia Wachtel, Metahaven, Tabor Robak, John Divola, Jan Groover, Math Bass, Lawrence Weiner, Jacob Kassay, Oliver Laric, Magali Reus, Lothar Hempel, Neïl Beloufa, Sin Wai Kin, Bruce Nauman, Sanam Khatibi, Yvonne Rainer, Fischli & Weiss, Raymond Pettibon, Christine Wang, Sarah Abu Abdallah, Fred Sandback, Slavs and Tatars. ...