New Born by Frederik Lizen (2019)
Original painting of spray and acril on wooden panels, made by Belgian artist Frederik Lizen in 2019. This monumental work ‘Newborn’is showing a new born calf, a young bull, in primary colours.
The work was made by Lizen on the wooden building panels sheltering the Antwerp Stock Exchange, one of Antwerps most impressive neo-gothic buildings dating back to 1531. The magnificent Stock Exchange burnt down two times and was rebuilt once and again.
The building stood empty for over 20 years and re-opened as The Sapphire House, a luxury hotel in 2022. During the renovation period that took over 6 years, Lizen made this work in 2019 at one of the monumental entry gates.‘New Born’ representing a new born bull calf as part of a diptych, the other representing a newborn horse, a foal. A symbolical representation of the beginning of new life: still fragile yet strong and unstoppable.
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Dimensions:
W: 226 cm
H: 243 cm
D: 3 cm
Weight: approx. 50 kilo
Material: multiplex, acryl paint, spray paint
An insight in the work of Frederik Lizen (Antwerp, 1986):
He put his graffiti spraycans on ice already years ago, but if there’s one thing Frederik Lizen hasn’t lost since his early heartthumping train hopping days, it’s his fast eye, scanning every city street he roams upon. Always looking left, right, up and down for his next canvas, a new opportunity, a blank paper in his open air atelier. It might be a nailed shut shopping window on a run-down street corner: if he stops, it’s there. The artist takes mental notes and some real photographs to study the place and it’s surroundings. What’s the idea that might be working here? What’s the hook that will make people stop, ponder and smile, even if they were previously only in a rush to work?
“To make a good work, I need an audience”, Lizen claims. Once painted, the work is not finished, not just yet. Most artists would shiver to their bones knowing one of their paintings is left outside in the pooring rain, let alone that some passerby would use a marker pen to scribble a message on it, but for Lizen these circumstances are only part of the process, leading up to the final work. In fact, he wants to start a dialogue between his work and it’s surroundings. “For me, the challenge is to incorporate these changes or add-ons again into the work”.
With his critical and often humorous puns on the way his city, and by extension the world, is evolving with all it’s environmental and geopolitical problems, Frederik wants to stir a conversation. Often animals are the actors in his work, holding a mirror for us, the viewers. He plays with slang, loanwords and typography. He wants to tickle people to question his work, criticise it openly or post it on their socials as an in promptu time document of his work. Only when the artist considers the work as finished, Frederik will try to persuade the owners so he can replace the panels and bring them into the shelter of his atelier or an art space.
Expositions:
Frederik Lizen already had a series of solo expositions and group expositions at Geukens & De Vil, Valerie troost, Valerie Traan, Barbé Gallery. ‘It’s Sunday at sea’. Showed his work in the Venetian gallery in Ostend and he contributed with multiple works to Crystal Ship in Ostend. One of his works ‘Niet Schelde’ was also shown high on the building of MHKA, Antwerps Museum of Contemporary Art.
Art collections:
Douzens of Lizens works are part of important art collections in Belgium and abroad. Also Verbeke Foundation shows three works of Frederik in their permanent collection. One of his works ‘Contact Losgehen’. was also acquired by the Flemish government. The documentary series ‘Acquisition’/ ‘Aanwinst’, launched in Februari 2024 on VRT Max zoomed in on his work and practice as one of the seven contemporary artists that were added that year to the art collection of the Flemish Community.
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