Karel De Cock
Karel De Cock °1982: Works and lives in Brussels, where he studied Audiovisual Arts at the Sint-Lukas Institute.
He has a practice in filmmaking and photography. In both cases he has a sociological approach in the way he works. At the very center of his practice lies the ambition to make the invisible, visible. Never looking for the exception in his subjects but making the ordinary extraordinary
In his film work the use of found footage became increasingly more present. By analysing over 1700 films from the Golden Age of Hollywood. The work Benevolence researches the way relationships between men and woman have been depicted in Hollywood films from the 40s and 50s. The result is a flicker film which reveals the different forms of sexism which are present in these films. In revealing this, the film questions the normative framework of this time but also the cinematic conventions of today’s cinema since many of these are still used to this day.
His photography work mainly deals with identity and how it relates to the public space. Stemming from the belief that the public space informs ones identity he looks in an almost scientific way what subcultures in which area thrives the most. The work Rue Neuve in Brussels gave the inspiration to explore the way young men from a mostly migrant background behave and dress in this commercial space. In the series Nanjing Road the focus was the upper middle class of Chinese women. The way people walk, dress and handle themselves in the public space is an endless source of inspiration.
In 2009 he received his Bachelor degree with his film Resonance. In 2009 he was selected for a residence at the Beijing Film Academy, resulting in the short film A Beijing Tale (2009).
He graduated as Master at the documentary department with the film Accepting the Image (2010). Both Resonance and Accepting the Image focusses on public spaces in the metropolis and have an observational approach.
From 2011 until 2013 he was involved as research assistant for Steven Jacobs at KASK, School of Arts on the project: Cinematic Representations of Visual Arts. Part of the research resulted in the film Incidents in the Museum: Art Galleries in Film.
In 2013 he participated in the Europalia Arts festival with the installation Kolkatta, Purusottam Roy St which was on display at Bozar, Palace of Fine Arts in the Indomania Exhibition. In 2014 the Installation Handmade commissioned by Dries Van Noten was on display during the exhibition “Dries Van Noten – Inspirations” at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris. In the Summer of 2015 he participated in the residency program at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai where he made the photo series Nanjing Road.
Since 2016 he teaches at the Performance and Media Arts department at KASK, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. From then on he focussed on film editing resulting in collaborations with Johan Grimonprez Shadow World (2016), Tine Guns To Each His Own Mask (2018) and Carlos Yuri Ceuninck The Master’s Plan (2021) and several others.
In 2020 he decided to refocus on his own artistic practice and to develop several new projects. The first one being Benevolence currently slated for 2023 and is in production with Rhizom-Art.