Landscape photography does not carry away my preference – but for the images of Frederik Buyckx °1984 I gladly make an exception.
Frederik’s project, exhibition and book WOLF has its roots in the first visit he made to Albania in 2009. The car he was in stopped abruptly and did not drive any further, the driver telling him to go look in the village for shelter. He knocks on a door, is warmly welcomed, given food and a place to sleep. The next morning, the pater familias walks with him because ‘wolves had been spotted’. It is a shock to Frederik, who never had he estimated the proximity of wildlife…
Originally earning a Master degree in Advertising Design, he soon realises that this does not capture his interest. He started working more and more with the camera, established himself as a photographer, and enrolled again in a course, this time at the famous Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, where the emphasis is on documentary photography.
Documentary are also his first projects: Moving Albania (2009) (where the title refers to the transition in the country, but equally to the author’s emotional involvement) and Jesus, Make Up & Football (2013) about the favelas in Brazil. On each location he chooses to stay with the people in the villages or slums, each time he chooses to live as one of them, under their protection – where life is sometimes survival by nature or by the violence of rival gangs.
His next big project became Horse Head (2019) – the name of the village that is his destination in Kyrgyzstan. Once again, he is the odd one out, once again they don’t understand what anyone comes there to do without a horse or a weapon. Again he is accepted because he is going to share their lives. He travels with them for miles on the back of his horse, obsessively returning again and again. Horse Head marks a turning point, he steps away from colour and the documentary approach. Horse Head’s journey and approach is fully reflected in WOLF.
For WOLF, he did not travel to deep central Asia but sought the inhospitable regions of Europe. Away from the consumer society, where values such as friendship, hospitality and giving without asking questions or expecting anything in return are perfectly normal.
Buyckx’s photography is pure, with no tricks, no manipulation, no frills, no room for fancies. The images are unusually impressive & overwhelming, with great inherent beauty. The donkey in the mist, the carcass of a moose, horses in a storm, the severed head of a billy goat, a snowy landscape straight out of an oriental print, vultures on a bilge… one by one they stay with you. Even more than in Horse Head, in WOLF man is present but subordinate. Here a person seen from behind, there an individual appearing from deep darkness, lonely and mostly unrecognisable. The whole a meticulous approach, as if the author fears losing nuance – a considered reasoned devotion to the art/ metier.
Frederik Buyckx recently found a booklet that his grandfather had given him when he was 11: La chèvre de Monsieur Seguin, from Alphonse Daudet’s Lettres de mon moulin. This was not just any publication, but a bilingual booklet, calligraphed and illustrated by hand by his grandfather, with a touching dedication. He may have lost sight of the booklet, but its contents impressed young Frederik all the more… The parallels between the message of the family heirloom and his own work are curious, to say the least. Its reproductions form a poetic thread throughout the exhibition and book.
For Buyckx, photography is transformed into a manifesto, into philosophical questioning and introspection. Buyckx lives his precepts like a monk of the order of St Talbot and Nièpce, a hermit in the service of the perfect image. He travelled to distant lands to get closer to himself, to find inner peace. He detached himself from society and its coercive shackles, and experienced the freedom, grandeur and power of nature. He travelled 10,000 miles to finally achieve the perfect inner journey. He questions the obvious and looks for extremes to better analyse consumer society and adjust our relationship with nature.
In the publication WOLF, you really have to look hard to spot the animal of the same name. The wolf symbolises our troubled relationship with nature. The wolf is gradually making a comeback in our regions, and some people are wondering whether it really has the right to live there. Buyckx asks whether we have the right to ask ourselves this question…
The exhibition fills all the rooms of Saint Peter’s Abbey – a challenge in itself – and ends in a room containing an enormous mass of images. In the exhibition itself, each image is carefully selected, hung with precision, you know that a precise decision preceded it. The last room shows images from a camera controlled by a motion detector: Buyckx says that he always tends to capture every moment, without taking the time to appreciate what he sees. The motion-sensor-controlled camera is the solution to this problem and adds a new dimension to his work.
WOLF is a magnificent book, perfectly designed and, as with Horse Head, printed on two different types of paper. By this, the author and designer direct our gaze towards the central images of the publication. The monochrome black cover, with only the word WOLF embossed on it and the black edged pages, completes the impression of this imposing publication. One comment: a Swiss binding might have been more appropriate for some of the images. The book and exhibition are undoubtedly among the 10 finest Belgian art initiatives of 2024.
John Devos
Johndevos.photo (a) gmail.com
EXHIBITION
till 18 august 2024, Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sint-Pietersabdij – Historische Huizen Gent
Sint-Pietersplein 9 –
9000 Ghent
+32-(0)9.266.85.00
https://historischehuizen.stad.gent/en/st-peters-abbey/exhibitions/wolf
BOOK
WOLF Frederik Buyckx
A publication of Hannibal Books
https://hannibalbooks.be/wolf#41219
Hardcover, 380 pages, 22 x 30 cm, € 69,95
Bilingual edition Dutch – English
ISBN 978 94 6494 115 9
