Text: Simon Delobel, Céline Mathieu, Gabriela González Rondón, Alex Deforce (EN)
In the tradition of painting, the concept of creating copies and paying homage to great works has deep historical roots. However, Dieter Durinck takes this age-old practice and infuses it with a new and distinctive perspective in his Bootleg series. Durinck reinterprets both well-known and lesser-known 20th-century artworks, infusing them with vibrant green and black oil paint.
This collection has now expanded to encompass 36 artworks from a diverse array of artists. In doing so, Durinck not only pays homage to the art history that inspires him but also prompts us to ponder how we engage with and perceive these works in the contemporary context, where reproductions often take precedence over originals. As John Berger put it, 'the uniqueness of the original now lies in it being the original of a reproduction' (Ways of Seeing 21).
Posture Editions N° 51 presents a retrospective of this significant collection, reflecting on Durinck’s art history with texts by Simon Delobel, Céline Mathieu and Gabriela González Rondón and Alex Deforce.
In the book, Durinck combines the green-and-black paintings with grids he recovers from old transfer films from the pre-computer era or repetitive patterns he finds in objects and assembles into graphic backgrounds.
