Katrien De Blauwer

You Could At Least Pretend To Like Yellow is the 8th book of the collage artist Katrien De Blauwer (b. 1969, Belgium). In the Libraryman’s words: Katrien De Blauwer gives new meaning and life to what is residual, saving images from destruction and including them in a new narration that combines intimacy and anonymity. Her work therefore deals with memory, basically. Memory by accumulation rather than by substraction. Her work brings to mind the procedures of photomontage or film editing. The cut being used as a frame that marks the essential.

Yellow; a colour equally representing clarity and honor, as well as cowardice and deceit, was never a colour the artist cared about — therefore it became a basis for her latest work. The book references Vilgot Sjöman’s I Am Curious (Yellow) from 1967, an erotic film about sexual liberation and psychological analysis. Unaware of the film, De Blauwer found the film’s book by coincidence in one of the antique shops, and awaiting to see the actual film pretended to like yellow. The book contains the verso of each work, which rarely has been shown before, and is as unique as its recto. All works are printed in their actual and individual size.

Katrien De Blauwer calls herself a “photographer without a camera”. She collects and recycles pictures and photos from old magazines and papers. Her work is, at the same time, intimate, directly corresponding with our unconscious, and anonymous thanks to the use of found images and body parts that have been cut away. This way, her personal history becomes the history of everyone. Katrien De Blauwer gives new meaning and life to what is residual, saving images from destruction and including them in a new narration that combines intimacy and anonymity. Her work therefore deals with memory, basically. Memory by accumulation rather than by substraction. Her work brings to mind the procedures of photomontage or film editing. The cut being used as a frame that marks the essential.