Urgent Conversations: Athens – Antwerp

Philippe Van Snick’s 10 Days – 10 Nights consists of a series of twenty canvases mounted on cardboard. The work represents an early example of how the artist brings together certain fundamental principles in his practice, thereby occupying a key position within his oeuvre. Drawing on the decimal system (0–9), Van Snick creates ten pairs of paintings in this work. Each pair combines a light blue and a black area, referring respectively to day and night. Around these areas, he applies a border in one of the ten colours from his characteristic colour palette: the primary colours red, yellow and blue; the secondary colours orange, green and violet; the non-colours white and black; and the metallic colours gold and silver. Throughout his practice, Philippe Van Snick shows how setting a small number of constraints can give rise to endless variation.