SUMNIM (2012)
MIXED TECHNIQUE
In his museum room, Nick Ervinck alludes to a field of tension within contemporary architecture. On the one hand, a desire for radical innovation - spurred by digitization and modern techniques - takes shape in the organic structures of so-called blob architecture, a style in which the exterior of buildings appears whimsical, amorphous, almost fluid. In contrast, rigid, angular forms reflect an essentialist vision linked to tradition. For Ervinck, the two worlds are not mutually exclusive. Within his oeuvre, he reduces the tension to a symbiotic play between “blobs” and “boxes,” in which his virtual designs enter into dialogue with the space in which they find themselves. Applied to a museum context, in SUMNIM he questions the static nature of that space, with the classic presentation of artworks against a wall or in the middle of a room. An organic form extends over much of the floor and a wall, almost to the ceiling. Within the rigid context of a “box,” at once museum space and viewing box, this smooth, distinctive yellow “blob” seems to take on a life of its own: sculpture and architecture seem to merge.