Paul De Reus: Bloom Gallery.

The invitation to Paul de Reus' recent show depicted a young boy standing outside a closed door, waiting to be let in; by bending the corner of the card, one could see the same boy standing in a corner as though he had been punished and was waiting for a reprieve. These images - the original, folded version of which, entitled THUIS (At home/at ease; all works 1996), formed the centerpiece of the show - suggested an anxious need for security and intimacy.

The world de Reus' exhibition depicted was both unsettling and absurd. Inside the gallery the young Dutch artist built a wall out of wood, dividing the exhibition space into two compartments: an "inside" and an "outside." He then stained the wall with coffee and pigment and created a windowlike aperture, outside of which stood a pile of empty tin cans. The interior of the space appeared to have been suddenly abandoned - in front of a mattress, for example, were scattered photographs of a shirt and a pair of pants. On the wall hung a photograph entitled Rook en Damp (Smoky and steamy), which depicted an interior including a table strewn with coffee cups and ashtrays containing still-smoking cigarettes, while on the gallery floor lay a mattress with fake though writhing worms, which underlined the powerful sense of dissolution and decay.

Also hanging on the walls were three mirrors painted with red, laughing mouths. The mouths were contorted and malevolent, more ghostlike than human. The viewer, however, was also reflected, but in the last mirror the reflection was mingled with images of painted figures holding drinking glasses; only fragments of one's own image were visible.

In the center of the interior space de Reus had installed a fence; an artificial. heart crawled on one side of it, while a mechanized latex brain jumped up and down on the other. These "organs" were the only vestiges of human presence. Yet, of course, both were fake, and the brain crept about erratically, while the "heart" was a pump that sucked and thrusted tragicomically. In this piece feeling and intellect veered off in completely different directions.

De Reus' earlier work included wooden figures that either assumed monstrous proportions or were missing body parts; these figures, put together with hair, rubber, or textiles, were installed in fantastic combinations and paradoxical situations. These alienated figures moved by mechanical aid or were lit up from within. In the recent show, these three-dimensional figures were replaced with the life-size photographs of a man and a woman that stood outside the interior space. Like a print ad, the image of this intertwined and silhouetted two-dimensional couple was superimposed with text: "headache," "no desire," "maybe tomorrow," and "not now."

The grotesque works that were on view served as distorted reflections of the visitor, who felt like a participant in some bizarre story of which only the props remain. Despite the evocation of an interior, the installation didn't suggest domesticity: one couldn't possibly feel at home in this oppressive atmosphere. It seemed more than likely to inspire anxious dreams, and yet one gazed on this ironic scenario with fascination, eager to explore and understand.

- Frank-Alexander Hettig

Translated from the German by David Jacobson.