January 26 - March 18, 2012

La Grande Fête des Voyeurs is the first retrospective overview of the Rotterdam artist Han Hoogerbrugge. TENT presents a selection of his interactive animations, video projections, slide series and drawings from the past fifteen years. From the pioneering phase in which Hoogerbrugge made moving animations with simple computer software, to the sophisticated computer technology with which he entices the public to interact in playing his games. Hoogerbrugge has developed into a prominent example of a contemporary cross-media artistic practice, in which the boundaries between the virtual and the reality, between dream and nightmare, between high and low art, do not exist. Hoogerbrugge’s drawings and animations are regularly on show at festivals, during pop concerts, in newspapers and magazines, but also in museums, exhibition spaces and galleries.

Hoogerbrugge studied painting at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam in the eighties. In the nineties the Internet played a determining role in his career. In the early days of the web Hoogerbrugge was already busy carrying out the first experiments. The Internet offered Hoogerbrugge a boundless exhibition space. He began with a series of web animations, Modern Living/Neurotica, which is an autobiographical series of line drawings in the realistic style that Hoogerbrugge still uses today. The Neurotica series reflects on dreams, expectations, daily experiences and human fears. The limitations of the Internet clearly influenced Hoogerbrugge’s animation style: “The first animations had to be as small as possible. They had to be screened within 20 seconds. Consequently they make a brief and succinct statement, without any intros.” In the meantime Hoogerbrugge’s work takes many forms; prints, comic strips, installations, films, music videos, games, animations, performances and, as of recently, even holograms. He publishes a daily comic on his website Pro Stress. And always with the same theme occupying centre stage: sharing his obsessions, neuroses and emotions with the public without reservation.

photos: Job Janssen & Jan Adriaans, photos opening: Aad Hoogendoorn