Exhibition 'De Ateliers 1985-1993' Centre for fine arts, Brussels
In the city park in Brussels, Doorenweerd chose a place, a position, for his work with a commanding view. The installation was at the crossroads of several broad av-enues, with lines of sight extending into the distance in several directions. Because the park is on a hill, it has a spectacular view of the city. As you approached the ‘chairs’, they at first seemed to be arranged in a kind of circle, but not quite facing one another. If you sat in one of them, you were looking just past the person sitting more or less in front of you. Further examination re-vealed that the arrangement was based on a plan with two intersecting axes forming an X. The chairs were just to the sides of these imaginary axes, like the blades of a helicopter. The seats were elevated so that the people in them had their eyes at the same level as the passers-by. This work divided the Belgians in Brussels into two groups, those with self-confidence and those without, because the people who took a seat knew they were making a spectacle of themselves. This does not imply, however, that they were at a disadvantage. The people standing near the chairs, or walking by them, might easily have had the same sense of being watched – and felt the same discomfort. (Elly Stegeman)