JOSEPH Le Blog / Picture This - interview

JOSEPH Le Blog - Picture This // Michiel Keuper - screen shot

My Instagram account is featured in the section Picture This on JOSEPH Le Blog; for link click here.
Below the full interview about images that catch my eye, how I juxtapose my account and why I coined the term visual composer to describe my work.

Michiel Keuper - Untitled, 2016, acrylic and ink on magazine.

WHAT CATCHES AND HOLDS YOUR EYE?

I am fascinated by juxtapositions. Juxtapositions of color, material, content, atmosphere and often a combination of them all. The moment when single components add up and create something unexpected, something new. The moment when 1 + 1 becomes 3. The moment when the sum is greater than the parts.

My Instagram posts are often spontaneous, but never random. Though I never post something I don't like to start with, for my IG account I select images for how they relate to each other in the grid, and not so much for their single value. In fact I spend most of the time in my image files and not in the app itself. I spend hours shuffling and reshuffling my preselection until I find a satisfying order. This is a rather intuitive process, almost like painting. Often the order changes per day. Each post evokes a next one. Sometimes I find images that I love and I'm dying to post, but when they don't fit the stream I keep them in the mix for days or even weeks. Often it means I'll have to find other images first, to complement them. It's a matter of patience and restraint, waiting for the right moment.
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JOSEPH Le Blog - Picture This // Michiel Keuper - screen shot

It's almost like making a puzzle. I often call it my daily image sudoku. Because not only do the single images relate to their left and right neighbors, the IG grid changes order with every post, it creates horizontal, vertical and diagonal connections. It's about finding a rhythm, a stream, it's about the total. After a while I started to realize that my IG gallery as such has become a work in itself. The sum is greater than the parts.

One of my favorite books is the facsimile of Hannah Höch's 'Album' from 1933, in which she magnificently juxtaposes found imagery. Inspired by her I made collage books as well. My Instagram has become a digital version of that same idea.

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JOSEPH Le Blog - Picture This // Michiel Keuper - screen shot

WHAT PROPERTIES OR QUALITIES DOES A GREAT IMAGE NEED?

Initially my eye gets hooked on the composition of an image, the use (or lack) of color, the atmosphere, emotion or content it conveys. Furthermore, for my IG specifically, I select images that will work on a thumbnail format, since most people use IG on the small screen of their phone. Generally I'm drawn to lesser known images and artists. Therefore I try to be as accurate as possible with credits. Occasionally I post my own work, but only when it fits in the stream.

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Michiel Keuper - Untitled, 2016, acrylic and ink on magazine.

WHAT EXACTLY IS A VISUAL COMPOSER?

I coined the term visual composer, because in essence this is the red thread that connects my work: it's always visual and I'm composing images. Working in many fields, using various media, blurring the lines between art, design, performance etc., I guess I've become kind of a hybrid creator. Whether I create fragmented designs like I used to do in my Paris times, compose an image on a canvas or on a T-shirt, create a spatial design for a dance performance, or juxtapose images on my Instagram account, I'm making visual compositions. 

JOSEPH Le Blog - Picture This // Michiel Keuper - screen shot

JOSEPH Le Blog - Picture This // Michiel Keuper - screen shot