Ronald Bal (1984)

Bal’s work mainly revolves around making the space gap, which plays a role in all forms of interaction, visible. By doing performances in public and personal spaces he tries to point this gap in interaction out. He offers his viewer, or better yet, passer-by, a notion of his or her environment and the interaction, which takes place there. Only, he does not state how to fill that notion. It’s the ‘becoming aware of’ which is an important aspect of Bal’s art. The constant forms of change, which occur in the process of interaction, also come back in Bal’s sculptural work. His sculptures often symbolize a process or a happening, in which interaction and the space needed for that, is the key point. Bal uses the material for his sculptures as a metaphor for being or not being and the process between those two states.

The notion of interaction Bal sees as a tool for artists to communicate animage, astory, a thought, a feeling, an awareness. And because interaction is a developing fact, it lends itself to be examined in countless ways. It leads to asking questions like ‘ Why do people react?’ “Why that reaction in particular?’ ‘Can a reaction be rational?’ And furthermore ‘ When does an individual establishes his own values?’  ‘When are the values of the mainstream guiding?’

Because Bal’s performances are temporary and brief, they’re never final and established. The passer-by is part of the art, as it decides through interaction the length, the course and the end of it. This makes every performance unique and interesting, and questions be asked.