GEERT GOIRIS
PEAK OIL

2017- 2018

WITH THE FRAC NORMANDIE ROUEN AND RUBIS TERMINAL

PEAK OIL

Geert Goiris is a Belgian photographer who lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. He studied at the LUCA School of Arts in Brussels (Belgium), at the FAMU Film and Television Academy in Prague (Czech Republic) and at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Antwerp (Belgium). His work became known to a wider international public when he participated at the Manifesta 5 Contemporary Art Biennial in San Sebastian (Spain) in 2004. The artist is represented by the gallery Art: concept in Paris (France).
Geert’s work is regularly exhibited at Europe’s renowned art institutions such
as the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam (2007), the Wiels Contemporary Art Center (2010), the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2010), the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg (2011), the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (NMNM) (2012), the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography in the United States (2015) and Centre Pompidou- Metz (2016). In 2016, the Frac Normandie Rouen devoted a solo exhibition to his work entitled “Fight or Flight”.

Throughout the year of 2017, the Belgian artist Geert Goiris visited 12 industrial sites of Rubis Terminal (subsidiary of the Rubis Group), covering all depots
in Europe. The aim of the project has been to develop a photographic series entitled Peak Oil on the contemporary industrial landscape. The photographer visited the ports and the industrial areas of Dunkerque, Rouen, Brest, Strasbourg, Village-Neuf, Saint-Priest, Villette-de-Vienne, Salaise-sur-Sanne, Bastia, Ajaccio, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

By using a suggestive and cinematic style, Geert Goiris proposes “an open narrative which hovers between familiarity and alienation, discovery and confabulation.”

This photographic commission to an internationally renowned artist is the result of a unique collaboration between Rubis Mécénat and the Fonds régional d’art contemporain (Frac) Normandie Rouen. The collaboration has given rise to four projects: an exhibition at the Frac, two major installations in the Port of Rouen and a book with Roma Publications.