Ingrid Ledent – The Irreverence of Time
5 November, 5pm – The International Cultural Centre in Krakow,
The Ravens Hall
I had been listening to Ingrid Ledent speaking about “litho” in a self-revealing speech.
Within an hour and some minutes, a transparent channel was forged as speech travelled into sight and hearing could envision the larger context of what it was, back then, the art and life in Belgium, Prague or the US. From mere coincidences to serendipity – the smart use of coincidences, art influences the artist just as much as the artist is trying to influence it in return. True art is self-revealing, true art is honest. “I have always been in my art” each of her works seems to say about Ledent. There was a time for struggle, for fighting the inadequacy of expression, and this time has been included in all her works, until it was refined to invisibility. This is how the initial struggle, the dissatisfaction with “lotography,” gave way to lithography. Ledent’s “loto” led her to integrate the concepts of “communication” and “reproducibility,” to “incorporate the body in the artistic work.” In time, the accidental, pure “litho” has given way to a mixture of “litho” and new media. If, in recent years, technology may have caught up with craftsmanship, the value of intuition has always been at work in what Ingrid Ledent has created.
Thus, following an intuitive and self-revealing trail, the alphabet of the artist was made clear for the rest of us. Admirable truths were shared, and a spell of magic inherent to gist and focus, to Ledent’s art, was spread. The art is in “me” and the “me” is in art. Here we are offered a perfect example of time’s irreverence: the duration of “me” in what the artist calls her art.
Ingrid Ledent, Alina Alens, and "The Incomplete Fantasy We Call Love"
As a continuation of Ingrid Ledent’s discourse about duration and time, I proceeded by asking her about the way ahead. The channel previously forged was fortified, and, between eyes reaching far into the horizon of the same metaphors, the flow was re-directed between a “you” and an “I” caught in the same stream of consciousness.
I found it fascinating to watch the making of a “litho” video. It reminded me of the sawdust story a student of mine had shared at one of my classes, but I’ll have to tell you this story another time.
What is Ingrid Ledent’s secret? some may ask. To me the answer is simple: her desire to reveal the secret of her art.
We have to thank her for that!
ALINA ALENS' IRREVERENT BLOG 
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