Bart Lodewijks discovered chalk at art school in the 1990s. But instead of experimenting with his craft on the conventional support (blackboards), the Belgian-born artist would make wall drawings on the exterior of the buildings, dragging thick, white lines across their rough facades.
Two decades later, after a stint making documentaries in post-war Bosnia, Lodewijks has left his pastel trails everywhere from the inner-city streets of Rio de Janeiro to the suburban homes of Ronse, Belgium. The world is his canvas. And not only because of these global voyages: for Lodewijks, drawing is a social process that should be done everywhere. By doing it, he argues, you rework the social fabric of a city.
This forms the basis of his Whitechapel Gallery commission, for which Lodewijks was joined by a team of young Londoners, together wielding chalk sticks around Tower Hamlets. In contrast to the nearby City’s increasingly privatised space, dirty phone boxes, gum-splattered pavements, and even the local anarchist bookshop are liberated with waves of their chalky wands. ‘Lines are made out of chalk and trust,’ Lodewijks says. This is our space, the lines say.
Since these ephemeral marks are poignantly worn away by rain and time, it’s all documented inside the gallery – part of which is covered in angular, black chalk lines . Responding to the natural bends, nooks and crannies of the space, they evoke an uplifting feeling: thickening, darkening, unifying. East London is renowned for its world-class graffiti, but this is a form of urban acupuncture.
Peter Yeung