Language
The Black Room
Robbie Cornelissen
This space presents The Black Room, an immersive installation by Dutch artist Robbie Cornelissen.
Cornelissen has garnered international acclaim for his large-scale drawings that depict architectural spaces devoid of human presence. Through meticulously rendered depictions of libraries, waiting rooms, and factories—spaces that feel familiar yet curiously empty—he invites viewers to project their own memories and imaginations into the void.
The Black Room expands this conceptual framework into a spatial and temporal experience. Within a U-shaped structure, 60 charcoal-drawn animations unfold across three walls, creating a slow-moving panorama of shifting forms and depths.
The flowing transitions of lines, tones, and blurs—distinctive to charcoal—generate a suspended rhythm, where the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, between two and three dimensions, are gently dissolved. This visual slowness evokes a meditative atmosphere, where perception becomes tactile and temporal.
With a background in biology, Cornelissen approaches space as a kind of psychic organism. Rather than representing a concrete location, The Black Room functions as a potential site for inner dwelling—a mental chamber where the viewer’s subconscious may linger and unfold.
The work also gestures toward a dialogue between East Asian ink painting and Western drawing traditions. Charcoal, with its material affinity to ink, echoes the fluidity, repetition, and resonant emptiness found in traditional East Asian aesthetics. Through this, The Black Room becomes not merely a visual installation, but a contemplative environment that opens onto the spiritual dimensions of drawing.
Ultimately, The Black Room is a sensorial abyss where memory and emotion are subtly projected. It transforms viewing into a reflective act and offers a space to contemplate the theme of this Biennale—Neighbors of Civilization—on an interior, almost metaphysical level.
Cornelissen has garnered international acclaim for his large-scale drawings that depict architectural spaces devoid of human presence. Through meticulously rendered depictions of libraries, waiting rooms, and factories—spaces that feel familiar yet curiously empty—he invites viewers to project their own memories and imaginations into the void.
The Black Room expands this conceptual framework into a spatial and temporal experience. Within a U-shaped structure, 60 charcoal-drawn animations unfold across three walls, creating a slow-moving panorama of shifting forms and depths.
The flowing transitions of lines, tones, and blurs—distinctive to charcoal—generate a suspended rhythm, where the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, between two and three dimensions, are gently dissolved. This visual slowness evokes a meditative atmosphere, where perception becomes tactile and temporal.
With a background in biology, Cornelissen approaches space as a kind of psychic organism. Rather than representing a concrete location, The Black Room functions as a potential site for inner dwelling—a mental chamber where the viewer’s subconscious may linger and unfold.
The work also gestures toward a dialogue between East Asian ink painting and Western drawing traditions. Charcoal, with its material affinity to ink, echoes the fluidity, repetition, and resonant emptiness found in traditional East Asian aesthetics. Through this, The Black Room becomes not merely a visual installation, but a contemplative environment that opens onto the spiritual dimensions of drawing.
Ultimately, The Black Room is a sensorial abyss where memory and emotion are subtly projected. It transforms viewing into a reflective act and offers a space to contemplate the theme of this Biennale—Neighbors of Civilization—on an interior, almost metaphysical level.