Hans Theys

The work *Directions of Interpretations* was first shown in Rome in 1989. It is an installation consisting of objects, photographs of the objects and black cut-outs that match the objects. *Directions of Interpretations* is one of the many alphabets designed and executed by Guy Rombouts. At the basis of this alphabet lie Old Italian musical terms that successively begin with a, b, c, etc.: acuto, bizzaro, coperto… An exception is the term *hot*, borrowed from Jazz music. Each music term thus stands for one of the letters of our alphabet. The terms are represented by a composition of objects, referring to the number of letters and the meaning of the term. Fresco, for instance, consists of six letters and means ‘fresh’, and is expressed by a composition of six vegetables each beginning with the letters that go to form fresco: finocchio (fennel); ravanello (radish), etc. Thus, a combination of objects refers to one of the terms. These objects are assembled in the museum rooms, but are also to be seen on the photographs. Only with the word ‘bizzaro’ does the picture of the objects differ from what we see in the new assemblage. Here the artist opts for creating for each new assemblage of this work a new bizarre composition.