September 2021 - July 2022
Part of
Curatorship:
Els Vermang
Artists:
Claire Andrzejcak
Steve Van den Bosch
Sarah Smolders
Beatrice Balcou
Since the beginning of the 20th century, the word has made its appearance in the visual arts. Influenced by industrialisation and automation on the one hand, and delegation and interpretation on the other, word and technology were linked in classical and new media. The exhibition investigates the way in which the word and the concept serve the image and the imagination. Under the influence of structuralist and deconstructivist thought on the one hand and conceptual practice on the other hand, the classical dichotomy between the visible and the sayable is being abolished and the boundary between the material and the immaterial is being blurred. The exhibition explores the ways in which the word and the concept are translated into an image of the senses - between hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching, and builds a bridge from intertextuality to hypertextuality and from intermedia to transmedia.
The format of the exhibition is borrowed from proto-conceptual artist Robert Barry, who in 1969 invited visitors to contemplate the empty space-time plane of the exhibition under the title 'During the exhibition, the gallery will be closed'. Just as curator Jérôme Sans' exhibition 'Shopping' took up shop windows in New York in the 1990s, special attention is paid to Société's place in the street, where from September 2021 to June 2022 four local artists are invited to exhibit in the showroom and on the façade.
CLAIRE ANDRZEJCAK
https://claireandrzejczak.com
Fluid Feelings of Fickleness - 05.09/14.11.2021
Claire Andrzejczak relies on subtraction as a means to intensify her active and sensitive contemplation of the world that surrounds her. Her meticulous observations of reality reveal the presence of indescribable phenomena, capturing the perception and experience of the moment as truthfully as possible. Her work on the imperceptible world implies the paradoxical situation of a sense of vision that is simultaneously haptic (the sensation of touch) and directed at immateriality (the untouchable). A breeze, an emotion or a human presence are the insubstantial materials she borrows from everyday life to paint its details. The materiality of thought is equally central in the way her work manifests itself, reflecting an approach based on experimentation and process. Some of her works exist merely in writing, as an extension of thought (a repertoire of Statements and work protocols), while others tap into the imaginary worlds of writers and poets.
STEVE VAN DEN BOSCH
https://www.stevevandenbosch.be
Demo - 25.11.21/30.01.2022
Van den Bosch works with the seemingly expressionless, tacit and unspectacular. His often dry interventions, developed from zooming in on the border between invisibility and pure materiality, explore the implications of artistic production, exhibition and interpretation with a detached sense for absurdity. By erasing, doubling, blurring, reversing or rewiring the elements that constitute work, he produces situations that continuously undercut their own status as artworks.
SARAH SMOLDERS
www.sarahsmolders.be
Un signe. - 17.02/17.04.2022
Sarah Smolders handles the conditions in which space is created and experienced. To her, these conditions are both material and immaterial, and depart from the gaze and the body of the viewer that moves around in this space - including herself. Sarah Smolders uses painting as a language to set up a dialogue with specific places. By means of site-specific actions and gestures, walking the line between matter, architecture and painterly representations, she explores how time, movement, past and memory can express themselves spatially.
BEATRICE BALCOU
https://beatricebalcou.com
The Carpenter of Spring - 26.04/03.07.2022
In performances, sculptures and installations Béatrice Balcou creates situations offering innovative exhibition rituals that challenge our way of looking at and perceiving objects—especially works of art. Homing in on attentiveness to the materiality of the artwork and the behaviour of the viewer, she investigates the perceived value of art and the role assigned to it by our contemporary lifestyles.
The artist will install a series of new sculptures in the window and gallery of Société, part of the series of "Pieces Assistantes" that aim to physically and conceptually support the works of other artists by listening to their needs. These sculptures enter into dialogue with the physical space of Société as sedimentary layers of actions and relationships.
Pictures: Gilles Ribero