calendario eventi  :: 

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24/5/2012

Lost & Found

De Studio, Antwerp

curated by Isabel Devriendt, Dirk Engelen, Wilfried Huet and Stella Lohaus

Artists
Céline Butaye (B), Vaast Colson (B), Jimmie Durham (VS), Sarah Gerats (NL), Petrit Halilaj (RKS), Anouk Kruithof (NL), Bernd Lohaus (B), Jason Rhoades (VS), Gert Robijns (B), Guy Rombouts (B), Maarten Vanden Eynde (B), Philippe Van Wolputte (B)

ERROR ONE in cooperation with Villanella

Lost & Found is an exhibition by ERROR ONE, assembled by Isabel Devriendt, Dirk Engelen, Wilfried Huet and Stella Lohaus. They have also collaborated with ERROR ONE in the past. In this project, certain aspects of the concept of errare – from which ERROR ONE also borrows its name – are tested out by several diverse artistic practices.

In the context of the professionalization of the art world, in which the artist as well profiles his or herself as an entrepreneur, the aspects of erring, losing, finding and chance seem to be addressed less and less often in art (and in the creation of a work of art). Nevertheless, these aspects are crucial and various fascinating artists from different generations both at home and abroad give the aspect of the chance encounter, discovery of an object or, more abstractly, searching, a central place in their work.
The linguistic origin of the word error covered meanings such as searching, wandering, erring, etc. The title, Lost & Found, deals with these connotations on a very broad basis. This is also the intent of the exhibition.

The connotation of the Lost and Found Office is one of the aspects which will be examined: existing, found, rediscovered objects are processed into works of art. But also finding (and picking up, tidying up) in its pure form: the artist as recycler, ecologist, re-user … That which for one person is old and to be discarded can, in another context, obtain great value. Further, there is also the psychological level: searching for the way, using the map, getting oriented, being mistaken, wandering, searching and then once again that blissful feeling of arriving at the destination.

For this project, the four curators invited the following artists: Céline Butaye (B), Vaast Colson (B), Jimmie Durham (US), Sarah Gerats (NL), Petrit Halilaj (KS), Anouk Kruithof (NL), Bernd Lohaus (B), Jason Rhoades (US), Gert Robijns (B), Guy Rombouts (B), Maarten Vanden Eynde (B), and Philippe Van Wolputte (B). In addition to a few existing works, works that were created specifically for Lost & Found are on exhibit.

The exhibition will take place in the imposing building of the former Studio Herman Teirlinck. For this edition, ERROR ONE is working together with Villanella. Open for visitors from 26 May through 24 June, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.

ERROR ONE is a nomadic initiative for contemporary visual art. Lost & Found is ERROR ONE’s nineteenth project.

EXHIBITION CURATORS

Isabel Devriendt (1960) studied Romance languages and initially worked in the publishing world, among others at Castrum Peregrini, Amsterdam – publisher of the German-language journal in book form, "Castrum Peregrini: Zeitschrift fur Literatur-, Kunst- und Geistesgeschichte" (Journal of Literature, Art and Intellectual History) and related books in German, English and Dutch. She was editorial secretary of the journal “Septentrion” from 1994 to 1996 at the Our Heritage Foundation, Rekkem. From 1987 to 2001 she was a colleague and business director of (forms) ltd., a graphic design and visual communication office, where she primarily focused on publications. In 2002 she worked as a management and organizational staff member at the Maastricht Academy of Visual Arts. Since 2003 she has worked as an assistant to the Executive Board at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts, previously located in Antwerp and since 2007 in Ghent. Isabel Devriendt is co-founder, editorial member and designer of the poetry journal Facture Baroque and fellow member of the Pablo Neruda Fund Foundation, publisher of essays and poetry. Together with Stella Lohaus, Wilfried Huet and Dirk Engelen, Isabel Devriendt has previously worked with ERROR ONE, for the exhibition ERROR #4 Brialmontlei (2006) and ERROR #7 Just a Movie for Godsake (2007).

Dirk Engelen in 1997 established an independent design office, B-architects, located in Antwerp, together with Evert Crols and Sven Grooten. The founders got to know one another through their education in Antwerp and Amsterdam. Primarily the internationally-oriented education at the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands revealed a common interest in design among Evert, Dirk and Sven. B-architects work by means of various cross-fertilizations: between individuals, the projects of various scopes and in collaboration with other professionals in the construction, art and culture landscape. They have realized projects of all scales… scenography and exhibition designs at, among others, Fashion Nation, the MAS, Bozar, individual and grouped dwellings, shops in collaboration with Veronique Branquinho and Walter Van Beirendonck, offices for, among others, Duval-Guillaume, public buildings such as the Flemish Library of Brussels, De Post art and cultural centre in Ostend and public spaces such as the square and awning at the Kiel in Antwerp. Every project is a detailed answer to a specific question. The result is projects that are ‘urban’, free and informally ‘arrangeable’ by the users. In addition, Dirk Engelen has also worked as a co-curator and scenographer on various ERROR ONE exhibitions: in 2006 for the exhibition ERROR #4 Brialmontlei; ERROR #5 Borsbeekstraat, Borgerhout in collaboration with artist Joris Martens and dance choreographer Larbi Cherkaoui; for ERROR #7 Just a Movie for Godsake in 2007; and in 2008 for ERROR #9, Shadow Cabinet in Extra City in cooperation with artist Vincent Meessen.

Wilfried Huet is publisher of the international artists’ journal GAGARIN the Artists in their Own Words which was started up in 2000. The complete GAGARIN oeuvre currently includes approximately 200 texts from the same number of visual artists who are now working, anywhere in the world, and covers the first decade of this century. It is the only journal in the world that solely lets artists speak for themselves. GAGRARIN enjoys a solid international reputation and was recently purchased as a complete series by, among others, the Guggenheim Museum, the MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and by the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

Stella Lohaus (Antwerp, 1968) founded HAUS of Prints, Multiples and Drawings, a production house for limited edition artworks in 1995. In 2 years’ time she produced multiples with Jimmie Durham, Ann Veronica Janssens, Marijke van Warmerdam, Thomas Schütte, Hermann Pitz, James Welling, Fabrice Hybert and Giovanni Anselmo. In 1997 she started up the gallery that bore her own name, and represented national and international artists such as Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Erik Van Lieshout, Manfred Pernice, John Bock, Bjarne Melgaard, Sven 't Jolle, Jan De Cock, Angel Vergara, Job Koelewijn, Dennis Tyfus, Leon Vranken, Kati Heck, etc. On the occasion of the death of her father, Bernd Lohaus, in November 2010, and a number of new trends in the contemporary art scene, in 2011 she decided to bring her activities as a gallery owner to an end. She is now busy part-time with drawing up an inventory of her father’s artistic estate and also works as a ‘co-curator’ on the exhibition “NowBelgiumNow” with beginning Belgian artists (LLS 387, from 8 October through 20 November 2011). In the past, Stella Lohaus has worked together several times with ERROR ONE: in 2006 for the exhibition ERROR #4 Brialmontlei, as well as in 2007 for ERROR #7 Just a Movie for Godsake.

ARTISTS

Céline Butaye (B)
Céline Butaye explores boundaries literally and figuratively in her artistic work… In a certain way composing, assembling, archiving objects, books, reproductions found by chance or not by chance, leading to new insights and connections and generating new meanings which transcend the anecdotal.
Exhibitions include: 2011, Open Studios HISK, Ghent; 2010, Kunstenfestival Watou Tussen Taal en Beeld/ Verzamelde Verhalen #02 , Watou, 2010; HISK OPEN STUDIOS, HISK, Ghent. Various exhibitions also in collaboration with Mekhitar Garabedian.

Vaast Colson (B)
Vaast Colson (1977, Kapellen, Belgium) lives and works in Antwerp. For the origin of his artistry, his need to create, we would have to look to the boundless freedom the contemporary artist has to determine for oneself what art means for him or her. On the other hand, this freedom can also remove the ground from under a young artist’s feet. But Colson enjoys to delineate still other boundaries and to assume changing positions.
All means and media can be used in order to satisfy his urge to create. Vaast Colson has hardly created any paintings since his education as a painter. He goes in search of an intensity which he cannot find between the walls of his studio by means of performances in which he places himself as an artist directly opposite the spectator. Colson’s performances, installations or interventions grow out of the specific situation in which they arise. Rather than viewing given time and space as a limitation, Colson meticulously and maximally investigates and uses these contextual elements for the structure of his actions. Vaast Colson’s work is concerned with the creation of the image, the methodology of visual language. The objects, materials, images, textures, colours, sounds and spaces he uses must serve the image. He fits images together like precise puzzles. For Colson, images can be compared to guitar riffs: they work as soon as they make an impact. It has to do with the thoughts and feelings they evoke. To make the comparison with music complete, we suggest that Colson cuts samples from the world and mixes them into a music of images.
Another favourite theme in the work of Colson is questioning the role of the artist. With his performances, [by being present himself] he inevitably brings his personal life, his identity into the artwork without lapsing into anecdote. On the other hand, he is continually occupied with creating artistic roles, characters for himself. These roles, however, are seldom tragic or dramatic, so that he creates myths that he simultaneously undermines. His performances or interventions sometimes seem to lead nowhere and sometimes even exude boredom. The artist portrayed… as mythic antihero.
Exhibitions include: 2012: Solo Show, De Garage, Mechelen (B), 2011: 'Yes, we don't'’, IAC, Villeurbanne (FR), ‘The Impossible Community’, MMOMA Moscow Museum of Modern Arts, Moscow (RU), Solo Show, Gallery Christian Nagel, Berlin (D), 2010: 'Von Dort Aus - Nieuwe kunst uit België/Art nouveau de la Belgique II', Gallery Christian Nagel, Antwerp, Berlin, Cologne (D), 'Love Letter to a Surrogate: stage 2/Art's Birthday', MUHKA, Antwerp (B), 'Revolt & Despair 2/Werken met Clay', Gunther, Antwerp (B), 'Revolt & Despair', Flipside, Eindhoven (NL), 'Multiple Visions', NICC, Antwerp (B), 'Believe In Your Dreams', Gallery Martin van Blerk, Antwerp (B), 'Otherwise', Naked State, Brussels(B), 'Mawazine festival', Galerie Bab Rouah & Museé des Oudayas, Rabat (MA), 'The State Of Things', National Art Museum of China, Beijing (CHN), 'I'm Not Here. An exhibition without Francis Alÿs', De Appel, Amsterdam (NL), 'group show', Maes & Matthys Gallery, Antwerp (B), 'Into the Light', Maes & Matthys Gallery, ERROR ONE, Antwerp (B), 'The State of Things', Bozar, Brussels (B).

Jimmie Durham (US)
Jimmie Durham (Washington, United States 1940) is a Cherokee Indian and studied at the École des Beaux Arts of Geneva, Switzerland. He lived and worked in various locations during his life, including New York, Berlin and Brussels. He is a member of the American Indian movement and participated in founding the “International Indian Treaty Council” at the United Nations. At this time he was also co-publisher of the “Treaty Council News” and of multi-racial children’s books.
Through his work as writer, poet, performance artist and sculptor, he tries to break through Western ideas about ethnic and cultural authenticity. For Durham, within these ideas, aesthetic values are closely related to a colonialist and racist discourse. He often consciously gives his satirical, humorous but also poetic work, which consists of various [processed] objects combined with text, a ‘primitive’ and pseudo-naïve appearance. In the 1980s, for instance, he made a series of works with [decorated and painted] animal skulls, which he purposefully stopped making at a certain point. According to Durham, the work is too much in line with the image that the dominant Western culture has of Indian art. This image ensures that, for instance, Indian or African artists ‘must’ meet certain expectations and in so doing, remain in an ‘ethnographic’ context. As Durham says: “Authenticity is a racist concept which functions to keep us closed in ‘our’ world [in our place] for the ease of the dominant community… I am a Cherokee artist who fights to ensure that Cherokee art will be considered universal and boundless, just like the art of any white person is considered.”
(Source: M HKA)
Jimmie Durham was active in theatre, performance and literature in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s. His first solo exhibition took place in Austin, Texas in 1965. He moved to Geneva, Switzerland in 1969, and went back to the U.S. in 1973. He was a political organizer in the American Indian Movement, 1973-1980, Director of the International Indian Treaty Council and representative to the United Nations. He was the Director of the Foundation for the Community of Artists (FCA) in New York City, 1981-83. He moved to Mexico in 1987, returning to Europe in 1994. Among others, he has exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent, the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels, ICA London, Documenta in Kassel, Hamburg Kunstverein, FRAC in Reims, Wittgenstein Haus in Vienna, Whitney Biennial, Kunstverein in Munich, Venice Biennale, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (solo show), Lyon Biennale. M HKA will present a retrospective of his work in 2012 and he will participate in Documenta XIII.

Sarah Gerats (NL)
December, northern Finland. The sun neither rises nor sets these days. We sleep when we feel like it and when we wake we walk for hours through the snow. We stand still in the cold and flash photographs in the dark. We continue to flash; the camera sees much more than we do, images full of white masses. We are convinced that it is so cold that the air is filled with ice crystals and things that we can only see in this way. We stand there, holding our breath and flashing and flashing. But the more we concentrate on these invisible formations, the less we capture them. Until we realize that we cannot capture these images while holding our breath. It is our breath.
Sarah Gerats, 1983, Alkmaar (NL) grew up in Ghent, studied in Amsterdam (BFA Fine Art) and Helsinki (MFA Time and Space), and at the end of 2011 concluded a stay at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts. She recently decided to move to Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen. In her work she concentrates on her relationship to a time where everything is possible and presence continually has less to do with the physical. In this she utilizes actions with the necessity of desire and the lightness of the absurd. In the form of a photo, a video, an installation, a single sentence, a projection, a webcam image, a journey, a noise, or ultimately, formless, it almost always has to do with an invitation to place oneself in a situation, through the shown or told, which has a logic different then the everyday.
Exhibitions include: 2011: The Visitor, HISK, Ghent, BE, Appeal to probability, Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam, NL, Oh my oh my; from the annals of a great telepathic affair, Sober and lonely, Johannesburg, SA, Paraty Em Foco, Paraty, BR and Regard Matrixiels, Treignac Project, Treignac, FR, 2010: FideoSuperMarke, Pärnu Film and Video Festival, Pärnu, EST, A spectre from the land of if, FoMu Antwerp, BE, Open studios, HISK, Ghent, BE, NIS presents, Elevator Gallery, London, GB, Getting down to the nitty-gritty, Brussels, BE, Hauska Tustustua, Holden gallery, Manchester, GB, 2009: Re: Helsinki, FaFa Galleria, Helsinki, FI, Foam Magazine, the talent issue, publication, (V)aiheet, Kaiku Galleria, Helsinki, FI, Ilvesjoki, Jalasjärven museum, Jalasjärvi, FI, St. Petersburg Biennial, St. Petersburg, RUS, Photo festival Horizonte Zingst, Zingst, DE, Kuvan Kevät, Kuvataideakatemian lopputyönäyttely, Helsinki, FI, Bodega Melon-Rouge, photography festival, Phnom-Penh, CAM, Double Speak, Holden Gallery, Manchester, GB, 2008: Circulation(s) mois-OFF de la photographie, la Cartonnerie, Paris, F, Meanwhile in between, FAFA Galleria, Helsinki, FI, Elina, Erno, Emma, Sarah, Visu Galleria, Kokola, FI, The battle of art, Dialogue of culture, EEA Beelitz, DE, Dark Entrance, Bobrinsky Palace, Sint Petersburg, RUS, Master class, FAFA, Helsinki, FI, It's not that I don't have a house, but my walls are on vacation, Galleria Valivuosi, Helsinki, FI, 2007: Still moving, Galleria Valivuosi, Helsinki, FI, Photo festival patershol, Ghent, BE, Final exams-exhibition Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, NL, Rietveld naar de kerk, Oude kerk, Amsterdam, NL, 2006: Heima ad Heiman, Galleri Gyllinhaed, Reykjavik, IS

Petrit Halilaj (F)
Here and there,
“It also seems to us a lack of communication”; A conversation between two voices, those of Petrit Halilaj and his sister Blerina, published in GAGARIN no.19 in 2009, distils the roots of his work which fluctuates between the here and the there. In this alternating rhythm, the ‘here’ signifies all the places where Halilaj has lived: first in Italy, in the Mantuan landscape and in Milan, where he studied at the Brera Academy; then Berlin, where he has lived since 2008. There is also Runik, the village in Kosovo, near Skenderaj, where he was born in 1986 and where he witnessed the horrors of the conflict with Serbia. Runik is where his family lives and where they rebuilt their house which was destroyed by the war.
In Halilaj’s projects – sculptures, installations, pen or ink drawings – the here and the there become intertwined. They are often accompanied by texts scribbled in notebooks, in which the artists mixes the private dimensions of a diary and the sharpness of language – his own language – with errors and mistakes which conceal various languages and identities. Sometimes they render the nostalgia of the emigrant. At other times they play hide-and-seek with the awareness that his own life has been lived elsewhere, and is perhaps still “Out of Place”, as Edward Said entitled his biography.
Experience is a keyword for Petrit Halilaj. It enables him to open channels of communication with the audience, but above all to bridge the space to his world in Runik, to build bridges between the various phases in his life and the generations of his family. So that, perhaps, his home here and his home there, or rather, the allegories of them, can merge with one another. Before Gallery Chert in Kreuzberg, Berlin, opened in 2008, Halilaj had the opportunity to provide the house with a bath and a shower, a gas cooker, furniture and lamps for a meeting with his father, rather a sort of no-man’s land, simultaneously real and fictional, where they could speak and listen to one another for a week. Then the same materials were rearranged on location for the opening exhibition, and this exhibition became the abstract theatre for their relationship.”
Adapted from Barbara Casavecchia
From her article published in Mousee #23 (April – May, 2010)
Born in Skenderaj (Kosovo) in 1986.
Lived and worked in Pristhina, Mantova and Berlin.
Exhibitions include: 2011 Kunstraum Innsbruck (solo), Statement, Art Basel solo presentation, with Gallery Chert, Berlin, “Ernste Tiere: Petrit Halilaj, Judith Hopf, Bedwyr Williams”,
“Ostalgia”, New Museum, New York, "Based in Berlin", Atelierhaus Monbijoupark, Berlin. 
“STRUKTUR & ORGANISMUS”, with Max Frey, Tue Greenfort, Petrit Halilaj, Rita Vitorelli, Marillenhof - Destillerie Kausl, Austria, “You don’t love me anymore”, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, 2010 : "Maladresses ou La Figure de l'idiot", The Institute of Social Hypocrisy, Paris, “Drinnen & Draussen”, Gallery Chert, Berlin, 6th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Berlin - Paris. Un échange de galeries, “Petrit Halilaj, Heike Kabisch, Carla Scott Fullerton”, Gallery Carlos Cardenas, Paris, with Chert Gallery, Berlin, 2009: “Melancholy of Compassion”, Siemens Gallery, Istanbul, “Time Machine”, curated by Vlado Velkov, Kunstverein Arnsberg, 2008: The Lamb’s Mother in the Creche? Gallery Chert, Berlin, Art is my Playground, Tershane, Istanbul, 2006: Mediterraneo Contemporaneo, Castello Aragonese, Taranto,
Corpo Urbano, De portesio 2006, Fondazione Cominelli, Brescia, Wireless, Unorossodue, MIGRE, Careof, Milano, Open Air, Orto Botanico, Parma.

Anouk Kruithof (NL)
Anouk Kruithof (1981, Dordrecht) studied photography at the Academy of Fine Art and Design/St. Joost in Breda and graduated in 2003. She is trained as a photographer but considers photography more as a starting point of endless possibilities. She creates photographic, video and spatial installations as well as socio-conceptual projects, in situ works and take-away art. In addition, she is a fervent creator of artists’ books. In the meantime she has published six of them.
Anouk Kruithof uses photography in presentations as a means to express her sense of amazement, to give form to her curiosity and above all to record her search for the universal power of emotion. From the very beginning she applied photography as a means to confront us with moments that we would rather not see recorded, or perhaps also did not want to see. In the work of Anouk Kruithof, the viewer is an observer of congealed fragments of life, all of which seem to reveal the same: by concentrating on what happens in people, we feel what does not happen: while we see people’s inner self exposed, we do not manage to make contact with them. We feel shut out while we see the most intimate aspect of humanity. And this is what Anouk Kruithof shows us in a confusing way: the lack of human contact and the difficulty we have to be really involved with each other.
Anouk Kruithof has mainly lived in Berlin since 2008 where she worked at the artist-in-residence Künstlerhaus Bethanien. In September 2011, Anouk moved to New York where she recently won the ICP Infinity Award in the category of Young Photographer.
She has had solo exhibitions in, among others, Gallery BoetzelaerNispen in London, Gallery Aldler in Frankfurt, Het Domein Museum in Sittard and FOAM Amsterdam. Her work could also be seen in various group exhibitions including KIT (Art in the Tunnel) Dusseldorf, the Dutch Photography Museum Rotterdam, Municipal Museum Amsterdam, Grimmuseum Berlin, ACP Sydney, DCC Shanghai, MAMAC Liege, Temporary Art Museum Berlin and Künstraum Niederösterreich Vienna. Anouk Kruithof’s publication “Lang zou ze leven” (Happy birthday to you) is on the shortlist of the Dutch Doc award, the exhibition for which is currently being held in the Tropical Museum Amsterdam. In 2011 Anouk Kruithof won the Illy Public Prize during ART Rotterdam for her exhibition Fragmented Entity and also the Grand Prix jury and the SVA Photoglobal prize at Hyeres festival international de mode et photographie. Recently her work was published in the English-language Artreview’s Future Greats issue together with 24 other emerging artists.
In addition to developing her own work, in 2008/2009 she was also a columnist at photoq.nl, organized an exhibition in Berlin about artists’ books at Wanderingbears.co.uk and she was the selector for PhotoEye’s best books of 2011 and also for the International photo book award (Kassel). She wrote her first short fiction story for her most recent publication, “A head with Wings”. Anouk Kruithof lectured and gave readings at the Hartford Photography MFA program in New York, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Officine Fotografiche in Rome, ARTEZ in Arnhem, HKU in Utrecht en AKV/St. Joost in Breda.
Her published artists’ books: 2012: Lang Zal Ze Leven / Happy Birthday To You (edition 500) ISBN 978-90-817081-1-1 self-published, 2011: A Head With Wings (edition 1000) published by Little Brown Mushroom Saint Paul (MN) USA, 2010: The Daily Exhaustion, ISBN 978 3 03747 034 3 Kodoji press Baden Switzerland (edition 5000), 2009: Playing Borders this contemporary state of mind (edition 400) ISBN 978 3 86895 040 3 Revolver Publishing by VVV Berlin, 2009: Becoming Blue (edition 750) -ISBN 978-3-86895-024-3 Revolver Publishing by VVV Berlin, 2006: Het Zwarte Gat / The Black Hole (edition 1000 icw Jaap Scheeren) ISBN 90 597 3044 5 Episode Publishers Rotterdam
www.anoukkruithof.nl

Bernd Lohaus (B)
Bernd Lohaus (1940, Dusseldorf – 2010 Antwerp) lived and worked in Antwerp but was born in Germany. These two places play a role in the artist’s work. Particularly characteristic are the use of materials and the use of language. Lohaus worked mainly with wood that he found on walks along the Scheldt. It is wood washed ashore or wood used in the port; thus, material that already had a history behind it before it ended up in the artist’s studio. The traces of this remain visible in the finished artwork. Lohaus never changed the nature of his materials. He only implemented small interventions to them.
In addition to wood, Lohaus also used paper, cardboard, stone, etc. He added words to them: he scratched them into the material (such as on memorials which are a memorial to someone or something that once was) or applied them with chalk. They are primarily pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions etc., always in German. It always involves antithetical concepts or words. The words refer to the distance between people and things, how they can position themselves with respect to one another in various mutual relationships, but can actually never coincide. With his works, Lohaus wanted to investigate the relationship between Ich and Du (I and you), between the artist, the viewer and the artwork, but also between people and between people and things in general. Lohaus’ imagery is very simple, with regard to materials as well as design. His materials have something pure, something natural, something of life itself. His work is extremely poetic. In addition to sculptures, Lohaus also made drawings.
In the 1960s, Lohaus was a student of Joseph Beuys at the National Academy of Arts in Dusseldorf.
(Source: M HKA)
Bernd Lohaus has exhibited domestically and abroad. Solo exhibitions include: SMAK, Ghent (2005), M HKA, Antwerp, Ecole Régionale Supérieure d'Expression Plastique, Tourcoing, Galerie Bernard Bouche, Paris, Patrick De Brocke, Knokke, Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp. Group exhibitions include: 2009 Jeugdzonde. Over opus één en opus min één, LLS 387 Ruimte voor actuele kunst, Antwerp, Loods12, Loods12, Wetteren, The State of Things (by Luc Tuymans and Ai Wei Wei), Bozar, Brussels, 2004:Visionair België, Brussels, BOZAR, Marta schweigt, Museum Marta, Herford, Vanaf nu !, LLS, Ruimte voor actuele kunst, Antwerp, 2002: Sculpture.Triple Base. Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (GB), 2000: Mo(ouve)ments, Antwerp, NICC and the Royal Museum of Fine Art,, Over the Edges, Ghent, Voici, Brussels, Palace of Fine Arts, 1997 Set, Barcelona, MACBA, 1993 Nieuwe Beelden, Antwerp, Middelheim open air Sculpture Museum, 1992 Documenta IX, Kassel, 1990 Ponton Temse, Temse

Jason Rhoades (US)
Jason Rhoades (1965 – 2006) was inspired by the work of Duchamp and movements such as Fluxus and Minimal Art from the 1960s. Taking the lead of the critical art from the 1960s, he was sceptical with respect to the Western society of consumption, and his work also often criticized the commercialization of the art world. Materials for his work mostly came from supermarkets, toy stores and hardware stores. He was considered one of the style icons of the 1990s.
Exhibitions include: 2011 CLAP - Hessel Museum of Art & Center for Curatorial Studies Galleries at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, Big Picture (Orte / Projektionen) - K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen - im Ständehaus, Dusseldorf, Compass - Drawings from the Museum of Modern Art New York - Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, 2010: Happy End - Kunsthalle Göppingen, Göppingen, The Second Program - Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX, Secreto y Artilugio - DA2 - Domus Artium 2002, Salamanca, Peter Bonde & Jason Rhoades - Half Snowball - Andersen's Contemporary Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Inside Installations - SMAK Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Jason Rhoades - 1:12 Perfect World - Hauser & Wirth, London (England) 

Gert Robijns (B)
Robijns’ work is recognizable in its simplicity. Installations composed of everyday, banal objects which, by means of a slight shift, once again receive attention. Objects that surround us, for which he generates a new form of attention. Objects are detached from their original function and receive a new, poetic significance. Subtle adjustments that make an object weightless. They cause a slight deception, almost a game. A game which develops new rules, different than those which were connected to the original object. They assail our typical patterns of activity. Robijns develops stimuli which demand a sudden, new way of dealing with objects.
Objects are detached from their functional utility and appear as afterimages, as an echo or memory. Like an empty signifier which triggers new mental activity. The work briefly carries the viewer away, gets him lost in thought, only then to plant him firmly back on the ground. By means of a slight context shift, he is able to extend reality, more than that his work would be a representation of it. He illuminates objects; they evoke an opening, leave space to briefly wander.
He achieves a maximum affect with a minimum of means, or how, for instance, the tilting of an object tilts the entire surroundings along with it… The work also says something about the standardized attitude which determines how we deal with the banal. Things which we typically pass by, an everyday action, which Robijns again makes intense. He makes looking intense again. He demands renewed attention for an object in a renewed context.
Gert Robijns (1972, Sint-Truiden) studied at the Sint-Lucas Institute in Brussels where he was taught by Philippe Van Snick, among others, and after that he went to the Higher Institute of Fine Art in Antwerp. His first solo exhibitions were at Zeno X Gallery in Antwerp and “Beelden Buiten” in Tielt. In 2005 he resided at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Robijns was invited for numerous national and international group exhibitions such as “Over the Edges” and “Casino 2001” in the SMAK in Ghent, "Squatters" in the Casa de Serralves te Porto, Portugal, "Locus Focus - Sonsbeek 9", A “Dedicated to a proposition, the opening exhibition of Extra City in Antwerp in 2004 and in 2005 "Monopolis" in Witte de With in Rotterdam. Solo exhibitions were held in Z33 in Hasselt in 2005 and at Stella Lohaus Gallery in 2005, 2006 and 2008 in Antwerp. Since 2008, Gert Robijns has been working on the ambitious project “Het Dorp” (The Village) which constitutes a replica of the environment in which he grew up in Borgloon, now reconstructed at the airfield of Sint-Truiden, 10 km further. His most recent exhibition was “on-“ at the M in Leuven (August-September 2011). The visual work of Gert Robijns is included in the vast collection of M HKA, Antwerp, the SMAK in Ghent and in the collection of Frac Bourgogne in Dijon.

Guy Rombouts (B)
Guy Rombouts (Leuven, Belgium 1949) was trained as a printer-typographer and has been working since the 1970s on an alternative system of communication. The artist questions our current system of communication for several reasons. According to Rombouts, no direct communication is possible by means of our language and consequently some feeling cannot always be expressed. For this reason he pursues a system in which form and content can coincide as much as possible. His earliest language experiments consist of depicting the 26 letters of the alphabet using objects: with cobblestones, coins, nails. In so doing, every letter of the alphabet is replaced by an object, the first letter of which corresponds to the relevant letter. Later, these objects and letters are always combined with the number three. This resulted in a publication of his Three Letter Dictionary in 1983.
Afterwards, Rombouts’ alphabet evolved towards a more abstract design. It received its definitive shape in 1984. Initially called ‘Rombouts’, after a period of time arose the designation AZART. This term refers to AZ-Art, the art of A to Z, and to the French term ‘hasard’, which means chance. Every letter corresponds to a line segment with a specific name. Thus, the line segment that figures A is angular, and the line segment for C is a curve. Words can be formed with these line segments. In doing so, the first and last letter are connected to one another so that they form an enclosed whole. Each character also receives it own colour which conforms to the first letter of that colour. This alphabet is not only drawn on paper, but also implemented with all sorts of materials. In this, the contribution of Monica Droste (1958-1998), who in 1985 was not only the life companion, but also the artistic partner of Rombouts, was very significant. The couple worked together under the name Rombouts and Droste until the untimely death of Monica Droste. AZART creates space for the expression of feelings and impressions which are not clearly defined. Behind the formal elaboration are also hidden sayings from philosophers, writers and artists. In addition to AZART, Rombouts is still creating new alphabets and he also still works with the older system of objects and letters.
(Source: M HKA)

Maarten Vanden Eynde (B)
Maarten Vanden Eynde (Leuven, BE, 1977) is an artist who has dedicated his life to discovering the mysteries of the future past. For this he investigates the concept of Genetology, a self-invented ‘Science of First Things’ (www.genetology.net). His work positions itself precisely on the dividing line between the past and future, sometimes looking forward to the future of yesterday and sometimes looking back to the history of tomorrow… Vanden Eynde studied Autonomous Visual Art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. In his second phase he studied for a year at the Mountain School of Arts in Los Angeles and two years at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium.
Maarten Vanden Eynde lives and works in Brussels and has recently exhibited at Museum Show, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2011; Dublin Contemporary, Dublin, 2011; Alter Nature: We Can, Z33, Hasselt, 2010; Smooth Structures, SMART Project Space, Amsterdam, 2010; Industrial Evolution, Gallery Meessen De Clerq, Brussels, 2010; Faux Jumeaux, SMAK, Ghent, 2009; LOCALISMS, Museum De Paviljoens, Almere, 2008; and Please Excuse our Appearance, IKON Gallery, Birmingham. This summer he is participating in Manifesta9 in Genk and is exhibiting his “Museum of Forgotten History” in the M HKA in relation to the museum collection.

Philippe Van Wolputte (B)
Philippe Van Wolputte reacts to abandoned buildings in an urban environment. Philippe Van Wolputte assumes the role of archaeologist who, by accentuating visible but initially inconspicuous details, such as crumbling facades, attempts to unearth more complicated aspects: past-present-future. The artist’s primary motivation is the external aspect of deterioration and its relation to the surroundings. He offers a reaction against disinterested passers-by, indifferent owners and local government. He is occupied with investigating the unknown. Like a speleologist, he enters the building in search of the origin, age and reason for existence. Or like an archaeologist, he searches for and investigates human traces. He investigates various meanings within this urban environment: urban, social, individual, collective. He does not directly offer an explanation of what he finds, but every small discovery is a part of the mosaic of experiential knowledge that humanity has accumulated, abandoned and demolished. The artist who offers no answers, instead asking questions, can symbolize human conscience. He directs our attention to the human need to build and destroy.
Philippe Van Wolputte (1982 België) lives and works in Antwerp and Amsterdam.
Van Wolputte studied at the Sint-Lucas Institute in Antwerp, 2006. Between 2008 and 2010 he was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie of Fine Arts in Amsterdam.
Recent exhibitions: Fragmental Museum, Elaine Levy Projects (NYC), Art in the City, Art Brussels, Brussels (BE), The Kids Are Allright, Kunsthall Rotterdam, Rotterdam (NL), Splendid Isolation, Freestate II, Oostende (BE), We Did It / Disputed Territory, Chert Gallery, Berlin (D), T.P.E.S. 01/02/03/04, Wilfried Lentz, Rotterdam (NL), Zero Budget Biennial, Pianissimo Gallery, Milan (ITA), Liste 15, Performance Project, Basel (CH), Liberty B, Open Space Baltimore, Maryland (VS), (Im)possibilites, Urban Festival 10, Zagreb (HR), Dragged Down Into Lowercase, Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern (CH)

Please contact for info and images
Ria Van Landeghem
riavanlandeghem@errorOne.be
0472 261970

Opening: Friday 25 May at 7:30 p.m. with introduction by Dirk Engelen and Stella Lohaus

De Studio
Maarschalk Gérardstraat 4, (former Studio Herman Teirlinck, at the Mechelseplein) 2000 Antwerp
Opening hours: Wednesday - Sunday from 3:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Free of charge

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