Ruben Bellinkx
Beatrice Balcou
Marcel Berlanger
Wim Catrysse
Koenraad Dedobbeleer
Andreas Maria Fohr
Katrin Kamrau
Isa Melsheimer
Nicolas Moulin
Benoit Plateus
Ulrike Rosenbach
Adrien Tirtiaux
Jacques Villegle
Emmanuel Van der Auwera
Leon Vranken
Romain van Wissen
Freek Wambacq
Nicolas De Breuck
Paul Schwer
Maite' Vissault
11/1/2014
Fata Morgana
IKOB, Eupen
The exhibition urges the visitor to experience the place's opening up to other spaces and visions of reality through the work of 17 artists of different generations and cultural background. As an optical phenomenon it suggests changes in perspective, dissociations, movements, reflections and diffractions in space.
Curator: Dr. Maïté Vissault
Display: Nicolas De Breuck and Paul Schwer
On the occasion of its inaugural exhibition which opens the season 2014, the ikob combines
gaps and diffractions and turns into a place of joined mirages, an interlacing of seemingly
incompatible spaces and imaginations. Based on the observation of contemporary space and its
current fragmentation, Fata Morgana urges the visitor to experience the place's opening up to
other spaces and visions of reality through the work of 17 artists of different generations and
cultural background. As an optical phenomenon that surfaces from the interaction of light and
the atmosphere, a fata morgana suggests changes in perspective, dissociations, movements,
reflections and diffractions in space. What appears “here and now” is a series of spaces coming
from elsewhere and belonging to another reality, that form a doorstep to our own reality –
disclosing at the same time the latter’s heterogeneity.
As a paradigm of imagination, the exhibition can be considered an open metaphor of
experiencing borders and, by extension, of Contemporary art as such – drawing on its ground,
miscellaneous range of forms and variations, it sways between the poetics of these “spaces of
otherness” and a reflection on the shaky stability of what we commonly call reality, in the age of
the virtual, the global and the technological ebbs and flows. The displayed works constitute self-
dependent spaces that coexist and confront themselves on the marked ground of the exhibition
trail, each one of them resonating in the vast field of fata morganas.
A disturbing experience not to be missed, whose echo runs throughout the programme of
2014 in the form of several duo-exhibitions. Constantly focused on the topic of the “Fata
Morgana”, the ikob will thus become a place of troubling and visionary exhibitions, where our
experience of reality repeatedly sways into some other dimensions coming from elsewhere...
Artists: Ruben Bellinkx, Béatrice Balcou, Marcel Berlanger, Wim Catrysse, Koenraad
Dedobbeleer, Andreas Maria Fohr, Katrin Kamrau, Isa Melsheimer, Nicolas Moulin, Benoît
Plateus, Ulrike Rosenbach, Adrien Tirtiaux, Jacques Villéglé, Emmanuel Van der Auwera, Leon
Vranken, Romain van Wissen, Freek Wambacq.
Vernissage: 12.01.2014 – 14.00
Performance by Béatrice Balcou : from 14.00 on
This performance will be repeated in regular intervals, each time for a smaller group of visitors.
Conceived as an act of resistance, this intimate performance will break the stream of the
inauguration. Through this radical split, it deviates everyone’s attention by plunging the
spectator into another state of perception.
Catalogue: A publication of 72 pages accompanies the exhibition, developing in its form and
content the question made by Fata Morgana and the exhibited works to our understanding of
contemporary space (release on 15 February). Preview on 12 January.
For further information and to receive the press files please contact:
Nadine Streicher – +32 87 560110 n.streicher@ikob.be - Ingrid Mossoux i.mossoux@ikob.be
Ikob - Museum for contemporary art
Rotenberg 12 B 4700 Eupe Belgium
Opening hours: Tue – Sun 13.00 to 17.00