HADASSA NGAMBA
(1993, Congo)
Using drawings, paintings, pictures, videos, installations, and performances, Hadassa Ngamba investigates the various aspects of her native Congo and their repercussions on the rest of the world. She explores the different economic, political, social, and historical layers of a country that is rich in resources, which were forcefully plundered during colonialism and that are still being ransacked today by global economic powers and corporations. Ngamba’s work can be seen as a personal cartography where she examines the reverberations of this economic and mental exploitation and its consequences on the environment, the social frictions and inequality it provokes in the Congolese society and in our globalised world as such.
La table sereine de sainte thèse is the follow-up to the La table sereine that took a central place in her solo exhibition Configurations held in the CC Strombeek (on view until 23/01).
For Ngamba, these so-called Serene Tables are forums where philosophers come together to discuss and exchange ideas. This version is a four-metre-long engraved wooden table whose surface has been blackened with fire in an act of purification. On the table, Ngamba showcases three sculpted objects and various other materials (copper coins, marble,felt, tainted glass,…) which all have a personal and simultaneously universal symbolic meaning, thus illustrating Ngamba’s unique sculptural quest.
A reproduction of Hieronymous Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights hangs near the end of the table, creating a contrast with the grim reality behind the wall drawing illustrating Belgium’s complex web of business interests in its former colony while allowing the spectator enough possibilities for poetic interpretations.
KAREL KOPLIMETS
(1986, Estonia)
Karel Koplimets works around different case studies, investigating human behaviour and socio-political phenomena by means of room-scaled installations that include photography, video and sound. Koplimets’ work tackles the contemporary (urban) condition in all its contradictions. Whereas the artist initially engaged with subjects including gentrification, conspiracy theories and social media, he later extended his subject matter towards globalisation and neoliberalism, investigating the free movement of goods (shopping tourism) or people (economic border immigration).
In his video, Your Order is on Its Way, Koplimets evokes the working conditions of the future when computers and robots will have taken over human labour. He does so by staging a poetic dance between a robot and a bicycle courier, un “pas de deux” or “ballet mécanique” between two unlikely partners in a cold, distant world. Whereas the future of increased automation and self-driving vehicles might be embraced by visionary entrepreneurs, Koplimets questions the sociological impact of this development and its repercussions on our individual lives and self-esteem, and whether it will lead to new types of jobs beyond the “gig economy”. His video installation is accompanied by lightboxes that have been partly cut open in a futile attempt to understand the mechanisms that underlie the system.
NELLEKE CLOOSTERMAN
(1996, Belgium)
Nelleke Cloosterman paints classical art historical themes and motifs—including flowers, birds or soap bubbles—by giving them a contemporary twist. Combining computer-generated images with other source materials, she contrives a seemingly-familiar world, but one that often escapes logic or natural laws. Abstract dream landscapes, a Botticelli-inspired flower garden displaying the unlikely simultaneous combination of winter and summer vegetation, or wingless birds flying high in the air—are all subtle disruptions that Cloosterman uses to distort reality. The artist’s skill is such that spectators accepts what they see in a willing suspension of disbelief. By frequently choosing gradient colours for the background of her paintings, Cloosterman evokes the passing of time.
Cloosterman’s new paintings—presented here in a specially made installation—take the symbolism of the parrot as a starting point. In Christian imagery, parrots represent purity and innocence. Hence, they often reappear throughout art history in portraits of the Virgin Mary and Jesus—neither tainted by the original sin—and depictions of young women’s marriages. Another source of inspiration for these new paintings is a poem written by the sister of the artist, Emmeline Cloosterman, about the symbolic meaning of parrots. By broaching her subject from a female point of view, Cloosterman expands the classic interpretation of the parrot’s symbolism, which historically has always been limited to the male gaze.
DANI GHERCA
(1988, Romania)
Through his photographic practice, Dani Gherca reveals his fascination with the relationship between the human body and its environment. Having grown up in a small flat in Romania, Gherca explores the tension between density and physical space and the way in which architecture imposes its perspective and scale upon the viewer. In some of his previous projects, the artist engaged with the social and economic shift that followed the Romanian revolution. He made a series on marginalised societies living in the maze of underground tunnels in Bucharest (Tunnels and Pipes, 2010-2016) and several series on the degradation of communist working-class neighbourhoods in Romania (A Diagram of Utopia, 2014-2017 and Becoming Urbanised, 2016-2018).
For this new body of work entitled A Glimpse of Disconnection, Gherca depicts different known cities in a way that is all but familiar. Although the pictures are shrouded in darkness, they are taken during the day. By underexposing his photographs and twisting the images’ perspective, he creates confusion, evoking a sense of urban and social alienation that many of us experience today in a rapidly-changing world. In a time when life as we knew it changes quicker than we can grasp in the whirlwind of technological interferences, the city represented in these images is no longer embodied by architecture or people, but reduced to an endless flow of data.
ELISA PINTO
(1985, Mexico)
The artistic practice of Elisa Pinto—which comprises sculptures, collages, paintings, and installations— is powerfully influenced by her personal history. However, Pinto does not evoke her past directly, but rather, through means of distancing, transforming, and reshaping fragments from her childhood memories. By decontextualizing and reconstructing these elements into a new narrative, she simultaneously questions and recreates her identity and her past through the use of fragments—of the human body or architectural elements—since both mutually shape and influence each other.
Pinto presents a reduced version of fragments of a house—with unfamiliar rooms, each with its own atmosphere—linked to various childhood memories. The installation is based on the blueprint that Pinto’s brother, who is an architect, made from memory of the house where they both grew up. The result, existing somewhere in the grey zone between reality and blurry memories, is simultaneously a tangible and imaginary space. The mobile walls will be reconfigured during the exhibition, as a reference to memories that change over time.
OLIVIA HERNAÏZ
(Belgium, 1985)
In her practice, Olivia Hernaïz explores situations that stem from our neoliberal society and that refer to, amongst others, the banking system, the advertisement industry or the art world. Her installations—which often result from collaborations with actors, singers and musicians—are deliberately playful and accessible, often triggering the spectator’s participation by means of a board game, song or inviting environment. Hernaïz’ fluid installations are reiterated in different constellations according to the exhibition venue. The work on view here is a new version of the installation ¡Но пасаран! that formed part of Hernaïz’ solo show La Eterna Juventud (The Eternal Youth) in Mu.ZEE in Ostend. In this exhibition, Hernaïz examined, through various interconnected works, the history of her Spanish grandmother’s brothers who were sent as children to Russia in 1937 to escape Franco’s regime and the Spanish civil war. Since they were educated according to the Soviet ideology, the series revolves around such themes as identity and ideology, micro and macro history, displacement and exile. ¡Но пасаран! invites the viewer to sit in a deck chair set in a sound installation playing a recording of a military march sang by the so-called “Niños de Rusia” (children of Russia) during political celebrations in the former USSR. In collaboration with the Ostend-based musicians of kleinVerhaal and YaGoon, Hernaïz brings a new interpretation of this song, in a style that ranges from rock to ska, which functions here as a warning against nationalism.
NOKUKHANYA LANGA
(1991, USA)
Although Nokukhanya Langa is a born painter, she regularly tries to escape the confines of the canvas and its many unspoken conventions in her artistic practice. She does this not only by abandoning the classic format of the canvas but also by giving it a more sculptural and whimsical touch. By morphing the sides of the canvas and using polyester foam, her paintings acquire a more voluminous shape.
This matches her post-Pop, pictorial style that encompasses various sources ranging from cartoons and music videos to signs, symbols, memes, and tags. The results are layered paintings with an edge.
This process is employed in her new installation I’ve Still Got One Good Eye. By creating an immersive environment in which spectators can observe her paintings, she evokes an indefinable place, somewhere between a playground and a post-urban wasteland. The bright colours of her paintings and cartoonish shape of the bench that she also designed might initially seem inviting and playful, yet the installation exudes an underlying feeling of violence, a slightly sinister mood that creeps in through the urban cracks and fence.
GAËLLE LEENHARDT
(1987, France)
Gaëlle Leenhardt is a sculptor whose practice takes on multiple forms, ranging from photography to sound, etc. The common thread of these forms is that they are always driven by the sculptural gaze. Leenhardt is fascinated by geology and archaeology and tries to incorporate geological processes into her practice, embracing the passage of time and weather conditions that leave their imprint on her work.
During a residency in Marfa, USA, she came across a table that Donald Judd had specially made for his library. She decided to create a similar table to the scale of her HISK studio where she worked throughout her two-year residency.
Whereas the six-metre table is normally used as a working table, she moved it to the outside terrace of the Gosset building to present her new pieces. Atop the table, she displays a series of bronzes, which are the negative traces of the clay she found during construction work at the HISK. The clay shows the geological traces of the foundations of the HISK-building and was used by the artist throughout her residency to complete various pieces. By presenting this table and revealing some of her working methods, Leenhardt deliberately blurs the lines between the site of production and presentation, her studio practice and the Laureates Exhibition.
DRIES BOUTSEN
(1993, Belgium)
The artistic practice of Dries Boutsen could almost be summarised as one big collage without hierarchy. His practice consists of a back-and-forth movement between small, sometimes intimate collages and large-scale installations in the public realm—which are sometimes even used as a platform for other artworks or interventions. Boutsen uses small bits of wastepaper and discarded wood as well as diverse and massive materials scattered around in his studio. In an ongoing movement, elements from previous constructions are re-used and reassembled into new pieces.
He adopts this approach once again in his contribution to the Laureates Exhibition for which he reassembles bits and pieces of installations he made over the last years—almost as a symbolic farewell to his two-year residency at the HISK. The base of his intervention is built up out of layers of material he used for an earlier intervention for the outdoor sculpture exhibition sonsbeek 20-24 in the Netherlands. On top of this platform, he reassembles elements from outdoor sculptures exhibited in Knokke in 2020 and that have now withered because of the weather conditions. Today, these components are partially revived in his new installation. By recycling elements from previous pieces in this new installation, he not only revisits his earlier work but also deliberately spreads the boundaries between the private and the public, his studio space and the exhibition space.
SANDRINE MORGANTE
(Belgium, 1986)
Sandrine Morgante’s practice consists of drawings, paintings, installations, and sound pieces. Through these various media, she analyses and deconstructs language and various speech acts, both in written and spoken form. By revealing recurring structures or hidden patterns, she shows the way in which language interiorizes social norms within a broader, political discourse. The sources of her practice are manifold: from a casual or flirtatious conversation in the train to the deceiving language of the advertising industry or the thorough analysis of linguistic patterns in the work of literary maverick David Foster Wallace. Although Morgante works with language in all its forms, she has a penchant for the highly-individual expression of handwriting.
In Taalbarrière, an installation featuring school benches, drawings, and a sound piece, Morgante investigates the linguistic situation in Belgium from the perspective of French and Dutch-speaking high school students. Since they are forced to study each other’s language, their impressions are strongly saturated by the often troubled political history that defined the country and defined its national identity. By giving voice to the students, Morgante exposes their personal experiences—often with a characteristic Belgian sense of self-depreciation and humour—behind the official linguistic policy.
PAULIUS ŠLIAUPA
(Lithuania, 1990)
Paulius Šliaupa is a visual artist whose practice ranges from video installations and experimental movies for cinema to object-like paintings. His method of filming his immediate surroundings often turns the familiar into something unrecognisable, abstract or enchanted. In his work, he frequently explores the fragile states of natural elements, including water, air, the sun, or the moon which he renders in such a way that one almost has the impression of genuinely feeling, smelling, or hearing them. As such, nature is a recurring element in his films and often stands in tension with human constructions.
Šliaupa’s videos do not follow a classic narrative arc but are instead akin to non-linear, audio-visual poems. Šliaupa’s new video, The Monk, poetically evokes the changing relationship between man and nature. Rather than using the cold and emotionless statistics of science theory, he sets out on a quest to reveal the consequences of this change on the everyday lives of individuals as well as the ensuing, personal feeling of loss and alienation it creates. He conveys his message by accumulating painterly images and atmospheric sounds in an almost sensorial manner.
