Léo Luccioni
Hakuna Mahaha
Oktober 2023 - Marz 2024
Onze-Lieve-Vrouwestraat 19
B-8500 Kortrijk
Just below the distinctly exotic and humoristic glaze of Léo Luccioni’s Hakuna Mahaha, a shrouded web of unanswered existential questions awaits the unsuspecting visitor. Embellished in the candy coloured packaging of junk food and commercial display, subliminal reflections on topics like the profit-based industrialized global economy and its destructive consequences are stealthily concealed. Marketing strategies and greenwashing tactics transpire through the exaggerated brilliance of their cleverly designed disguises in this singular practice, cherishing the dark and shiny nuggets of contemporary consumption culture like blood diamonds.
Central in the exhibition is the lionless adaptation of Walt Disney’s Lion King poster in the impressive aerosol and oil painting The Sun does not exist. The idyllic African sunset turns into a threatening, desolate landscape through the eyes of a generation bombarded by the mass media with climate changing greenhouse emissions and the extinction of animal species. Closely connected is the neon light Swahili quote Hakuna Matata (meaning ‘no worries’) the above-mentioned entertainment company registered as their trademark. Rendering the phrase in the German Fraktur type that was used for propaganda, connects the corporation's current methods to the alledged political sympathies of it's founder. The polished bronze Lion chocolate bars in their original plastic foil packaging as The End of Kings suggest the coprolitic trophies of the absent feline, in a familiar french word play on bronze casting. The installation is accompanied by the hypnotic sound of tongue drums made from empty gas cylinders in the Meditation Drum series. While these musical instruments are handmade based on a technique found in online DIY tutorials by upcycling industrial waste, here they are painted in car lacquer regaining the appearance of mass produced consumer goods. Through this process the enduring cycle of appropriation and reappropriation by mainstream culture and counter culture is subtly exposed. The 432 Hz frequency these instruments produce is known to reduce the stress hormone cortisol, inducing a meditative state of mind and relaxation in an absolution of human nature.
In the back room a seductive human sized copy of a Bounty chocolate bar aptly titled Mutiny on the Bounty, a Taste of Nostalgia reminds the diversion of advertising strategies, and the artificial paradise they sold so well that the dream they promised virtually evaporated. After consumer protests this snack promoting itself as ‘A Taste of Paradise’ was exiled from Celebrations boxes in the United States, revisiting the story of the Mutiny on the Bounty and it's romanticized Hollywood versions the name refers to. What initially appeared to be an exaltation of the wonders of our era seemingly embodies the weight as well as the unbearable lightness of a time beyond the anthropocene.
Between desire and rejection, the profane and the sacred, Leo Luccioni develops a body of work in which the material world is deregulated. A polysemic and allegorical art that encourages critical thinking, invites reinvention and surprise. With a counter-poetry that is both popular and existential, he questions the absurdity of mass production and the illusion of material ecstasy. These installations oscillate between seemingly benign entertainment and the latent seriousness that can resurface at any moment.
His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions, in 2020 at Everyday Gallery in Antwerp, in 2021 at NADA New York and Stems Gallery in Brussels, in 2022 at the Palazzo Monti in Brescia and at the Chapelle des Dames Blanches in La Rochelle and, in 2023, at Romero Paprocki in Paris. He has taken part in exhibitions at Garage Rotterdam, the Boghossian Foundation, Studio-Orta, New Space, the Cassina Project and at various fairs in Paris, Milan, Miami, Hong Kong and Dubai. He has been awarded the Belgian Young Artist prize in sculpture and installation in 2022. In 2024 he presents a solo exhibition at Ceramic Brussels with Romero Paprocki and a solo exhibition at Stems, Brussels.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grégory Decock
Yannick Jadoul
Sharon Van Overmeiren
Romain Zacchi
15.10 - 03.12.2023
Mon-Sun / 11-18h
cc Binder / Forum 9
B-2870 Puurs-Sint-Amands
In the beginning He created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And He said: Let there be light! and there was light. And He saw the light, that it was good, and he separated light from darkness. And He called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening, and there was morning. The origin of the eternal battle between Light and Darkness — the first day.
A persistent theological problem concerning creation is the existence of Evil. If God is Good, there must also be an evil force at work that took shape in the Devil. From this perspective, it seems problematic to grasp that good and evil do not exist without each other and emerge from the same creation. In contrast, in the Eastern worldview, yin and yang coherently depict two opposing principles or forces of which all aspects of life and the universe are permeated. The dualism of complementary forces also underlies the scientific worldview. Time and space are not separate from each other but form a universal continuum of Spacetime, the model of which resulted from the theory of relativity, in which positive and negative charges are elementary in the transformations of energy and matter.
The adaptation of Duvel's logo was conceived by Grégory Decock, who has a background as a graphic designer and plays with iconic visual culture and philosophical concepts. Duel symbolises the battle between opposing forces that control our lives. Besides being the theme, this inevitably also became the title of this exhibition in Puurs, home to Duvel Moortgat's brewery. For this project, Grégory transformed a vintage bumper car in collaboration with garage owner Pierre Total into the counter image of the custom Volkswagen Golf they previously produced.
For another work he teemed up with Romain Zacchi. They visited the abandoned factory of Durobor where gold-rimmed beer glasses were made, where a remarkable steel gate incorporating the motif of a chalice-shaped glass is incorporated. By replicating one side of the gate and placing it opposite a mirror plate made from the steel of an old vault of the national bank, it represents a gateway between two worlds of which both sides are in opposing dimensions themselves. Romain built a ladder anchored in the left and right walls of a corner, of which it is unclear if it reaches in the heavens or into the underworld. In this constellation they are inextricably connected.
Simultaneously, Yannick Jadoul developed a project whose central installation is a large game board that explores the quest for balance in a dualistic world. He projects an immaterial alter ego that transmits the information for his work, the instructions to balance his four elements represented by black, white, red and blue. Each sculptural element in the installation has an immaterial counterpart that can be viewed via the available QR codes. These codes inherently resemble endless variations of the chessboard, revealing aspects of the virtual world via digital information essentially programmed with the binary two-symbol system, zero and one, black and white, structuring the parallel world that infiltrates our reality at lightning speed.
Sharon Van Overmeiren's presented sculptures seem to embody two opposing forces, elements of past and future materialise in the form of light and darkness. The organic and geometric aspects condense universal archetypes and can both invite and deter, like an introspection from the other side of the mirror.
Special thanks to Liesbeth De Keersmaecker / cc Binder, Duvel Moortgat, Pierre Total and ntgrate.
Photography by Dieter Van Caneghem
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cléo Totti
De Bauxite, De Carbone et de Fer:
A Chemical Anthology
16.09 - 22.10.2023
Extracted from a conversation between Cléo Totti and Chagtp
Metamorphoses and transformations intertwine through the physical, genetic and spiritual dimensions. The key elements of bauxite, carbon and iron, submitted to transitions between liquid and solid states, become symbols of these processes. Life forms undergo evolutionary transformations over time just as materials transform from one state to another. The caryatid at the heart of the exhibition embodies this idea of metamorphosis by representing the weight of history and human conflicts, as well as their interaction with materials and resources. In this way it acts as a cornerstone in modeling our consciousness of collective responsibility.
Cléo Totti (1989, Bastogne, Belgium) is an artist living and working in Liège. She makes sculptures and performances with a wide range of materials, including wax, clay, plastic, resin, plaster, aluminum, copper, textiles and organic elements. Her main motif is the human body, which is fragmented, distorted and transformed into pictorial objects. Alternating between fluid and solid, her work signals a fluidity and hybridity of both synthetic and natural bodies. She obtained her Master in Visual Arts at the ERG (School of Graphic Research), Brussels (2015). She was nominated for the Friends of S.M.A.K. – Coming People (2016) and the Liège Creation Prize (2017). Her recent exhibitions include Stone/Image Projection curated by Sam Steverlinck & Dome Wood,The Agprognostic Temple (2023), Chapelle de Boondael, Brussels (BE); Rooms of Resonnace curated by Chantal Pattyn and Benedicte Goessaert , Cloud Seven (2023)- Collection Frédéric de Goldschmidt, Brusssels (BE); Art Week Rotterdam, Neck Of The Woods, Rotterdam (NL); Allez, Allez!, Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles (2022), Paris (FR) Fragile, El Gallery (2021), Welle (BE); Fearless, Market Gallery, Glasgow (2019); Mechanical Lyricism, BPS22, Charleroi; Elite 18, KRIEG, Hasselt; Resistance, CENTRALE d’art contemporain, Brussels (all 2018). She participated to national and internationnal residencies such as : AAIR ANTWERPEN (2020), Anvers, (BE); 2019: Ravi (2019), Liège (BE); Arscape with Stijn Maes (2016-2017), Siena (IT), Summer research residency (2015), Tinos (GR)...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Myrthe van der Mark
SWEAT
07/08.10.2023
Avee @ rhizome_
Koning Albertstraat 2
B-8500 Kortrijk
Myrthe van der Mark's SWEAT distills the atmospheres of other times and spaces. Membranes impregnated with molecules and meanings, like the shirt your father was wearing during his last hours in this realm of physical bodies. The pictures printed by the shop around the corner with the residues of your rhizomatic residency and summer holiday memories of our own travels and those of unknown others. The allegory of the cave painting, spelunking in a black box inside a white cube in search of the origins of creation like Schrödinger's Cat.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yannick Jadoul vs Black Narcis
16.09 - 01.10.2023
Open Saturday and Sunday 14-18h
Avee @ rhizome_
Koning Albertstraat 2
B-8500 Kortrijk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthieu Ronsse
Je cherche un homme
New works on view
Saturday 02.09 : 11-19h
Sunday 03.09 : 11-19h
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maarten Van Roy
MINE OF YOU WITH ME
21.05 - 02.07.2023
A dunking figure in the scent of what could be the floor laid bare
Bronze patina Miami Heat gradient, a glass blob childhood figurine
a little rhino
On top of each other, yet barely touching, the metal shows folds
Like skin, mousse liquids pressed fingerprints and a serial number showing
space through cavities
Broken glass firmly held, traced with glue like a teenager’s postered wall
Skin and intestine, soft solid Mine of You with Me
The items grown from cohabitation in a dialogue at eye level
The authoring wax glib gabby surface tension
—
In the second room additions
The thing on a branch may be re-found and the poster indeed nebula swan finely pierced
Projections aspirations of what exactly do we dream of and on the floor a bag
to go swim or gym or just go
Céline Mathieu
Maarten Van Roy (1985, Bonheiden) nurtures the temporal materials that catch his attention like cosmic seeds. The way his constellations seem engineered suggests a scientific method and yet his operations evolve in the realm of visceral consciousness. Physical processes reveal themselves in a domestic setting; they evoke the dance of molecules through suspended particles or the birth of galaxies in their cradle. The very small and the unfathomably large coincide in fractal glory. Memories develop into metaphors of the universal principles that infinitely transcend the spheres of our dwellings. These newborn bronzes may be the condensation of the circadian rhythm or manifestations of the halo around the celestial basketball on the invitation card - they are the intangible within reach. You might get the feeling that you have never been so warmly invited into the creation of existence
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.05-02.07.2023
HYDROMANCY
It started around 1999 with the dream of a kingfisher hovering in an undefined expanse of darkness. Suddenly it darted through the surface into the unfathomable obscurity of the water below, reappearing with a small fish in its beak. Around the same time, the florescence of certain psychotropic fungi started interacting with biolumenescent algae on the Belgian coastline, resulting in an unprecedented fluorescent display. Throughout the following decades, by a relentless process of esoteric studies and in depth analysis it was determined that nothing happens by chance and these events were interconnected. As Carl Gustav Jung, the father of analytical psychology pointed out, the subaquatic world represents the subconscious as opposed to the terrestrial experiences of the waking world. In a way Jungian Archetypes could be considered as the mycelium of human sentience, connecting ancestral memories into the collective consciousness.
Generally speaking many transformative processes occur at surfaces. Chemical reactions take place on the surface where two substances touch, and obviously an incredible variety of phenomena originate on a proportionately very thin layer of the earth's crust. The water surface could be perceived as the ephemeral present connecting past and future, conscious and subconscious. As a contemporary form of sourcerers, artists are scrying into the unknown, tapping through the surface into the depths of universal archetypes and symbols. While the rational mind struggles to quantify the aesthetic experience, its fundamental relevance as an intrinsic aspect of human nature remains undeniable. The light of reason cannot thrive without its elusive counterpoint of intuition.
SARAH CAILLARD, DOUGLAS EYNON, CHANTAL VAN RIJT, LAURENT VELDEKENS.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grégory Decock
Matthieu Ronsse
La Lune est le rêve du Soleil
De Maan is de drooM van de Zon
O1.04.2023 01.05.2023
In 2020, Matthieu Ronsse accompanied Grégory Decock on the return trip of his bicycle pilgrimage Aouste-Courtrai-Aouste. Grégory had started this journey alone from his home town Aouste-Sur-Sye direction Kortrijk in search of his ancestor's roots on the departure day of that year's Tour de France, chasing the course of history and synchronicity.
They left Kortrijk heading back towards the French Drôme departement on two custom made black Marcel Kint racing bikes but their ways parted in Dijon, leaving the journey uncompleted. However it resulted in their duo exhibition Chambre à Errer on the day of the 2021 Tour of Flanders, in Matthieu's house on top of the Taaienberg, an infamous cobbled slope along the Tour of Flanders trajectory.
La Lune est le rêve du Soleil announces the completion of their trajectory, which will take place in a different form than it was originally intended. Since Grégory moved from Aouste to Brussels in the meantime, the remaining 333 Km will be concluded in Ghent's Saint Jabob's Church in the course of May 2023 during the group exhibition I Wash My Hands, curated by Jan Hoet Jr. At the same time it refers to Grégory's intention to reconnect the first moon landing to the cycling world, since this coincided with Eddy Merckx' legendary victory in the Tour de France, the simultaneous conquests of July 20, 1969. Last year's Tour de Soleil traced the alignment of wheels within wheels connecting the bicycle gears into the solar cycle.
Matthieu dispatched the altarpiece he painted inside a shipping crate from Saint Rémy de Provence where he had been working for the last months to Kortrijk to be presented at Ignace Van Canneyt's antique shop, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwestraat 44, at a stone's throw from Avee Gallery where Grégory's solar cycle constellation was presented.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE is an umbrella title that brings together the MIRROR SERIES / POWERADE SERIES / OBELISK SERIES as one, as a battle of control over body and land.
It is striking how these two most fundamental elements of our existence (body and land) are controlled by such cartoonish notions of dominance and power. Subjects are approached with the simplest of strategies, coherence is confused with clarity, polyphony is reduced to a single narrative....
BUFFED (Gotterdammerung) shows a jacked landscape turned to flesh that pulses, contracting like a landscape workout; like a place where thesocial engineering delusions of body and land intersect. The soundtrack (by Jonas Van Schoote) fuses sounds of geological tectonics with the high-octane flair of a gym.
MIRROR SERIES, PORTRAIT OF CONFLICT is a series of portraits where the void in between double glass is poured with different combinations of materials; proteins, fats, gelatins, carbon, minerals, BCAAs, amino acids. These bulk powders are used among bodybuilders and body sculptors to upgrade the body and achieve a form of perfection, symmetry, definition.
POWERADE SERIES is a series of drawings of geological and biological elements, muscle tissue, minerals painted with blackened protein powders mixed with medium and fat. On top of this is the garish colour palette of Powerade (sports drink), and thus its promise of hydration (Powerade strawberry lemonade). Thus, branding becomes an inherent part of the image.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ULTERIEUR 2022
Lysandre Begijn / Anne Beumer / Louis De Cordier / Theo De Meyer / Ian De Weerdt / Jonas Dehnen / Gilles Dusong / Lisa Egio + Elliot Kervyn / Justine Grillet / Yannick Jadoul / Marie Joos / Gerard Kuijpers / Harold Lechien / Anthony Leenders / Dries Manders / Noir Métal / Andreas Nonneman / Karen Oger / Tim Onderbeke / Elias Peeters / Ellen Pil / Marius Ritiu / Shervin/e Sheikh Rezaei / Cléo Totti / Myrthe van der Mark / Sharon Van Overmeiren / Bram Vanderbeke / Arthur Vandergucht / Alice Vanderschoot / Lenny Vervaeke / Tom Volkaert / Jan Wittoeck / Yoon Shun
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ellen Pil . Louise Delanghe . Marius Ritiu . Matthieu Ronsse . Yannick Jadoul . Nadia Naveau . Willem Boel . Justine Grillet . Mathias MU .
NL ~ Tijdens de zevende en laatste editie van de beeldentriënnale Ijzerenberg wordt een constellatie van negen kunstenaars in de vorm van zeven entiteiten uitgenodigd voor het project LUCIFER, gecureerd door Petrus Paklons en Ellen Pil. De installatie wordt geactiveerd op 24 september, parallel met de herfstequinox.
Lucifer is van oorsprong een Latijns woord dat letterlijk Lichtbrenger betekent, waarmee meestal op de Morgenster geduid werd. Dit was eigenlijk de planeet Venus, die vanwege het feit dat ze een binnenplaneet is enkel zichtbaar is vóór zonsopkomst of kort na zonsondergang. In dat geval werd ze ook de Avondster genoemd, en lang was niet geweten dat dit één en dezelfde planeet was. In het Nederlands wordt het woord vaak gebruikt als aanduiding voor de duivel. Deze verwarring tussen de Brenger van het Licht en de Brenger van de Duisternis is toepasselijk op de equinox, de dag dat licht en duister in evenwicht zijn.
De kunstenaars werken rond de zeven metalen die in de alchemie geconnecteerd werden met de zeven dwalende sterren. Deze metalen werden beschouwd als de verschillende stappen om lood in goud te veranderen, en op metaforische wijze symboliseert dit proces de weg naar de verlichting. Na de wetenschappelijke revolutie werden verschillende onbekende metalen en planeten ontdekt, waardoor de moderne chemie en het heliocentrische model met negen planeten ontstonden.
Het project Lucifer infiltreert de thematiek van de Ijzerenberg triënnale die als onderwerp de DIVINA COMMEDIA heeft, waarin Dante een reis van zeven dagen beschrijft door de Rijken van het hiernamaals: Hel, Vagevuur en Hemel. Deze bestaan elk uit negen sferen, waarvan er zeven overeenkomen met de 7 hoofdzonden. Zeven en negen zijn naast hun associatie met het aantal planeten beiden getallen die het einde van een cyclus symboliseren.
Tijdens het laatste weekend van de triënnale presenteren Mathias MU en Justine Grillet ook hun installatie in de oude silo’s van Stella (de Ster) Artois in samenwerking met Cas-co Leuven.
Dank aan Ellen Pil, familie Spaas, Ijzerenberg, Base Alpha, DMW, Allaert Aluminium, Fotorama, Omer Vander Ghinste, Cas-co, Maakleerplek, Mirthe Demaerel and Koi Persyn.
EN ~ During the seventh and final edition of the Ijzerenberg triennial, a constellation of nine artists in the form of seven entities is invited to the project LUCIFER, curated by Petrus Paklons and Ellen Pil. The installation will be activated on September 24, parallel to the autumnal equinox.
Lucifer is originally a Latin word that literally means Bringer of Light, meaning the Morning Star. This was actually the planet Venus, which due to being an inner planet is only visible at sunrise and shortly after sunset. In that case it was also called the Evening Star, and for a long time it wasn't known that this is one and the same planet. In Dutch, the word is often used as an indication of the devil. This confusion between the Bringer of Light and the Bringer of Darkness is particularly appropriate on the equinox, the day when light and dark are in balance.
The artists work around the seven metals that were connected in alchemy with the seven wandering stars. These metals were seen as the different steps to turn lead into gold, and metaphorically this process symbolizes the way to enlightenment. After the scientific revolution, various metals and planets were discovered, creating modern chemistry and physics as well as the nine-planet heliocentric model of the solar system.
The Lucifer project infiltrates this year's theme of the Ijzerenberg triennial, which is the DIVINA COMMEDIA, in which Dante travels for seven consecutive days through the realms of the afterlife: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. These consist of nine spheres each, seven of which are related to the 7 deadly sins. Seven and nine, in addition to their association with the number of planets, are numbers that symbolize the end of a cycle.
During the last weekend of the triennial, Mathias MU and Justine Grillet will also present their installation in the old silos of Stella (the Star) Artois in collaboration with Cas-co Leuven.
Thanks to Ellen Pil, Spaas family, Ijzerenberg, Base Alpha, DMW, Allaert Aluminium, Fotorama, Omer Vander Ghinste, Cas-co, Maakleerplek, Mirthe Demaerel and Koi Persyn.
Photography Dieter Van Canghem
24.09.2022 - 10:00 - 23:00
IJZERENBERG : Brusselsesteenweg 131 Herent
MAAKLEERPLEK : Stapelhuisstraat 13 Leuven
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
YANNICK JADOUL - MARATHON DES SABLES
Every step leads to the unknown
Questions answered by mysteries
Invisible paths through oasis and quicksand
The steps numbered twenty-one to zero
For Marathon des Sables, named after the world’s toughest ultramarathon and symbolising the journey of life, Yannick Jadoul transformed the 21 Major Arcana into digitally crafted designer shoes. Each based on an iconic piece of footwear but rendered in a material that refers to the meaning of each particular card, they represent the steps you may take on your path.
Behind the shiny luxury facade of the shoe shop, a deeper message is shared with the visitors through a personal tarot reading by means of the shoes they choose. The customer takes central space in this shop, escorted by one additional Arcanum. Preparere for your next step, strap your boots for the Marathon des Sables.
XXI THE WORLD
The World is about the complete success of a project we have undertaken, which major steps in our journey have brought us where we are, on the top of the mountain where we find the philosophical gold, the unification between fire and water. Duality dissolves into love and contemplation.
>
>
> The shoe is based on a split-toe boot design by Balenciaga, where the focus is on the foot and where the foot is placed on a plinth, as it were.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grégory Decock : Tour de Soleil
02.04-29.05.2022
5
On the 5th of April 2020, Avee Gallery initiated Grégory Decock’s project REMEMORE. This day the eponymous stained glass window based on the historical café windows by local brewer OMER Vander Ghinste was presented in the gallery’s front window, commemorating Grégory’s grandfather OMER Decock who emigrated from Kortrijk to France and who died before Grégory was born. Remémore is the first person present tense of the french verb remémorer: to remember, to bring back to memory.
4
The installation of the stained glass window took place on the 4th of April 2020, the day the Tour of Flanders was scheduled before it got canceled because of the government confinement orders that were frequent at that time. At this point this work seemed prophetic since it now embodied the social events that were restricted from our lives: cancelled sports events, as well as art galeries, museums and bars being closed. This was also the day the arrival of Grégory in Kortrijk was planned after a ten day bicycle pilgrimage starting in his home town Aouste-sur-Sye in the french Drôme department. Exactly one year later on 04.04.2021, Chambre à Errer took place along the Tour of Flanders trajectory.
3
This year the Tour of Flanders takes place on the 3rd of April, one year after Grégory’s duo exhibition with Matthieu Ronsse ‘Chambre à Errer’ which took place during the 2021 Tour of Flanders in Matthieu’s house on the summit of the Taaienberg, one of the most important cobbled slopes of the Tour. This was the last time a recurring annual art exhibition was organized there during the Tour of Flanders before the house was sold. In september 2020 Matthieu accompanied Grégory by bike on the return trip from Kortrijk to Aouste, initiating this particular show.
2
On the 2nd of April, the eve of this year’s Tour of Flanders, Grégory’s new project Tour de Soleil will start off with the opening of his exhibition at Avee Gallery closing the second one-year cycle. Here the new centerpiece connecting past, present and future will be presented along with new editions. Simultaneously this marks the beginning of a new cycle, during the following months old and new works will be revealed on external locations concluding in the disclosure of the actual route of the Tour de Soleil, a bycicle trip in the region of Kortrijk along various works and locations connecting the history of this project.
1
In one year (En 1 AN) between 04.04.2020 and 04.04.2021, REMEMORE occupied six locations in Kortrijk, before Le Chagrin des Belges curated by Grégory took over dozens of closed bars and restaurants windows. By the end of that summer the Tour de France ran parallel to Grégory’s actual bicycle journey culminating in the two part group show ECHO cocurated by Grégory and Avee. In autumn the founding of 10N took place in Uccle with the duo show of Grégory and Jerôme Nicod ‘Géorgiques’, followed that winter by the first Menorcan 10N residency and finally by the start of spring 2021 Chambre à Errer closed this cycle marked by the Tour of Flanders. One year later, on the eve of this year’s Tour of Flanders, we welcome Tour de Soleil. In one year the earth orbits the sun, this yearly trajectory controls the seasons on earth and our measurement of time. This solar cycle is the Tour that defines our lives and times, the Tour de Soleil.
1 2 3 Soleil
This work refers to past and future projects. In 2020 a custom black Marcel Kint racing bicycle was built for Grégory's 900Km Courtrai-Aouste journey, which was a centerpiece of the two part groupshow ECHO. The first part coincided with the arrival of the Tour de France on the birthday of Marcel Kint, the legendary Black Eagle. Le Chagrin des Belges (The Sorrow of Belgium) was a groupshow curated by Grégory in dozens of closed bars and restaurants in Kortrijk during the first lockdown. The title is derived from a book by Hugo Claus, a bildungsroman which unfolds in the region of Kortrijk around the second World War and is widely considered as the most important Dutch-language novel of the 20th century. This title is printed in Belgium's two main languages on the black and white frames, as well as the national motto Eendracht maakt macht / l'Union fait la force (Unity makes strength). While the black bike's wheels have the Flemish colours black and yellow, and the white bike's wheels are in Wallonia's colours yellow and red, together they form the Belgian flag. In this respect the work reflects this country's political situation and announces Grégory's future project, the Tour of Belgium.
Like the chromatic range of the bicycles, the M.Kint emblem attached to their front has the four colours of the steps alchemists described to turn base metals to gold. Black (nigredo), white (albedo), yellow (citrinitas) and red (rubedo). The golden eagle ressembles a Phoenix which Christians viewed as a metaphor for Christ's resurrection, and it was an especially important symbol for the alchemists. The Philosopher's Stone itself, the goal of alchemy, is sometimes described as a Phoenix because the Stone is notoriously deep red and also undergoes a transmutation through fire. Gold is traditionally connected to the Sun. The black and white frames seem to be a representation of duality whilst the central wheel could be perceived as the unity achieved by surpassing duality through enlightenment, the present connecting past and future, or as the sun in the centre enlightening the solar system. The French word rayons (de soleil) notably refers equally to the spokes in a bicycle wheel as to sunrays.
Sunday may 29th, the finissage was synchronized with the Marcel Kint Classic, a 199 Km bicycle race starting in Kortrijk and honoring Marcel Kint. Exactly 75 years ago was the first edition of the Grote Prijs Marcel Kint in 1947, now renamed and labelled UCI 1.1 by the International Cycling Union. This cycling legend remains the longest lasting world champion until this day after his gold medal in Valkenburg 1938. The next year he became Belgian champion and won numerous other races among which three times La Flèche Wallone and several in the Tour de France. After his cycling career he founded a bicycle factory in Kortrijk which is still active until today. His grandson Marniek Kint personally made this iconic work designed by Grégory Decock: 1 2 3 Soleil.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kurt Ryslavy - Een autonome kunstenaar? / 06.03-31.03.2022
Kurt Ryslavy’s Autonome Installationen continue the tradition of appropriation established about a century ago with readymades, though by using the works of other artists as ‘readymades’ in his installations as opposed to random found objects, the work is often assessed as highly controversial on the art market. In the installations presented here, he uses works by Michel François and Éric Van Hove respectively, each combined with a painting of his own as a kind of index, in which he describes the way he obtained the works.
In his Installation für Spekulanten and Installation für Investören he offers three packaged paintings of his own for the price of one, without possibility of exchanging works. By addressing the issues of authorship related to value and questioning the unwritten rules, he paradoxically carves his own niche in the world of conceptual art as a painter.
In the back room a long unseen series of Kurt’s oil paintings from the late eighties are brought back to light, along with paper works from the same period presented in 2016 in his solo exhibition ‘Tu m’aides à peindre? (assistance by Walter Swennen)’ in De Garage, Mechelen.
Read more:
Kurt Ryslavy - Negotium
Kurt Ryslavy - Sales Catalogue / Verkaufskatalog
Kurt Ryslavy - Based Less on Profit than on Substance
Kurt Ryslavy - 110 (Franz Schröckenfuchs, etc.)
Kurt Ryslavy - Glossarium
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
myrthe van der mark : cake
22.12. 2021 : 05.02. 2022
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Touch & Go
____________________________
Tessa Perutz
____________________________
November 13
____________________________
December 12
____________________________
For her installation at Avee, Tessa made around 200 frottages around Brussels and other places she visited during a period of a year. Like a travelogue, in this way she produced a subjective map of her environment which was then transferred to the walls of the gallery. Six sandpaintings made in honour of a deceased friend were presented on this support, depicting the landscape where he lived with the sand of the area mixed into the paintings and the specially made artist frames. Each frame referring to the color of another painting, the installation reminds us of the ephemerality of our memories in our ever changing perception of reality. The installation itself later manifested in a new configuration, traveling to her solo exhibition Paradisiaque at Baronian in the spring of 2022.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ulterieur invites artists to revivificate abandoned matter into new incarnations, celebrating the infinite cycle of elements. The exhibition moves to a different location for each edition and presents unique artist furniture, handmade limited editions, prototypes, functional art, related works and performances. An investigation into basic properties and fundamental values. Welcome to this travelling time capsule.
15.10-15.11.2021 / EVOLIS 91 / 8500 KORTRIJK
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: Aaron Daem / Alice Pandolfo / Ana María Gómez / Anthony Leenders / Antoine Carbonne / Antoine Goossens / Antoinette d’Ansembourg / Arnaud Eubelen / Bas van den Hout / Cléo Totti / Colin Temple / DD Trans / Dome Wood / Douglas Eynon / Ellen Pil / Florent Valmassoni / Floris Hoorelbeke / Frizbee Ceramics / Gaëlle Leenhardt / Grégory Decock / Ilke Cop / Jan Laroy / Jim Jilborn / Jonas Apers / Jonas Vansteenkiste / Juan Pablo Plazas / Jules Labath / Julie Poisquet / Karen Oger / Lee Nevo / Leo Gabin / Maarten Raskin / Max Kesteloot / Michiel Ceulers / Myrthe van der Mark / Nicolas Bourthoumieux / Nicolas Zanoni / Pieterjan Ginckels / Sharon Van Overmeiren / Sofie Steegen / Tessa Perutz / Tim Onderbeke / Tommy Lecot / William Phlips / Wim De Pauw / Yannick Jadoul
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: CHAMPAGNE STROEBEL / DEGELS METAL / FOTORAMA / OMER VANDER GHINSTE / VAN DEN WEGHE
SPECIAL THANKS: JOKE ANCKAERT / NTGRATE / CHARLOTTE SWENTERS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALLES STROOMT / 24.08-24.10.2021
In six empty shop windows spread over the center of Kortrijk, six international artists: Martin Belou (France, 1986), Paulien Föllings (Netherlands, 1984), Philip Janssens (Belgium, 1980), Camille Le Meur (France, 1997), Sarah Margnetti (Switzerland, 1983) and Marina Pinsky (Russia, 1986), each show an installation that will change and evolve during the exhibition ALLES STROOMT.
The gallery at Onze-Lieve-Vrouwestraat 19 and the location of Ulterieur 2020 at Overbekeplein 30 were part of ALLES STROOMT.
Curated by Laure Decock for Elders.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bakermat III - Amphibion
26.06.2021 / 10:00-22:00 / Sint-Gerolfstraat 47 / 9031 Drongen
ἀμφί-βιος / amphí-bios: double-living.
Constructed in the week when traditional celebration of Midsummer takes place in Baltic, Nordic, Slavic and Germanic countries, the exhibition coincides with one of the oldest and most important traditions in Europe. The seasons were crucial in the life of agricultural people, and the period around the summer solstice was when the work of sowing the earth was finished and before harvesting began. For the midsummer festivities herbs with specific properties are gathered, fires are lit and singing villagers gather around them until the morning sun rises above the horizon. The story goes that when the fern flower is found in the forest by a young couple on the night of midsummer, they gain magical properties. Ferns are non-flowering plants reproducing by spores rather like mushrooms, but the forest magic results in new creatures nine months later. Right around the spring equinox when this project was originally intended to take place.
The egg opens and new life emerges with diamond teeth, entering the Hermetic Cycle...
Toon Boeckmans / Elia Claessen / Yannick Jadoul / Jules Labath / Simon Masschelein / Céline Mathieu / Fran Van Coppenolle / Myrthe van der Mark / Eric Vanuytven
In collaboration with Bakermat Architekten
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ULTERIEUR 20/21
Jonas Apers / Anastasia Bay + Julien Saudubray / Antoine Carbonne / Michiel Ceulers / Joachim Coucke / Pierre De Buck / Marlies De Clerck / Jonas Dehnen / Ronald Dubbel / Eileen Gray / Yannick Jadoul / Jules Labath / Tim Onderbeke / Tessa Perutz / Ellen Pil / Matthieu Ronsse / Niels Vaes / Florent Valmassoni / Sharon Van Overmeiren / Myrthe van der Mark / Willy Van Der Meeren / Maarten Van Roy / Eric Vanuytven / Sophie Varin / Dome Wood
For ULTERIEUR 2020, Avee Gallery contacted over a dozen artists residing in Belgium and companies that could provide them with remnants of glass, wood, metal, and scrap. As the annual interior and furniture design Biënnale Interieur in Kortrijk didn’t take place in 2020, Avee Gallery took up the initiative to unite artists with materials and to show the reassembled, upcycled works at ULTERIEUR. Many of the participating artists had never made a piece of furniture before.
In 2021, Collectible didn’t take place as planned either. During the weekend it had been programmed, Avee moved some pieces from the first edition of ULTERIEUR to firma II in Brussels and combined them with newly discovered gems, prototypes, reapropriated works and design icons to present them as ULTERIEUR 20/21.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
21.06 < 04.04.2021
ARIS
ANONYMOUS
JULIE DE KEZEL
CHARLIE DE VOET
LOUISE DELANGHE
JERÔME NICOD
MATTHIEU RONSSE
KAREL THIENPONT
VIRTUAL FONS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric Vanuytven x Yannick Jadoul - NOMIOS / 12.01.2021 -21.03.2021
Nomios is een expeditie doorheen het Griekse en het Egyptische mythologische landschap.
Twee herders op zoek naar een nieuwe natuur graven de weg tussen het zichtbare en het onzichtbare.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ULTERIEUR 2020
For ULTERIEUR, Avee Gallery contacted over a dozen artists residing in Belgium and companies that could provide them with remnants of glass, wood, metal, and scrap. As the annual interior and furniture design fair Interieur in Kortrijk isn’t taking place this year, Avee Gallery took up the initiative to unite artists with materials and to show the reassembled, upcycled works at ULTERIEUR. Many of the participating artists have never made a piece of furniture before.
Text by Céline Mathieu
Sponsoring companies:
Atelier Mestdagh / ateliermestdagh.be / Glass
Degels / www.degels.be / Metal
Libeco / www.libeco.com / Linnen
Van Den Weghe / www.vandenweghe.be / Marble
Vandecasteele / www.vandecasteele.be / Wood
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
26.09.2020 A2025
echo
Dans la mythologie grecque, Écho était une oréade, une nymphe des montagnes, qui vivait sur le mont Cithèron. Le mythe, connu principalement dans l’Antiquité par la version du poète latin Ovide, donne lieu à une postérité abondante aux époques ultérieures.
echo
19/20.09.2020 BK6
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
V/A - Le Chagrin des Belges / 18.05.2020 - ∞
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grégory Decock - REMEMORE. / 04.04.2020 - 04.04.2021
April 2020. Avee Gallery presents REMEMORE.
A solo exhibition by the French artist Grégory Decock.
Initially conceived as an event in which he would come by bike from his village Aouste Sur Sye in the French Drôme department, and 876 Km back with the custom bike made specially for the occasion in Kortrijk by Marniek Kint, grandson of the legendary Black Eagle. As in a bicycle race, the original title was Aouste-Courtrai-Aouste, and the arrival planned on 04.04.2020, the eve of the Tour of Flanders.
Central work in the exhibition is the stained glass window by Atelier Mestdagh in the gallery facade, an adaptation of the iconic café windows by Omer Vander Ghinste Brewery. It refers to Grégory's grandfather, Omer Decock, a Kortrijk native who emigrated to France in the 1930's in search of work and a new life, and eventually raised his family there. Through the current context, all cafés being closed and all cultural and sporting events having been cancelled by government restrictions, the work acquired a new meaning evoking the abandoned public spaces. Other works connected to the project were revealed during the past weeks on different locations through Kortrijk, eventually forming a tour through the city in reference to the dynamic of the original plans.
The bicycle pilgrimage is postponed by forces beyond our control.
The exhibition persists, be it in a different incarnation.
Aouste-Courtrai-Aouste became REMEMORE
The 6 Stages -
REMEMORE. - Avee, O.-L.-Vrouwestraat 19
drooM bicycle - Marcel Kint, Proosdijstraat 21
drooM Jersey - Brooklyn, Korte Steenstraat 6
Cardmember - Gyselinck, Wijngaardstraat 26
Drôme - Centrale Bibliotheek, Leiestraat 30
Aouste-Courtrai-Aouste - Stadhuis, Leiestraat 21
B 8500 Kortrijk
- Conclusion of the first Cycle -
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthieu Ronsse - Heaven Comes Home / Friday 13.03.2020
This exhibition was visible one single evening, friday the 13th of March 2020
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonas Callaert - Sliver
20.12.2019 - 12.01.2020
Rijden op de zwarte lijnen van altijd.
Mooi draaien, niet stampen en zweten op de horizon.
De grijzen worden groen en in dit licht zie ik ze nooit meer terug.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh jigglypuff jij pomo hypnos in bonte kleurentooi met de honingzoete sonair iriserende sound van je Davidslied krijg je zelfs de hardnekkigste paradijs kriebels van de meest getroebleerde wit gepriviligeerde middenkklasser gestild en in slaap geteld
- KT Oudenaarde 2019
National Supermarket
28.11 - 15.12.2019
PP7
A form of matter thought to account 85%
Propelling droplets onto paper, as a matter of fact
A type of slow-drying triple-point
The most common whats-the-matter
Generation loss
Mother of god
Developed by rare spacetime symmetry
A traditional double-action trigger mechanism
In this particular matter
Mind over subject
Can be similar to or completely different
As a matter of fact
It contradicts the arguer's assumption
A mental state associated with the nervous system
A belief or behavior passed down
A relationship between individuals and an object
Nontextual
Crux of the pictorial
No laughing
Something wrong strangelet?
Does it tabular matter?
Jan Laroy
Jan Laroy
Karel Thienpont
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nocturne Onze-Lieve-Vrouwestraat
From 5 pm until 9 pm
Erwin Schrödinger
Gedankenexperiment
15.11.2019
Avee will be OPEN or CLOSED
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Maarten Van Roy
Untitled (saloeki), 2019
20.09.19 - 06.10.19
JETSAM
Céline Mathieu
Kris Martin
Joost Pauwaert
Jan Laroy
Julien Auregan
Maarten Van Roy
Laurent Veldekens
Grégory Decock
Karel Thienpont
Alexandre Ronsse
Like flies on a shepherd,
with the boneheaded behaviors to adorn the secret liasons
with all those things like hardcore contemporary techno
nutcrackers losing it
as if it was a dream factory guarded by a greyhound
as if a king would be female
as if a girl reading a text would be sweeter
as if the work is thrown on the street by the landlord
as if Breton ways are smokey elegant
as if an idiot could be the very best survivor
as if a heavy man means heavy thoughts
as we refresh our instincts on what we strive to achieve
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hadrien du Roy - Doldrums
08.08.19 - 06.09.19
Hadrien is drawing mostly on a sheet of ocean these days, but his harbor- paper works and distant islands guarding fetish will mark his presence at the Avee gallery. The works of Hadrien seem to explore as much as the anchors chain of men can stretch at the edge of being torn apart.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Coup De Départ
07.07.19 - 04.08.19
Als een flaneur coureur in een fruitellakleur regenboogtruitje die net voor het startschot nog even naar de beker gluurt, die tot de rand gevuld is met een nog niet gereden toekomst
Als bloemen op een composthoop die met hun wortels de immer fermenterende geschiedenis binnentrekken en transformeren in een grofgepixelde technocolorpracht
Als een dinosaurus die 's nachts in paddokleuren dromen gaat over welke voetafdruk hij achterlaat - KT Oudenaarde 2019