Category Archives: Exhibition

Exhibitions

Unmatched

Unmatched

15.10 - 26.11.22

"unmatched"is an exhibition of Banjamin Volckaerts, it is a story about an unexpected event in a village far away from what is known to mankind.

Since last summer the village has been plagued by an enormous monster that lives in the shadows. After sunset, no one even dares to look outside, let alone step a foot into the darkness Since no bodies were ever found, there were whispers about the monster that it did not only kill but also devoured its victims. The village trembled in fear.

5 of the bravest warriors of the village were summoned to find and slaughter the mysterious creature.

The upcoming fortnight would serve as the ideal moment to execute the beast and free the village from these tortuous events. The warriors prepared themselves for the worst.

The day of doom came sooner than expected. At dusk, all the villagers began to hide in their homes as pure evil lurked around the corner. The warriors assembled in the main square of the city and braced themselves for battle. Unfortunately, they discovered that all their preparations were in vain.

The warriors launched attack after attack after attack but the monster did not even seem to blink

They fought with all of their strength, but alas. Wounded, exhausted and hopeless, they realized the beast’s strength was not even waning and that they couldn’t instill the slightest bit of fear into the ruthless savage.
So they ran.
And kept running, for their lives.
They tried to outrun from the monster but what they encountered afterwards was even more disastrous.

Sometimes you are afraid of something, simply because the thought of it has already become an invincible monster in your own mind.

Works

Lucky Charms

Lucky Charms - The assistants choice

27.08 – 08.10.22

LUCKY CHARMS is the first edition of The Assistants Choice, curated by the assistants of Ballroom Gallery (Marie Colebunders), DMW Gallery (Mathias Verhoeven) and Base-Alpha Gallery (Yasmin Van der Rauwelaert). Each assistant was invited to make a selection of artists and bring them together into a group exhibition at Ballroom Gallery.

“A Lucky Charm is an object or person that is thought to bring good luck, also known as a talisman or an amulet. It has an empowering and symbolic meaning, a sacred and hopeful reminder that is very personal to its owner.”

LUCKY CHARMS is a group exhibition with Alice Vanderschoot, Arnaud Eubelen, Arthur Dufoor, Carole Mousset, Che Go Eun, Chloé Arrouy, Elena Minyeyevtseva, Gavin Vanaelst, Geran Knol, Manon van den Eeden, Nicolas Zanoni, Rūdolfs Štamers, Sigurrós G. Björnsdóttir and Tommy Smits.

Works

Reading between the lines

Reading between the lines

23.04 - 04.06.22​

“Reading between the lines” Kaspar Dejong focuses on our direct surroundings during an average city stroll. Dejong’s work is in line with the semiotic tradition that revolves around the exploring and studying of signs and symbols as a significant part of communication. The traces of life that surround us in our daily habitat are telling us stories of something that once was or one day will become. By lifting mundane/trivial signals and situations out of their initial context, decomposing them and studying them, Dejong intends to raise questions around their original intent and our ways of living​

Works

Puppet factory

Puppet factory

17.03 – 16.04.22

Throughout my practice I’ve mostly been working around three topics: Theatre, Structure & Performance, explains my idea of working with different scenes from a play. To create a stage where figures can perform and dance. For this, I use theories from fictional stories that I consider as truth and applies them in my work. By playing with a non-physical world, I feel like I can question the role of a performer and the meaning of his performance. This means that creatures living in this particular world can be drawn, written down, or become a piece of sound. These non-physical creatures or monsters suggest figurative work. They do not exist in the real world but in words, memories, and stories, they are present. After this process some of them become physical beings and they’re growing into characters with a personality.

The relationship between sound and object. This has been one of my main concerns in the last years. They can be compared to an archaeological sound archive. I record all sorts of sounds in my atelier, from ceramic rattles to banging metal. My way of working with sound is an experimental and spontaneous process. I combine the sound of handcrafted objects with the sound of electronic devices such as a synthesizer and this by implementing the device in a sculpture. It’s essential for me to see how the elements work together and how they function as an arrangement.

‘In ‘The Book of Imaginary Beings’, Borges comments on all kinds of mythical creatures in a sly and humorous way. It is full of abstruse references and lots of fun. Something I want to keep in mind during my process. These stories can lead me to create my own creatures. According to this, drawings are and will remain an important element in my play. First of all, they are a way of thinking and processing. In addition to that, they can also be used as a tool to create a story, context or a landscape.

Works

Good luck

Good luck

29.01 – 05.03.22

What you see is not what you get Charlot Van Geert turns things upside down, figuratively speaking. She shakes up our unshakeable faith in objects and matter. By stripping objects of their seemingly obvious meaning, she creates new contexts, humorous situations and critical reflections on the objects and art with which we surround ourselves.

As a sculptor, she deals subversively with the materials traditionally given to her. In doing so, she not only challenges their reality, but also her own role as an artist. From working with less 'high' materials such as cardboard, polystyrene foam or PU foam, to the connection between the 'correct' material and the 'appropriate' look (bronze water levels, polystyrene foam lamps): Van Geert likes to put us on the wrong track.

She plays a game with design and the functions of objects: is it a utilitarian object or is it art? If a candlestick is art, can you burn a candle in it? As soon as that question arises, it also deals with the sacredness of art: does something still have artistic value when it can be manipulated, can get dirty, can fall down? There is no need to fear fingerprints: those of the artist are often present, also in bronze reliefs, in which the traces of the kneaded wax model are still clearly visible. It is as if Van Geert is deliberately wiping her proverbial feet of the high status of art - also literally, with her bronze doormat or six-pack can holder, and by elevating other everyday objects to artistic heights. By doing so, she also takes them out of their comfort zone: her idiosyncratic techniques, for example, destroy the apparent, proud inviolability of bronze.

Works

All’s well, ends well

All's well, ends well

12.03 - 16.04.22

‘In their duo show at Ballroom Gallery they effortlessly bring sculpture and painting together. Despite the fact that their practice is completely different, both artists maintain the same kind of minimal aesthetic. Thorbjørn Bechmann will mainly focus on the ephemeral of color, while Bram De Jonghe examines how light, air and matter can form the actual work.’

Works

Mark Brand

Mark Brand

06.01 – 05.02.22

Mark Brand is a hybrid body of work associating an artistic production with a promotion by Harold Lechien

exploiting the language of branding, then used as artistic material. The heart of the installa- tion is a video bringing together the artworks and a series of messages, logos and derived

objects used in a narrative process that makes the brand oscillate between artistic discourse and a commercial product. It reveals an emotional relationship to these products, to their equivocal status in our lives, and to their distribution.

Works

I’m Not In Love / Situation Still Standing

I’m Not In Love/Situation Still Standing

04.12.21 - 22.01.22

nspired by a trip to Rome, Simon Demeuter uses his imagination to bring the beautiful mosaic floors with stunned images of gladiators in the old Roman villas back to life in a colourful way. In an earlier series shown this year at L21 in Palma de Mallorca, Demeuter depicted with soft fresh colours - and with beautiful imagery - the meeting and physical discovery of different people. Like fighting gladiators, Demeuter combatants feel each other out and a tension is built up between the depicted figures. The present series shown at Ballroom Gallery tells the continuation of this story. The colours become more intense, the intention of the figures turns clearer and the confrontation between the gladiators comes to a head. Powerful colours, simple but energetic poses, a (violent) climax and then a farewell and soft slips into solitude. Through his gladiators, Simon Demeuter portrays a metamorphosis of life, with a story of hope, excitement, love, loneliness and sensitivity.

For Van San, all existing forms are three-dimensional, which means that she only constructs sculptures. Sculptures that consciously abandon the traditional ceramic technique. Forms that construct themselves and allow themselves to be translated into colourful glazes. The sculptures in the series shown by Van San in Ballroom Gallery refer to large amphorae that might have been found on the seabed during one of her diving trips in the Middle East. Old vases and jars that have been taken over by algae and corals and have acquired an enormous splendour of shapes and colours on top of their classical forms. By doing so, Van San offers the viewer a wide space to unleash their own imagination on the images. In this exhibition, the artists works are also presented in a less conventional way, giving them something unreal and allowing a very contemporary character.

The duo exhibition of Simon Demeuter and Tamara Van San is inspired by influences of ancient civilisations, but at the same time brings them back to life in a very colourful way. In addition, the works of both artists are vivid symbols for life, in which each stage - physical or emotional - undergoes a miraculous evolution.

Fourt

Fourt

18.11 - 18.12.21​

A place where poetic encounters emerge through processes of infiltration and appropriation, creating a cosmos of fraud and aesthetic conviction. Conceived as a soft-chateau, the exhibition is crowded with opulent expressions of hygiene, mass manufacturing and enchantment. Duffaut’s work activates the carefree qualities of market coercion. It shapes and sculpts wasted perfections up until a point where constellations of clean bold colors emerge.

For his first solo exhibition, Xavier Duffaut brings into focus the elegantly banal that intrigues him so. The works intend to produce a collective atmosphere of non-difference, of non-heterotopia. They allow us to fall implicit, to fall into a trope, into a corporate business meeting, a collective therapy session for people with trust issues.

FOURT asks serious questions about the nature of ‘realness’. Its impossibility and absolute possibility. Liveliness beyond the boundaries of realness. Forms catapult through the space creating new levels of dysphoric sensation and general confusion. A sanitary extravaganza, an arena of branded monstrosities. It wonders what might have happened in the factories or in the mechanical fur or in Julia's bathroom?

This show has one mission. To do it well. And then, to head to the compost or the gutter.

Works