Solidarity Poiesis – prologue – group exhibition – Foreign Places
In the group exhibition Foreign Places (18.06 – 14.08.2016, WIELS, curated by Grégory Castéra & Caroline Dumalin), the film assembly for an Oresteia (2016, 30’) is accompanied by four paintings from the series citizen without qualities (2015-16), here re-titled as project for an exhibition: citizen without qualities. The ensemble of works intends to suggest “how an availability – a reserve of potential rather than the taking of a position – can constitute a political thought.” (Grégory Castéra).
About project for an exhibition: citizen without qualities (2015-16): Readymade textiles are used for these canvases, the colours and textures of which are predetermined by their original function as costume or T-shirt fabric. They portray ambiguous, roughly sketched and painted characters that lie down or sit up sleeplessly: are these reclining figures vulnerable victims or rather politically dormant citizens? “Like dreaming, painting can be an oracular way of telling what crisis one is actually in. […] Thus, a ‘citizen without qualities’ becomes a figure on trial, whereby its appearance as a subject is put on test for the public.” (Robin Vanbesien)
