The Unruly Apparatus
This research project starts from the assumption that photography and sculpture share a certain sensibility towards the material conditions of the medium in which they work. Even though a photographic image seems utterly transparent, weightless and immaterial, it is characterized by a specific kind of materiality. It is our hypothesis that this materiality is not a result of its necessary connection to a carrier, but that it is to be located in the light sensitive layer on the negative or on the photographic paper. Starting from the work of contemporary artists who work on and with this chemical layer, we will research how working on this light sensitive material can give the photographic image a sculptural presence. This research in and on the arts will be executed by a group of students from the ateliers of photography and sculpture. Through a series of lectures and workshops the students will be introduced in the complexities of the research topic and encouraged to create new work by experimenting with new technical means of image production.
During the course of this project we visited several exhibitions by artists that work on the intersection of photography and sculpture (such as Ann Veronica Janssens, Walead Beshty, Liz Deschenes, Jan Dibbets and Wade Guyton). Furthermore, we organised a public lecture by Noémie Goudal and invited Bernard Voïta for a workshop. In February 2022 we organised a round-trip to Germany and visited the studios of Thomas Ruff, Peles Empire, Spiros Hadjidjanos, Asta Gröting and Jochen Lempert. The project resulted in the eponymous exhibition held at De Lange Zaal, Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp from the 16 until th 30th of October, 2020.
In the studio of Thomas Ruff
