Trip in Ghent with studio visits - Lukas Vandenabeele & Stijn Cole

13:00 – 14:30

Guided tour in S.M.A.K.

• Sirah Foighel Brutmann & Eitan Efrat Là

Là is a new project by Brussels-based artists and filmmakers Sirah Foighel Brutmann and Eitan Efrat, and was created for their first museum solo exhibition. Là is a continuation of Brutmann and Efrat's previous dialogue with Chantal Akerman, and an audiovisual journey between Belgium and the Negev/al-Naqab desert in Israel and Palestine. The project explores the conviction of belonging somewhere through natural elements and historical responsibility.

• Tarek Atoui

Sound is at the heart of Tarek Atoui’s (b.1980, Beirut, Lebanon) artistic practice. As an artist and electro-acoustic composer, he is known for the fluid connections he makes between sound, matter, time, space and human action. In inventive listening environments that appeal to more than just the ear, he creates multifaceted experiences and interactions that carry sensory, social and space-specific meanings. The new musical instruments, sculptures and materials that Atoui employs in the process are inspired by historical, anthropological or technical research. He assembles them into fascinating, agile installations attuned to their surroundings. These can be played by professional musicians as much as they can be the object of a participatory exhibition or workshop.

The project at S.M.A.K., the artist’s first solo exhibition at a Belgian institution, brings together existing works and new productions and is structured around three axes: the exhibition, the educational space and performances.

13:00 - 14:30 & 15:00 - 16:30

Studio visit | Lukas Vandenabeele

Lukas Vandenabeele (°1951) wrote his thesis on a Cistercian architecture in the Faculty of Art History (U.G.). He then went on to study theatre in Paris with Etienne Decroux, whose work has more to do with ritual Nô theatre than Stanislavski realism. In Paris, he was an associate of Ella Jaroszewicz. Until the age of 35, he made creations in dance theatre described as profane mysticism. With the production WASSEN (1985), he made a name for himself.

Since 1986, he has been building a plastic oeuvre that bears witness to the same desire from which his dance was born. A continuity in the first years of this plastic oeuvre is the detachment with which he appraises the world, the non-interference with what he makes himself, the following of external mental and physical directives. This distancing gradually resulted in a hoped-for reality without sensation, without images - and above all in the impossibility of touching that "unembodied being". He calls this the missed rendezvous. With his pen from which the black ink falls down to words and images, he acquires a dubious relationship. After all, it is this same pen that has set itself to create a word- and image-hostile world. In this constant trap, Vandenabeele seeks his room for manoeuvre.

De blindheid, de duisternis, de kleine fossiele overblijfselen van de zogenaamde initiële duisternis, de prothesen, de ellenlange oefeningen in het niet zien. Niets ervan helpt hem om de plaatsloosheid te raken. Het netvlies wordt een obstakel, bij zoverre dat alles wat hij toont maar betekenis heeft in de mate dat het zijn eigen afwezigheid in de weg staat.

Zijn oeuvre is een tocht naar afwezigheid. Zijn paradox is dat hij de blik op die afwezigheid wil bewaren.

17:00 – 18:00

Studio visit | Stijn Cole

The oeuvre of Stijn Cole (°1978, Ghent) has been built up since 2002. The relationship between the object and its surroundings is central. Not the medium, but the light is crucial here, because the way we experience colour and form is largely determined by the intensity of the light to which they are exposed. Cole always reduces his images to their purest essence. His choice of media is eclectic: there is both video and sculpture, painting and mixed media, photography and graphics, and in addition to abstract work, he also makes figurative art. Yet his oeuvre demonstrates great coherence. In Cole's universe, themes such as time and landscape painting take on a renewed beauty that translates into a contemporary version of impressionism. Each of Cole's new series of works is linked to a specific period, walk or journey, giving it an almost documentary quality. Cole describes his contribution as modest, merely a filter he puts on reality. But with extreme precision and subtlety, he challenges the viewer to take an active role. In this manipulative game, he entices the viewer to experience intensity, space and form that will prove surprising time and again.

Price: 10 euro. Active members can sign in: info@vriendensmak.be.

The first studio is within walking distance of S.M.A.K. The second studio is 15 min cycling (near swimming pool Rooigem).