From 18 October 2025 to 8 March 2026, S.M.A.K. presents the first museum solo exhibition by Ghent-based photographer Marc De Blieck.
Marc De Blieck (b. 1958, Sint-Niklaas) began his career as a painter but soon turned to photography. This shift stemmed from his frustration that a painting is invariably viewed and analysed through the lens of the painter: it is the artist’s signature that determines the meaning and value of the painted image. In his work, De Blieck thus deliberately seeks to minimize the role of the photographer and place the full emphasis on the subject and the photographic process. Defiantly, he chooses an ‘impersonal’ photography.
Point de voir is structured around three series of black-and-white photographs: his series of museum and UNESCO sites, where the value and significance of these places have already been determined before the photographer captures them; the car park images, created in collaboration with architect Wim Cuyvers; and images from the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe in Kassel. These black-and-white series are flanked by De Blieck's most recent colour photographs.
With this exhibition, S.M.A.K. wishes to highlight an important photographic oeuvre that has long remained in the shadows. Point de voir ultimately presents photography as a reflection on the very act of looking. Through technical interventions such as wide-angle distortions, folded prints, and composite images, he demonstrates that photography sees differently from the human eye and reveals what we could never perceive in the same way in reality.
- Press preview on Thursday, 16 October 2025, between 11:00 and 13:00
