Residencies

• 26.02 > 09.03.2024

The sta­ge: a lar­ge whi­te hori­zon­tal can­vas, con­tai­ning eve­ry­day objects and per­for­mer Marie De Corte. A rela­ti­ons­hip devel­ops bet­ween the taci­turn, silent objects and the agi­le and expres­si­ve body. What if the objects start moving; hesi­ta­ting, fal­te­ring, wal­king away? What if an encoun­ter takes pla­ce bet­ween Cézanne’s apples and a pair of Morandi vases? What if De Corte enga­ges in con­ver­sa­ti­on with a pear? 

In You are an Object to me, her latest cre­a­ti­on, Charlotte Bouckaert (11 seconds) urges us to revi­sit with won­der the still lifes that care­les­sly appear in our living rooms. To switch off our auto­ma­tic and rou­ti­ne gaze, the gre­a­test ene­my of loo­king. Man and object lea­ve tra­ces in time. What are the con­tours that life lea­ves behind?

“It is the fate of things and of all that one can pos­sess to know born of dark­ness an inex­pli­ca­ble and brief exis­ten­ce in litt­le light. For a moment they are the­re, then they slip away over the edge, dis­ap­pear into nothing­ness.” (Bart Verschaffel — art philosopher)

Over the last 10 years, Charlotte Bouckaert has devel­o­ped a visu­al lan­gu­a­ge at the inter­sec­ti­on of visu­al art and live per­for­man­ce. After 11 seconds, her last the­a­tri­cal per­for­man­ce, in which a sin­gle pho­to­graph is the gui­de of a play­ful thought asso­ci­a­ti­on about (loo­king at) art, this time the still life in pain­ting is Bouckaert’s star­ting point. She ques­ti­ons the sta­sis and life­les­s­ness of the gen­re. You are an Object to me focu­ses on loo­king as a con­scious and ani­ma­ted action.