Renato Nicolodi seeks to evoke a universal sacrality in his work. His sculptures and paintings imagine spaces with corridors and stairs leading to closed-off passageways. Light and shade draw the gaze of the spectator to the inside of the construction, which remains invisible. The core of the work seems to conserve some sort of emptiness. The artist refers to archetypical buildings from past times and cultures, stripping them of their original function, ornament, and dogma.

This special secon...

Tami Amit’s self-titled monograph compiles reproductions of her recent work on paper and canvas. Amit’s practice is a particular mode of action painting which processes childhood memories and issues of self identity and expression. This is her first monograph as a painter.

Keramiek is vandaag populairder dan ooit. In een wereld die steeds digitaler wordt is er opnieuw nood aan tastbaarheid. Meer dan welk materiaal ook kruipt en druipt klei tussen handen en vingers.

Sinds mensenheugenis geeft klei vorm aan de kommen waarmee we voeden, de kruiken waaruit we schenken, de huizen die ons herbergen, en roept daarbij talrijke archetypen op. Als wend- en kneedbaar materiaal bij uitstek kan klei aan alles vormgeven en wordt het, in tijden waarin weinig vastligt, de ulti...

Cindy Wright creates large-scale oil paintings on canvas. At first glance the monumental still life paintings appear to be photo-realistic, using the photographic methods of cropping compositions and intense source lighting. But on closer inspection, the range of mark-making and painterly applications become astoundingly apparent. Wright’s work echoes the morbid tradition of ‘vanitas’ from the Dutch Old Masters of the 16th and 17th Century. Between beauty and decay, archetypal symbols l...

When post-war art in Western Europe was characterised by happenings and installations, the artist Raimund Girke (1930–2002), born in Heinzendorf (today Poland, then Lower Silesia (Germany)), continued to regard art as a two-dimensional application of paint on canvas or paper. Although he exhibited several times with artists of the ZERO movement, founded by his fellow students at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, he was determined not to be a part of it. Later, he was associated with some other...

The gaze that looks ahead and then slowly wanders down or to the side, looking for traces and signs of a landscape, rather than the landscape itself. Van den Broek paints what others pay no attention to or simply overlook. Cracks, borders, shadows, lines, corners, and also bridges, trees, trucks, reflections. They are set up crisply, and stripped of their frills (or as van den Broek puts it: “Cut away the snoopy!”), which leaves them somewhere between figuration and abstraction. Are we in...

When post-war art in Western Europe was characterised by happenings and installations, the artist Raimund Girke (1930–2002), born in Heinzendorf (today Poland, then Lower Silesia (Germany)), continued to regard art as a two-dimensional application of paint on canvas or paper. Although he exhibited several times with artists of the ZERO movement, founded by his fellow students at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, he was determined not to be a part of it. Later, he was associated with some other...

Ricardo Brey (°1955, Havana) is one of the most important artists of our time. His artistic roots lie in the 1970s and 1980s as an active member of the group Volumen I, a landmark in Cuban art history. After extensive travel, Brey receives an invitation from Jan Hoet to participate in Documenta IX in Kassel. Brey moves to Ghent in 1990, where he still lives and works. In 1998 he received a Guggenheim fellowship for installation art and sculpture and the Flemish Visual Arts Prize. Brey has he...

Elke Andreas Boon's art explores a duality of unruly fragility and reflection, tackling existential themes like religion, gender, and power structures. Her work, rooted in art tradition, undergoes subtle transformations, creating new contexts and combining brutal questioning with surreal humor. Boon’s oeuvre, spanning over twenty-five years, is noted for its relevance and aesthetic richness, addressing universal issues like identity and loneliness. S.M.A.K director Philippe Van Cauteren pra...