M HKA Ensembles

Photography, 6 x (52 x 39 cm).

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. S0125).

Daniël Dewaele has been active in the Belgian contemporary art scene since the early 1970s, when he was often involved in the activities of ICC, the International Cultural Centre in Antwerp, of which M HKA is the official successor institution. In Tentoonstellen Dewaele plays with the difference our western society makes between open and closed space. Concretely the work is about places and territories that are not physically accessible. Dewaele’s action is to close off certain spaces with tape, applied at a certain height.

‘I sublimate the closed-off spaces so that they become my work of art, like the places I have indicated.’ In this performance we see Dewaele closing off the entrance to the Groeninge Museum in Bruges. With his actions, interventions or posters Dewaele problematizes the relation between art and society and wants to affect life outside the art circuit. At the same time he sees the artist as the link that connects art and society, as a catalyst. Tentoonstellen is a sharp articulation of the gap between passers-by and the inside that the museum represents.

‘In my work I aim at transforming established expectations and behavioural patterns, within the framework of art as well as in society at large.’ - Daniel Dewaele