Haptic Art Days (Be My Guest, Extra Muros)

location:

• Zuiderpershuis – Waalsekaai 14, 2000 Antwerp

Opening hours:

• Fri 11 Sep, 18:00–22:00 – Opening
• Sat 12 Sep, 13:00–18:00
• Sun 13 Sep, 13:00–18:00

Click here for the online preview.

The Haptic Art Days is an Antwerp-based artists’ initiative bringing together work by around 20 artists. Each year, one gallery is also invited to participate as a guest gallery. As the gallery’s internal theme for this year is ‘The Unexpected Collaboration’, Stijn Coppejans accepted this invitation as an experiment.

As the project takes place in September – the month in which Coppejans Gallery always organises the ‘Be My Guest’ project – Stijn Coppejans invited an external curator to curate this extra muros project as well. Guest curator Ellen Wezenbeek has therefore brought together her own selection of works by Hans Lemmen and Riki Mijling for the Haptic Art Days.

Duo show: Hans Lemmen & Riki Mijling

At first glance, the works of Riki Mijling and Hans Lemmen seem to come from two completely different worlds. Mijling works from a place of abstraction: elementary forms, lines, planes, volumes and the relationship between mass and void. Lemmen operates in a more figurative world, in which humans, animals, landscapes and organic forms merge into one another.

The work of both artists will not be presented as two separate bodies of work that happen to be displayed side by side, but as two visual languages that complement one another. What is abstract in one artist’s work and reduced to its essence takes on an organic or human form in the other’s. The austere geometry of Mijling’s work finds an echo in the monumental clarity of Lemmen’s sculptures; the earthy, almost elemental presence of Mijling’s sculptures contrasts with Lemmen’s bodies, animals and landscapes.

Form becomes imagination; imagination becomes form.

The material plays an important role in this. Steel, wood, ink, tape and paper have a direct, physical presence in Mijling’s work. Her works are reduced to a minimum, but it is precisely this that makes the material tangible. The earthy colour tones and surfaces of her sculptures resonate with Lemmen’s world, in which stone, soil, animals, trees and human figures take on an almost primal form.

About Ellen Wezenbeek

Ellen Wezenbeek has been a curator, organiser and consultant in the world of art and design since 2013. Driven by her passion for connecting people and ideas, she creates and organises exhibitions and events, often in unusual venues.

The collaboration between Stijn Coppejans and Ellen Wezenbeek has its origins in Antwerp. They met whilst working together at Het Noord, where Ellen had a gallery space and where they also organised Artland Antwerp together. From that first meeting grew a shared interest in artists, exhibitions and in creating opportunities for people to come together around art.

Stijn continued to develop Coppejans Gallery in line with his own vision, bringing together contemporary artists and creating space for research, dialogue and new connections. Ellen developed a more nomadic way of working based on her own curatorial practice. Through Ukkelberrifun, she organised exhibitions for many years in diverse, often unexpected venues. The venue was never merely a backdrop, but always became an integral part of the exhibition and of the encounter between artist, artwork and audience.