PIERRE MERTENS . Loving Care, 2020

Troupe/Troep

This week ends with two more projects that were organized by BUREAU DOOVE in the past half year. From 27 September till 25 October 2020 we showed a new series of large scale paintings by Belgian artist Pierre Mertens in De Blikfabriek in Antwerp. Due to the travel restrictions the exhibition had to be conceived and organized via whatsapp, for the first time ever I was unable to visit an exhibition I curated. Ironically, the project BOLERO that was shown earlier this week and of which Mertens is one of the initiators, could not be visited by him due to the latest travel restrictions.

The paintings depict portraits of children with untreated hydrocephalus. The short life of Merten’s daughter Liesje (1978-1989) brought him from painting to global activism. Through a series of medical blunders, from the early eighties onwards he focused on raising awareness about the complex and uncertain conditions of hydrocephalus and spina bifida (open back) of which she too suffered.

Mertens responds to a society that strives for perfection and eliminates suffering. When not working in the studio, but in the world becomes primary — and you can take that very literally with numerous campaigns and projects in Africa and South America — it is not surprising that in situ work is the main format for Pierre Mertens.

More recently we organized the exhibition Troupe/troep in the artist collective space ChezKit in Pantin, Paris. For only three days, as this space is normally used as a studio for the collective, we were able to open the show to the public under the guise of being a commercial space. Until the very last moment we weren’t sure whether we could actually open.

Troupe/troep talks about and works with chaos, nonlinearity, but is also about risk taking. It’s a band of artists, artworks, a curator and an artist space that tries to figure out what they are doing in uncertain times. What does it mean to organize an exhibition in the middle of a pandemic, not knowing whether it can actually open and if does, whether it can stay open? What does it mean to organize an exhibition against the grain when culture is deemed to be ‘non-essential’? What does it mean to make use of an organic kind of curating in which the artists and their opinions, their way of working, are an integral part of the curatorial process, to work without a set plan but to let the exhibition evolve until it has found its form? To work with a mix of freshly graduated art students, most of whom never were in an exhibition outside of school before, in combination with more experienced artists. To work basically with a non-existing budget? Individually the art works also take risks. Benoît Géhanne talks in this context about putting his art works at risk during the curatorial process, combining them in a new way and untried positions. Lucas Cyrille undertook on purpose a hazardous and nonsensical trip from Rouen to Paris, through a dense fog and rain over departmental routes, on his motorbike to deliver his art work. Hantu (weber + delvaux) present a triptych of photos documenting a performance that so far were never printed. Julie Canu and Agathe Schneider experiment with new forms for their art works – Julie using a mixture of knitting, sewing and poetry; Agathe creating a precarious intervention with loofah. Chloe Elmaleh’s work is purely about risk taking, literally playing with fire and balance. Fleur Leclere is testing another translation, from an embroidered work to a small paper sculpture to a wall painting. Wenyu Zhang presents a series of drawings that talk about the anxiety he experienced during the lockdown which can resonate with any of us. Tom Sagit is showing his glitch prints in a new constellation. Si Liu shows her long river of blue metal fencing of which the format in itself is taking a risk – how will it fit in? Thomas Maestro is experimenting with new materials, partly found. Neil Wood has made a new series of works, to present on a table, but until the very end we’re not sure about its placement. Louise Delacroix has adjusted her installation and composed a new soundtrack for it. And then there are the artists that due to the pandemic weren’t able to come and that are now presented via video’s. Ivan Blazhev & Mike Blow’s film  All Time is Time, based on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 was an important starting point for the exhibition. The photographic film is about the controversial bombing of Dresden at the end of World War II in which Dresden was destroyed and the entire historic core of the city was razed to the ground. The film focuses on Dresden and its reconstruction as a pretext for exploring history, memories, their fragility, and nonlinear, broken time. The idea was initially to include as the sole video in the show, delivering simultaneously the soundtrack for it. With Blazhev being based in Macedonia and Blow in Japan, they were never supposed to come over to Paris. Due to the pandemic several artists based in nearby Belgium in the end were however not able to come either. So Alexandra Dementieva sent a series of video’s in which she plays with the notion of social isolation while Remco Roes and Koenraad Claes show a compilation of video’s made in their studio and elsewhere. Both video’s respond in their own way to the pandemic. Sara Bomans turned her series of photos Busy Being Bornabout an organism in development into post cards that were easy to produce and send.

It is all about testing out, entering into a conversation between the artworks, the artists, the curator and the space, trying to find some kind of (temporary) equilibrium. In the end every artwork is a form of risk taking, entering an unknown world, unsure about the end result and the reception or appreciation of it. Although chaos and its creative force has been an important starting point for a lot of my work, the project is certainly also influenced by my reading of Emanuele Coccia. Both his notion of metamorphosis and mix are important – the first coming out of the confrontation in the second. Coccia’s notion of a cosmic life in which there’s no question of niches, a single environment, can also be read as a natural multi- and interdisciplinarity. I often compare our current times and the role that art can and must play in it with that of the start of dadaism, now about hundred years ago in the isolated Zürich of 1916 where a group of international artists with the most diverse backgrounds came together and found each other in a movement that still has an ongoing legacy. They were prepared to take a risk, starting some kind of collaboration, multi- and interdisciplinary, not knowing what it would bring, but doing it nevertheless.

This text is in a state of development. Bureau Doove Éditions will publish a catalogue for Troupe/troep in spring 2021 in which a further development of thoughts around the exhibitions with texts by me and several of the participating artists. Apart from that Troupe/troep will be an ongoing project that will resurface in other locations and constellations.

Edith Doove

St. Denis, January 2021

List of artists and art works

Ivan BLAZHEV & Mike BLOW, ALL TIME IS ALL TIME, 2020 photographic film

Sara BOMANS, Busy Being Born, 2020, post cards

Julie CANU, Jours de pluie (Rainy Days), 2021, hanging sculpture

Lucas CYRILLE, Chezkit, light box, 2021; Information concrète (Concrete information), sack, 2021

Louise DELACROIX, Cadence, 2019-21, installation

Alexandra DEMENTIEVA, Kapella, 2020, video

Chloé ELMALEH, Tiens toi droite (Stand Up Straight), 2021, installation

Bénoît GÉHANNE, Groupe, retenue (Group, Withheld), 5 paintings in different configurations, 2019

HANTU (weber + delsaux), La caldara, 2020, photo triptych

Fleur LECLERE, Forme d’accueil 1(Form of accomodation 1), wall drawing

Si LIU, Mille lis de rivières et de montagnes (A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains), 2018-20, photo montage

Thomas MAESTRO, Savoir si le sel et dans l’eau ou dans la bouche, 2021

Remco ROES/Koenraad CLAES, Lost and found: a recollection of the studio, video

Tom SAGIT, Futurs imprimés (Future prints), 2021

Agathe SCHNEIDER, Luffa, lifah, loofah, loufah, installation

Neil WOOD, Wild Bunch, 2021, installation

Wenyu ZHANG, L’orphelin du monde meirveilleux (The orphan of the wonderful world), 2021, drawings