We were dazzled by the exhibition Artempo: Where Time Becomes Art at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice in 2007.
At Kanaal last summer, we felt the same brilliant vibrations. In the heart of this former industrial site, the Belgian art dealer and collector Axel Vervoordt carried out his most ambitious project yet: a living space combining, among other things, a showcase of his private collection, his gallery, artists' studios, as well as apartments, offices and a restaurant. Here, the works are freed from historical text labels and the white plinth museum display that put visitors at a distance from the work's substance. We commune with Roman Opalka's immaculate paintings that echo a tablet from the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt engraved with hieroglyphs. We immerse ourselves in a work by Anish Kapoor at the heart of the site or in a James Turrell installation in a blacked-out 19th-century chapel.
We immerse ourselves in a work by Anish Kapoor at the heart of the site or in a James Turrell installation in a blacked-out 19th-century chapel.
Industrial aesthetics, antique objects and contemporary art installations combine to reveal the sublime and timelessness that inhabit them. When it comes to scenography and decoration, Axel Vervoordt disappears behind his own work. There is no style other than the highlighting of an aesthetic relationship between the installations and the visitors who traverse them. This is an essential approach, at our level, at PETIT AMI.