Conversation: The Politics of Things

Please join us on Sunday 23 April during Art Brussels, the annual contemporary art fair in Brussels, for a conversation between our co-director Hilde Van Gelder, the Swedish artist Karl Holmqvist and curator Piper Marshall.

Bringing in both her legal and philosophical background, Hilde Van Gelder's research focuses on how the photographic and moving image as contemporary art can contribute to shaping insights into the current state of the global political and socio-economic sphere. Karl Holmqvist often works collaboratively with other artists such as Klara Lidén or Rirkrit Tiravanija. He is best known for his text based works, poetry and readings recently expanding into the area of installation and painting. He lives and works in Berlin.
The talk will have a duration of 60 minutes and will be held in English.

The Politics of Things is a series of talks, conversations and readings that will accompany the exhibition Mementos: Artists’ Souvenirs, Artefacts, and other Curiosities organized by Jens Hoffmann and Piper Marshall. The curators asked over 70 artists participating in Art Brussels 2017 to display a personal, intimate and perhaps even secret object that they have an emotional relationship with and to describe what that object means to them. Personal objects such as an old toy, a rare book, a vintage photograph, a collection of coins, porcelain figurines and others do not necessarily carry a commercial value but often hold a strong emotional or sentimental value for those who own them. Within the often-abstract environment of an art fair this exhibition is both, a look into a number of individual stories connected to the artists' personal and private life and an exploration of the commodification of art that is at the heart of any art fair. The exhibition unlocks the barrier between the private (the personal objects) and the public (the artworks on view at the fair) and our own individual relationship to both within the context of larger economic and political structure that examines society’s enduring fascination and fixation on the material world. The talks will bring together artists' reflections on the relationship between art and non-art objects as well as anthropological and psychoanalytical readings of the items on display.