Programme 2023

Danai Anesiadou: D POSSESSIONS
January 28–April 23, 2023 

D POSSESSIONS is Danai Anesiadou’s largest exhibition to date, and her first major institutional solo in Belgium. The exhibition draws back the curtain on the cataclysmic times in which we are living, presenting an allegorical scenography of the current energy crisis. At its core is the entirety of Anesiadou’s material possessions, alchemized into sculptural assemblages that propose cleansing qualities. They are a vector for transformation, an exorcism of our protracted present, in which change is the only constant.  

Curated by: Helena Kritis 
Co-production by WIELS and EMST, Athens

Marc Camille Chaimowicz: Nuit Américaine  
February 17–August 13, 2023 

Marc Camille Chaimowicz is an understated pioneer, who has steadfastly sailed against the prevailing artistic winds since the start of his career in London in the 1970s. Embracing the decorative arts in resistance to claims for fine art’s autonomy, over the past 50 years his practice has intertwined design, painting, printmaking, collage and his daily life into a highly personal vocabulary, which continues to influence younger artists. Chaimowicz’s exhibition at WIELS brings together one of his earliest installations with two new bodies of work, folding together past and present: the immersive Celebration? Realife Revisited (1972-2000); a recreation of his sitting room of the past 40 years; and a series of new collages inspired by the figure of Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary.  

Curated by: Zoë Gray 

Shezad Dawood: Night in the Garden of Love  
May 18–August 13, 2023 

In this new project, Shezad Dawood investigates the poetic possibilities of the garden as a space of creation and optimism in the face of the climate crisis. In his choice of the garden, he taps into an ancient and cross-cultural symbol, but is particularly inspired by the writings, music and philosophy of Yusef Lateef (1920-2013)—a US-American jazz musician, composer and artist—whose sci-fi novella gives Dawood’s project its evocative title: Night in the Garden of Love. Dawood’s garden encompasses digital plants that grow before our eyes following algorithms based on Lateef’s music, and weavings that Dawood has derived from Lateef’s drawings. The exhibition thus brings together Lateef’s ideas about the regenerative potential of music and art with Dawood’s dynamic transdisciplinary practice, to explore pressing contemporary questions, filled with hope and beauty.  

Curated by: Zoë Gray & Helena Kritis 
Produced in partnership with the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto

Tapta, with Greet Billet, Hana Miletić, Richard Venlet  
May 18–August 13, 2023 

From the 1960s, the Polish-Belgian artist Tapta (aka Maria Wierusz-Kowalski, 1926-1997) radically redefined sculpture by using textiles and other flexible materials as sculptural elements. At the same time, she promoted textile art and weaving techniques beyond the categories of the decorative arts and crafts. Departing from Tapta's practice as an artist and teacher at the Institute of Architecture and Visual Arts, La Cambre, this exhibition focuses on some of the central issues around which Tapta developed her works: the tactility of materials, the suppleness of structures, the dynamics of falling and resting, reflection, light, site-specificity and the interaction between artwork, space and viewer. Tapta’s practice is re-examined by the artists/professors Greet Billet, Hana Miletić and Richard Venlet.  

Curated by: Liesbeth Decan 
In collaboration with the Photography Expanded Research Group at LUCA School of Arts Brussels

Francis Alÿs: The Nature of the Game  
September 7, 2023–January 7, 2024 

In the course of his extensive travels around the world since 1999, Francis Alÿs’ camera has captured children playing in public spaces. Like eating or sleeping, playing is an essential human need, and children’s games are universal. His informal, ethnographic films record both the power of cultural tradition and the carefree attitudes of children, even in situations of serious conflict. A group of Alÿs’ small paintings—also made while travelling—depict a different take on reality, using his signature poetic realist style.   

The Nature of the Game is the title of Francis Alÿs’ exhibition for the Belgian Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale. Curator Hilde Teerlinck and Francis Alÿs realized the first iteration of this exhibition, which is re-adapted for this second presentation. 

Curated by: Dirk Snauwaert & Hilde Teerlinck  

Thea Djordjadze   
October 6, 2023–January 7, 2024 

In her artistic practice, Thea Djordjadze proceeds by a process of informed intuition. Her sculptures are often shaped by design and architecture, particularly of the Modernist period. Her works respond to the spaces for which they are conceived. For the post-industrial architecture of WIELS, she creates a new body of work, examining and challenging not only the formal and material qualities of the building, but also its institutional context. The exhibition features many new productions, including an on-site improvisation employing her eloquent vocabulary of sculptural paintings and painterly sculptures. 

Curated by: Zoë Gray 
In co-production with EUROPALIA GEORGIA

Tekla Aslanishvili: A State in a State  
September 21–October 29, 2023 

Tekla Aslanishvili’s new film, A State in a State, follows the construction, disruption and fragmentation of railroads in the South Caucasus and Caspian regions. It examines railways as the materialization of the fragile political borders that have re-emerged since the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, this iron foundation of connectivity can be used as a weapon of exclusion and geopolitical sabotage. Looking at historical and current practices of resistance A State in a State explores the potential of railroads for building a different, infrastructural consciousness and a lasting, transnational kinship among the people who live and work around them.    

Produced by The Han Nefkens Foundation, Barcelona; with the support of Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore; WIELS, Brussels; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila and Art Jameel, Dubai.  

In collaboration with Han Nefkens Foundation
In the frame of EUROPALIA GEORGIA

Performative programme

Indiscipline at Knokke-Heist
April 1, 2023 

Indiscipline is an annual one-day happening with performances and experimental interventions set at the Grand Casino in the Belgian seaside resort of Knokke-Heist. Known for its rich art and film history—in particular the legendary EXPRMNTL film festival (1947-1974)— the casino offers a rare and surprising context that encourages new forms of perception, experience and corporeality. Featuring (among others): Mounira Al Solh, Darius Dolatyari, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Emmilou Rösling, Stine Janvin, and Xavier Garcia Bardon on EXPRMNTL. 

Curated by: Dirk Snauwaert & Helena Kritis 
In collaboration with Knokke-Heist and Jester, Genk

Nikima Jagudajev: Basically 
April 22 and 23, 2023 

Nikima Jagudajev's practice looks at social forms; social relations as spatial relations, and how we assemble in fulfilling and considerate ways. In their durational live project Basically, Jagudajev harnesses the choreography of play to draw visitors into the intermediary spaces of WIELS. Jagudajev's worldbuilding is shaped together with a group of artists, creating a hybrid space that incorporates live music, food, a deck of cards and nonlinear dance choreographies that fold in on themselves like portals through time. Performers and visitors share this slippery universe.  

Curated by: Helena Kritis 
In collaboration with Dhaka Art Summit 

Billy Bultheel and James Richards: Workers in Song  
September 9 and 10, 2023 

Workers in Song is an immersive performative event created by composer Billy Bultheel and artist James Richards. Inspired by the silent film tradition of pairing moving images with a live accompaniment, the project draws from research around occult photography and spectral music. Workers in Song will take shape as a media installation of moving projection screens in counterpoint to a performance by four live musicians. Navigating the technology of mimicry, deep-fakes and ghost images, Bultheel and Richards question new developments in technology as sites for the projections of our fears and desires.   

Curated by: Helena Kritis 
Co-commission by WIELS, Batalha Porto and Mudam Luxembourg 

More events, details and information:  wiels.org