Joost Pauwaert: A Good Hammering

A Good Hammering (Once in a Lifetime)

And you may find yourself
walking into a structure of steel,
and you may ask yourself
how did this skeleton come to hold everything?
Metal beams cross and rise,
not in the background,
but carrying the weight of everything that hangs,
turns, rests, moves again.
And you may find yourself
inside a landscape under tension,
carefully assembled,
already running.

Anvils appear.
Heavy.
(un)moving.
And you may ask yourself:
what is that object doing here?
No longer tools,
they stand as markers—
of labour, of impact, of expectation.
A bronze bell is struck by a hammer.
No melody.
No gentle reminder.
This is time.
Time hitting something.
Time leaving a mark.

Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
Motors turn.
Saw blades spin.
Cannonballs roll.
The sound keeps going,
again and again.
Not chaos,
but rhythm.
Between the strikes
there is silence—
the silence of looking,
of waiting,
of knowing the next moment is already coming.

Bright colours appear.
Fragments of fairground rides,
once made for children,
now carrying weight.
And you may say to yourself:
This is not my beautiful funfair.
This is not my beautiful machine.
What looks playful is heavy.
What looks festive is mechanical.
A workshop and a carnival
sharing the same desire:
movement,
noise,
attraction.

Elements return.
Objects from earlier lives
assembled into one system.
This is a memory machine.
Everything remembers,
but nothing stays the same.
Platforms.
Levels.
Obstacles.
A three-dimensional game
with no players.
The action performs itself.

Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
Repetition calms.
Movement hypnotizes.
Yet the weight never disappears.
There is beauty here,
close to danger—
not the fall,
but the edge.
Speed. Mass. Possible impact.

And you may ask yourself:
how did I get here?
Adults recognize the child
watching machines work,
watching something continue
simply because it can.
Everything functions.
Everything holds.
For now.

Same as it ever was.
Same as it ever was.
And you may find yourself
still standing there,
inside the machine,
watching it go on.

Simon Delobel (with the help of Talking Heads)

Until 15 March, KIOSK presents a new solo exhibition by Joost Pauwaert. With A Good Hammering, he fills the space with an all-encompassing installation in which heavy machinery, saw blades, and seemingly festive objects converge in an explosive visual language. The work balances between strength and vulnerability, destruction and beauty, technology and poetry.

In recent years, Joost Pauwaert has received wide media attention following Big Bang II, an art installation featuring self-built Napoleonic cannons that resulted in a court case concerning prohibited weapons possession. Although Pauwaert and the Verbeke Foundation were found guilty, no penalty was imposed. The case underscored the radical nature of his practice and sharply highlighted how his work deliberately probes the boundaries of law, safety, and artistic freedom. A new appeal hearing is scheduled for March 10—a moment that once again raises questions about interpretation, responsibility, and what may ultimately emerge from this confrontation between art and the law. Pauwaert himself does not regard this legal friction as a limitation, but rather as an enrichment of his work’s meaning.

That same tension runs as a common thread through A Good Hammering. Drawing on a background in photography and woodworking, Pauwaert has developed a practice of kinetic sculptures, installations, and performances in which the monumental and the caricatural are held in balance. His work often begins with a playful, almost childlike curiosity, yet it does not shy away from confrontation. Familiar images and symbols evoke both wonder and discomfort, opening up space for reflection and imagination.

With A Good Hammering, Pauwaert affirms his position as an artist who not only builds and sets things in motion, but also questions and challenges. In the Anatomical Theatre of KIOSK, his work gains an additional resonance, where matter, movement, and meaning converge in an installation that is as poetic as it is unsettling.