Intra _ Extra
Curated by Yirka De Brucker
How does nature carve its way through the network of the city? Both inside and outside walls and ancient city fortifications? Or is it urbanism that has forged paths between mountains and rivers, across national borders?
The exhibition "Intra_Extra" questions boundaries, walls, and the conceptual lines of separation between nature and culture, investigating what falls inside or outside these definitions.
In this exhibition, thirteen artists present work "Intra muros" (within the walls), engaging in a dialogue with the genius loci of the space itself and with the other works in A-Space. Simultaneously, these same artists leave the boundaries of these safe walls to intersect with the daily flow of the city.
This "Extra muros" route grows like an art promenade through the 2060 district, where works can be seen in the windows of our chambres d’amis. This neighborhood, Antwerp-North, lies outside the old city walls. In what was once a swamp, an exhibition now rises that evokes the specters of this sunken landscape (as seen in the work of Max Denys, Carl Verdickt, Nina-Joy Thielemans, and others).
This landscape has become urban, with occasional remnants or vestiges of the past. According to several artists, boundaries are an illusion, and it is precisely in the reflection on these forgotten "residual spaces" that we find many answers to broader social issues (Lois Weinberger). Some works display the tension surrounding the constructed dichotomy of nature-culture by creating literal lines of separation within their own work, fragmenting their images with physical intermediate spaces (Joost Vandebrug, Carl Verdickt, Max Denys). Other artists transform maps, floor plans, and streets to navigate through urbanized nature (Adrien Tirtiaux, Lois Weinberger, Davide Zulli). Maps are fragmented to build a personal landscape (Davide Zulli); street names are erased and replaced by plant names (Lois Weinberger); walls are dismantled stone by stone to allow new paths to emerge straight through them (Adrien Tirtiaux).
We may ask ourselves if a separation between nature and culture even exists at all, or if the ancient idea that "everything is one" (Joost Vandebrug) might offer a restorative vision and solution for our time. Can man and nature truly be separated? Plein air artists (Nils Verkaeren, Max Denys) place their own bodies within nature during the creation of their work and, without simply following the tradition of the Impressionists, light becomes almost as important as the medium itself (Stijn Cole, Nils Verkaeren, Max Denys).
Other artists choose to anthropomorphize nature, humanizing flora and allowing the body and nature to merge in their work (Nienke Baeckelandt). Even everything we label as "unnatural" can be viewed as an organic extension of our human nature, where, for example, electronics become organic (Yuxi Lu). In this sense, all electrical cables worldwide form a kind of mycelium network that connects us all, in which we can be seen as the leaves of a constructed tree (Yuxi Lu).
The tactility of materials clearly runs like a common thread through this exhibition. It sometimes feels alien, as if from another planet and reminds of Memento Mori and Vanitas symbols (Tom Volkaert, Davide Zulli, Nienke Baeckelandt), while in other works, humble and modest materials like clay and wood originate from our own local region. They are discovered, collected like archaeological objects (Yuxi Lu, Carl Verdickt, Robert Soroko, Nina-Joy Thielemans) to be activated by the hand of the artist (Robert Soroko, Nienke Baeckelandt) and brought together in this exhibition.