#60: Look after all tools. The moment it looks like things are missing it means that things are missing.|#84: The White Cube is a lie.|#82: Clean and sterile looks professional, but really boring.|#105: Kunsthal Gent is local in scale, but globally connected.|#65: No excuses: Thursday morning, team meeting.|#74: Last one out turns of the lights.|#119: Be a space of production.|#88: Changing internships, artists, curators,... are important propositions to keep a fresh set of eyes.|#61: No all male install teams.|#68: Once in a while we need to get out of utopia and get something done.|#124: Do less, do it better.|#21: Live with the exhibition, spend time with it.|#132: Things will always look weird when you’re the first doing it.|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#23: That’s a very interesting piece, but how would it behave in a pizza joint?|#57: Volunteers must be: cared for / hands on / ready to learn / willing to share / in it to win it / show new or old tricks.|#91: Embrace doubt.|#55: Keep basic human needs on the forefront.|#130: Be a uniquely charged and curated gallery that is an artwork in itself.|#62: Be kind. Full dishwasher: empty it.|#34: We pay artists.|#53: Immaterial support for artists is important.|#3: Entrance to all exhibitions at Kunsthal Gent is free.|#117: Consider design, organisational structures and architecture as programme.|#58: Kunsthal Gent is a monument. If you plan to drill a hole, contact Tomas first.|#60: Look after all tools. The moment it looks like things are missing it means that things are missing.|#84: The White Cube is a lie.|#82: Clean and sterile looks professional, but really boring.|#105: Kunsthal Gent is local in scale, but globally connected.|#65: No excuses: Thursday morning, team meeting.|#74: Last one out turns of the lights.|#119: Be a space of production.|#88: Changing internships, artists, curators,... are important propositions to keep a fresh set of eyes.|#61: No all male install teams.|#68: Once in a while we need to get out of utopia and get something done.|#124: Do less, do it better.|#21: Live with the exhibition, spend time with it.|#132: Things will always look weird when you’re the first doing it.|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#23: That’s a very interesting piece, but how would it behave in a pizza joint?|#57: Volunteers must be: cared for / hands on / ready to learn / willing to share / in it to win it / show new or old tricks.|#91: Embrace doubt.|#55: Keep basic human needs on the forefront.|#130: Be a uniquely charged and curated gallery that is an artwork in itself.|#62: Be kind. Full dishwasher: empty it.|#34: We pay artists.|#53: Immaterial support for artists is important.|#3: Entrance to all exhibitions at Kunsthal Gent is free.|#117: Consider design, organisational structures and architecture as programme.|#58: Kunsthal Gent is a monument. If you plan to drill a hole, contact Tomas first.|
This website uses cookies to improve your user experience. More info

Opening: 30.09.2022 – 20:00

30.09—∞

Exhibition

Femmy Otten:
We once were one

We Once Were One is the title of a wooden sculpture created especially for the context of Kunsthal Gent. Between November 2021 and September 2022, Dutch artist Femmy Otten slowly transformed a lime tree stump into the body of a woman. "The tree is a woman, formed by rings. One every year," she tells us. The hair falls over her face like tears. On her chest, Otten depicts venal lips, which feel like a protective cloak. The opening of the cloak spreads all over her belly. "Because we were once one."

In 2002, Otten first made a portrait of Aline, a woman she was working with in a theatre at the time. 20 years later, she sought her out again and Aline was the model for this sculpture.

Femmy Otten interprets the body as a source of knowledge, rather than a spectacle or object of reflection or desire. Her work focuses on inventing rituals, which are always there, even if they are not explicitly represented. For Femmy Otten, the starting points for this sculpture - whether they lie in Greek sculpture, the Hindu and Buddhist pantheons of Cambodia's Angkor Wat, or pre-Raphaelite sculpture - are deeply related to religion and mysticism.

That is precisely why she made this sculpture for this location, a monastery church of the Discalced Carmelites. A medieval male stronghold into which she brings an erotic female energy. "Aline was always there, in this church, in this place," she says. Now that Femmy Otten gave her a body of lime wood, she can finally claim her place.


Bio

Femmy Otten was born in Amsterdam, 1981, lives and works in The Hague, the Netherlands Femmy Otten studied at the HISK Higher Institute for Fine Art in Ghent and was a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam and Atelier Holsboer, Cité Internationales des Arts in Paris. In 2013 Otten was awarded the de Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs. In 2014 she was one of three artists who were selected by the Dutch government to make an official portrait of King Willem Alexander. Recently her work was on view in the following exhibitions: ‘Rainbow Woman’ , De Warande, ‘One way or another’, SMAK, Gent, ‘EURAZIE’ M HKA, ‘One tear at a time’, Fons Welters. ‘Wistful Eye’ Drents Museum. ’Minor Heroïsm’, Zilberman Gallery, group show during the 14th Istanbul Biennial. ‘The Restless Gods’, performance Museum M, Louvain. Een nieuwe koning, een nieuw portret’, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. ’De Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prijs’, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. ‘Yellow Minutes’, P///akt, Amsterdam. ‘Royal Award for Modern Painting’, Royal Palace, Amsterdam. ’Hydrarchy: Power and Resistance at Sea’, Gasworks, London . Her work is represented in public and private collections, including the collections of SCHUNCK* Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Museum Voorlinden, collection of the M HKA , Drents Museum and the AkzoNobel Foundation. Femmy Otten is represented by Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam.

Femmy Otten:
We once were one

MDC KHG Femmy Otten 004 LR

EXHIBITION VIEWS
MDC KHG Femmy Otten 008 LR
MDC KHG Femmy Otten 001 LR
MDC KHG Femmy Otten 003 LR
MDC KHG Femmy Otten 004 LR
MDC KHG Femmy Otten 005 LR
MDC KHG Femmy Otten 006 LR
MDC KHG Femmy Otten 007 LR
MDC KHG Femmy Otten 008 LR
MDC KHG Femmy Otten 009 LR