#137: Use the publication as programming space|#25: Never ask the artist to just present their work, ask them to co-create and co-organise the space.|#124: Do less, do it better.|#112: Spaces today don’t need to be curated, but occupied.|#90: The best systems have a failure or ‘a hole’ in them…|#99: Evolve according to changing needs.|#56: Take a lunch break.|#24: We invest long-term in individual artists’ careers, working over time in different contexts. This also applies to designers / web-developers / photographers / volunteers /…|#57: Volunteers must be: cared for / hands on / ready to learn / willing to share / in it to win it / show new or old tricks.|#92: We’re a learning organisation.|#33: We will ensure work by female artists and curators make up at least 50% of our programme each year.|#47: Artists need to be supported more than ever in the development of their practice due to the gaps that have been created in the field of fine art|#2: Bring something new to the city of Ghent.|#70: Have the office space inside the exhibition space, it reminds of you what you are doing.|#32: Be pan-gender polyphonic.|#53: Immaterial support for artists is important.|#40: Follow the artist|#16: Kunsthal Gent will always be a construction site.|#21: Live with the exhibition, spend time with it.|#36: We support production separately.|#68: Once in a while we need to get out of utopia and get something done.|#28: Make Contracts.|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#37: Operate with radical transparency.|#84: The White Cube is a lie.|#137: Use the publication as programming space|#25: Never ask the artist to just present their work, ask them to co-create and co-organise the space.|#124: Do less, do it better.|#112: Spaces today don’t need to be curated, but occupied.|#90: The best systems have a failure or ‘a hole’ in them…|#99: Evolve according to changing needs.|#56: Take a lunch break.|#24: We invest long-term in individual artists’ careers, working over time in different contexts. This also applies to designers / web-developers / photographers / volunteers /…|#57: Volunteers must be: cared for / hands on / ready to learn / willing to share / in it to win it / show new or old tricks.|#92: We’re a learning organisation.|#33: We will ensure work by female artists and curators make up at least 50% of our programme each year.|#47: Artists need to be supported more than ever in the development of their practice due to the gaps that have been created in the field of fine art|#2: Bring something new to the city of Ghent.|#70: Have the office space inside the exhibition space, it reminds of you what you are doing.|#32: Be pan-gender polyphonic.|#53: Immaterial support for artists is important.|#40: Follow the artist|#16: Kunsthal Gent will always be a construction site.|#21: Live with the exhibition, spend time with it.|#36: We support production separately.|#68: Once in a while we need to get out of utopia and get something done.|#28: Make Contracts.|#87: Always keep in mind there is something really special about being in a room that is 19 meters tall.|#37: Operate with radical transparency.|#84: The White Cube is a lie.|
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Opening: 17.12.2021 – 20:00

18.12.2021—06.03.2022

Exhibition

Maika Garnica:
Subtle Matter Fluid Hands

Opening on December 17th at 20.00, Pavilion KHG#03.
Limited spots, reservations through the button above.

Subtle Matter Fluid Hands

For the occasion of Maika Garnica’s Subtle Matter Fluid Hands, she transforms the white cube at Kunsthal into a large pedestal, a stage. Perforating the white walls, she introduces a lightness, porosity; and on a utilitarian level, the perforations become a tool for climbing the chamber. She does so in a performance, which she conceived with her sister Inca Garnica, an artist working intuitively in direct relation to the environment, in her performative actions.

Their collaboration reverberated in the shapes of the ceramic sound sculptures that they perform (with). Thinking about water being passed on endlessly from one carrier to another, this new work builds on Garnica’s acoustic and formal research with clay. In it, she carefully tunes sound, shape and bodily relation to form each instrument. Depending on the shape and the quantity of water, her temporary containers carry out different tones, that here bounce off on the inside belly that is the architecture of Kunsthal Gent. Between form, function and performer, different temporalities are in place.

One of the vessels has two necks so it can be passed on easily while climbing. The water moves through their hands through a dozen instruments back to two connected basins at the bottom of the installation. The basin's transparency allows for the viewer to see how the law of connected vessels keeps them in constant communication, sharing the exact same water level. Moving cyclically, the amount of water in the installation is constant. The two performers wear dip-dyed overalls, almost imitating fading echoes.

The tall building of the Kunsthal is awe-inspiring and transportive, also in its acoustics. During performance downtime, speakers on both sides of the installation, play recordings of the sculptures that keep tickling the walls of the space. Made in collaboration with musician and composer Aiko Devriendt, they used free-standing microphones (the ones that sip frequencies out of the air) and contact mics/hydrophones that record the matter’s frequency directly. Finally, the performance is filmed in one take by the artist’s brother; a video registration that can be seen in the pavilion.

Soft Hands Fluid Matter uses the elasticity of clay and time to shape hollows that are passages for bubbly, vocal, rushing, scraping, rattling transmission, of one to other.

Credits
  • Technical support Atelier Scheldeman, Tomas Lootens, Bieke Criel, Lizzy Brueck, Victor Calame, Valentijn Goethals, Ludwig Billiet

  • Sound recordings Aiko Devriendt, Inca Garnica, Maika Garnica

  • Sound design Aiko Devriendt

  • Text Céline Mathieu

  • Costume Liesbeth Plettinckx

Special thanks to Valentijn Goethals & Danielle van Zuijlen (Kunsthal Gent), Yalik Garnica, Samuel Saelemakers, Vesna Faassen, Amber Vanluffelen, Ode de Kort, Ans mertens, Adriaan Severins

Maika Garnica

Maika Garnica (1992) lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium.
Central in Maika Garnica´s practice is the relationship between the environment, the spectator and the artist. She often applies prototypes to comprehend the complex relation between form and matter while instigating the position of the body as a vehicle for social connections. Through various contextual variations the nature of the work shifts spontaneously from sculptures or utilitarian objects to sound installations.

Maika Garnica:
Subtle Matter Fluid Hands

MDC KH Maika Garnica 015 LR

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