On the occasion of the exhibition My Abstract World, me Collectors Room is showing Ludovik Vermeersch’s lecture performance Personally, I’m Most Interested in the Shapes and Colours. The lecture offers an engaging reflection on the state of abstract art today. Set up as a performative complement to his eponymous book, it presents a narrative that invites different levels of speculation and immerses the viewer in a multilayered world of abstractions.
In a ninety-minute monologue, the former artist, critically acclaimed for his unorthodox yet cunning approach to curating, offers an original take on the use of abstraction as an artistic strategy. Vermeersch’s approach is based on both a theoretical investigation into abstract art’s earliest origins and an experimental collaboration with six promising young abstract artists.
This collaboration, which consisted of a series of exhibitions and presentations in Berlin between 2013 and 2015, revolved around the basic question: What can abstract painting still achieve today? Challenging the artists to radically question their own practices, Vermeersch staged increasingly deceptive presentations of their works. In his lecture, Vermeersch looks back at these interventions and frames them as part of a curatorial strategy which he terms “transfigurative recontextualisation.” With the help of numerous art historical examples and video footage of the artists’ exhibitions, he lays out an intriguing theory and reveals an artistic agenda of his own.
The lecture was first performed at Extra City, Antwerp, in 2015. Its presentation at Thomas Olbricht’s exhibition My Abstract World offers a unique opportunity to test Vermeersch’s theories against the works of Bernard Frize, Katharina Grosse, Sarah Morris, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and other renowned contemporary painters.
Organised by me Collectors Room Berlin / Stiftung Olbricht in collaboration with Berlijnse Avonden. Duration: 90 minutes In English with Dutch surtitles Entrance fee: On the last day of the exhibition the entry and the lecture are free of charge
Sign up for the event: info@me-berlin.com
Credits and copyrights: Ludovik Vermeersch, I´m Most Interested in the Shapes and Colours, Berlin, 2015 © Kunstraum Ossastrasse.
