Instagram story viewer> @gertjan.oskar> Posts

Gertjan Oskar

@gertjan.oskar

2.4K

followers

1351

following

|| Art historian and curator
II On me/cfs/long covid hiatus
|| Publications and projects ↓

POSTS STORIES REELS

Things I love
35mm by @gertjan.oskar

Life update for the later crowd. I am spending full days in bed lately and it seems like this crash is going to last a while longer. In the mean time I receive no formal care, my ‘house’ doctor is a conservative non-believer and other doctors in the neighbourhood have patient-stops.

I don’t like doing this but this is a cry for help: I am still looking for an me/cfs / long covid / post-infectuous disease specialist in Flanders (who is not fully booked); if a couple more people could come over once in a while with some food or to help me with household tasks I would be forever grateful; if anyone knows any success stories that can keep me going, they are very welcome.

It’s not all doom and gloom, I have better moments and am usually able to connect to friends once in every couple days. I receive love and care. Once in every couple weeks I manage to see an exhibition or go to a book shop. Somehow I was able to even write a review recently. But with every visible thing I do comes the invisible pre-rest, after-crash and days of maximum inactivity to recover.

Most people who go through similar hardship, endure it in silence, feeling shame. I hope we can find a way to value and embrace these and other disabled/ill people for who they are, not for the shareholder value they (are unable to) create. We can (and perhaps must) be visible as we are.

Thank you for your sweet messages already. I will try to reply when I can.

Let’s turn things around. Thank you for sharing as well.

#mecfs #longcovid #chronicfatigue #chronicillness by @gertjan.oskar

For the later crowd and the people in the back, once and for all. Thank you for all the support thus far, I have been overwhelmed by loving messages, suggestions and stories of recognition. Look out for each other and dare to talk about what really matters. You are not alone. by @gertjan.oskar

Bourse de Commerce (Collection Pinault) delivered on its promise, celebrating (the legacy of) arte povera, focusing on thirteen of its protagonists. Curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev was able to highlight the continued urgency of the art historic movement’s spirit.

The Italian avant-gardists of the late sixties - operating under the influence of American neo-dada and French nouveau réalisme - radicalized the visions of conceptual and minimal art, moving beyond the media of painting, sculpture, drawing, and photography, thereby allegedly creating the first ‘installations’ in art history.

Arte povera and its disciples touched on the importance of embodied life in general and embodied perception in particular. While modern and contemporary societies dissociate us from natural reality, these artists created works with elementary materials and techniques, displaying a deep understanding of the interdependence between (if not the unity of) the human and the animal, the mineral and the vegetal, nature and culture.

The artworks, more often than not part of our own ‘horizontal’ space, become living fields of energy, activated through their interaction with the viewer. Arte povera thereby forms a radically democratic invitation to become aware of our own bodies in and perceptions of space, as well as our relationship to nature and it’s core materials.

We have to gather from the arte povera attitude of ephemerality, horizontality and interconnection its provocation to the rampant individualism and pretentious intellectualism that is still shaping our current art economy. The movement humbly calls our attention to the universal, paradoxically but all the more powerfully through making us aware of our very own embodied experience and relationship to the world.

1. Giovanni Anselmo
2. Jannis Kounellis
3. Mario Merz
4. Michelangelo Pistoletto
5. Giuseppe Penone
6. Emilio Prini
7. Giovanni Anselmo by @gertjan.oskar

Snapshot of a soft and cherished moment. Thank you, @alexanderdeprez 🤍🌤️ by @gertjan.oskar

‘I do feel an affinity with the theme of the expo, ‘After Paradise’, as it touches on the necessity of finding a new and empowering attitude towards the environmental and social tragedy that is our current reality’

@gertjan.oskar is an art historian and curator.
He took us on a wonderful tour and highlighted his favourite artworks in the ongoing @triennalekortrijk organised by @bepart_platform.

Video by @jonas_reubens 😇

As a @differentclass.be member, you have access to all the events in our agenda. Join us starting from 7,95 eur/month and get access to more than 15 events a month. by @gertjan.oskar

One month has passed since the opening of ‘Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent (…)’. The opening night is still a haze. We finished hanging the introductory texts while the first people were waiting at the door. The attention and love was overwhelming but so rewarding after years of work and anticipation.

Thank you to every single one of you being there. Thank you to the architecture and art history students being the productional backbone of this enterprise. Without them, no show. Thank you to @kris.coremans2021 for the clever scenography. Thank you to the team of @vandenhove_center. Thank you to the lenders. Thank you to my mentor and co-curator Wouter Davidts. Thank you to @cornelialauf for the trust, the fruitful dialogue and collaboration. Thank you @josephkosuthstudio. Thank you to everyone involved, in one way or another.

‘Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent from 1990 to 1998: a cross-reference exhibition of information on the presence of an American artist in a Belgian city: consisting of a spatial chronology into which are inserted texts, artworks, archival documents, and books, focused on the relationship between an international artist and a local art community, with mentions of the reciprocity between work, partnership, family and household, edited and curated by Gertjan Oskar and Wouter Davidts.’

Open until the 20th of April, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 14h-18h. Closed during easter holidays. Link in bio for more info.

Photos by photographer in chief @jules_stallaerts by @gertjan.oskar

Happy I can finally announce that the exhibition I developed in collaboration with prof. dr. Wouter Davidts (UGent) will soon open. The exhibition explores Conceptual Art pioneer Joseph Kosuth's connection with the city of Ghent.

In 1990, American artist Joseph Kosuth settles in Belgium. After several stops in the city in the 70s and 80s, both his studio and household move from the New York metropolis to a city palace in Ghent's Maagdestraat. He continues to live there with his wife, art historian and curator Cornelia Lauf, and later their two children, until 1998. The motivations have been subject of much speculation: Kosuth's participation in the exhibition Chambres D'Amis (1986) and his contact with Jan Hoet are said to have been decisive. Lively stories also circulate about the house in Maagdestraat: numerous celebrities connected to Kosuth's international network are said to have attended the legendary dinners.

Based on extensive historical research, this study exhibition attempts to discern the history of the legend surrounding Kosuth's stay in Ghent. Based on an elaborate selection of historical documents, photographs, press, publications, books, works of art and letters from private and institutional archives, this exhibition will map Joseph Kosuth's presence and activities in Ghent. 'Eight Years: Joseph Kosuth in Ghent (...)' presents a chronology of documents that testify to the ways an art history can manifest itself within a given geography. Moreover, the exhibition pays attention to the - especially in Conceptual Art - often underestimated relationship between the living environment and the artist's work. It reveals that even such artistic practice does not unfold in a vacuum, but is influenced or even made possible by cross-fertilisation between partners, colleagues and friends, both within the household and the wider network of actors shaping art history.

The exhibition opens on 15 February at the VANDENHOVE Centre for Architecture & Art at Ghent University (Rozier 1, 9000 Ghent). It can be visited from Thursday to Saturday, between 2pm and 6pm. Closed during the Easter holidays. by @gertjan.oskar

Art highlights of 2023, part two:

1. ‘Ma Pensée Sérielle - Miriam Cahn’ at Palais de Tokyo, Paris

2. ‘House of Bones’ group show at Parlor, Gent. Shown here: Hannah Hoebeke

3. ‘Avant l’orage’ at Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, Paris. Shown here: duo presentation of Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and Cy Twombly

4. ‘Obstructie van de Rechtsgang’ group show at Wijk8, Gent. Curated by Dora Brams.

5. ‘L’origine des choses’, Edith Dekyndt in the vitrines of Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, Paris

6. ‘Die Zeit hat Uns’, Lieven De Boeck and Jonathan Sulam at the studio of Jonathan Sullam, Brussels

7. Fabiola Burgos Labra at HISK open studios, Brussels

8. ‘De overwinning v̶a̶n̶ ̶d̶e̶ ̶m̶e̶n̶s̶ op de dingen. Over sport’ at Lichtekooi Artspace, Antwerp. Curated by Vedran Kopljar, Nadia Bijl and Pepa De Maesschalck. Shown here: Ken Verhoeven, ‘Off-piste’

9. ‘Grace Ndiritu Reimagines the FOMU’ at FOMU, Antwerp. Collection presentation curated by Grace Ndiritu.

10. ‘Avant l’orage’ at Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection, Paris. Shown here: Danh Vō’s installation at the Rotunda by @gertjan.oskar

Art highlights of 2023, part one:

1. ‘Series/Series’ at VANDENHOVE Center for Art and Architecture, Ghent. Curated by master students of Ghent University. Shown here: Loïc Le Groumellec

2. ‘Regel 62’ at Sinne, Helsinki. Curated by Markus Åström. Shown here: Nomadic Kiln Group

3. ‘Unreadiness’ at Roger Raveel Museum, Machelen-aan-de-Leie. Curated by Melanie Deboutte. Shown here: Jan Vercruysse

4. Roger Raveel at Roger Raveelmuseum, Machelen-aan-de-Leie.

5. ‘Publiek Park’ outdoor exhibition in three public parks in Antwerp. Curated by Koi Persyn, Adriënne van der Werd, Anna Laganovska and Jef Declercq. Shown here: W0W19 by 019

6. ‘Kinship Kingdom’ at Zwarte Zaal, KASK, Ghent. Curated by Emma Crombé. Shown here: Emma Crombé

7. ‘Elene Chantladze & Nata Janberidze / Keti Toloraia (Rooms Studio)’ for europalia georgia at M HKA, Antwerp. Curated by Anne-Claire Schmitz. Shown here: Rooms Studio (front) and Elene Chantladze (back)

8. ‘DISPLACEMENT: A METAPHOR’ by Vedran Kopljar at his studio in Antwerp.

9. Joan Miró on view at Galerie A&R Fleury, Paris.

10. ‘Yvonne Serruys: Beelhouwer van de Nieuwe Vrouw’ at Stadsmuseum and CC De Steiger, Menen. Shown here: picture of a sculpture by Yvonne Serruys by @gertjan.oskar

Gorgeous duo/trio exhibit combining paintings by Elene Chantladze with support structures and design objects by Rooms Studio (Nata Janberidze / Keti Toloraia). Curated by Anne-Claire Schmitz at M HKA Antwerp for europalia georgia. Still on view until the 7th of January.

@elene_chantladze @rooms_studio_ @natarooms @/ketirooms @anneclaireschmitz @mhkamuseum @europalia by @gertjan.oskar

🪵🍀🤍 by @gertjan.oskar