Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven

This exhibition is made up of a mix of old and new works, together with theories and lists which should be read as accumulated testimonies of a private worldview that is mine.

Like utopian socialist François-Marie-Charles Fourier (1772-1837), I focus on harmony as on installing pseudo-laws to prevent the older laws from coming back. This pseudo-world thus created becomes a positive force that denies the original. The copy, the model, is yes and no a reproduction. Positive forces can be called “art.” Lust and analysis are in a constant battle to transgress laws. The art of using transgressions is a major part of harmonious mathematic equations of all sorts. Images can become anarchistic and spread-out circulatory articulators.

I like to show works in a list because the overall harmony decomposes the function of time into frequencies of creativity, in a way similar to how a musical chord can be expressed as the amplitude or loudness of its constituent notes.

—AMVK

Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven (b. 1951, Antwerp) lives and works in Antwerp. Since the late 1970s, AMVK has produced an extensive body of work including drawings, collages, paintings, and videos.

Her solo exhibitions include West Den Haag, The Hague (2023); Fridericianum, Kassel (2018); M HKA, Antwerp (2018, 2006, 1999); Kunstverein Hannover (2017); Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2016); Kunstverein München (2015); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2011); Kunsthalle Nürnberg (2009); Wiels, Brussels (2008); Kunstmuseum Luzern (2008); Kunsthalle Bern (2005), and numerous shows at Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp, as well as at Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin. Her work was included in group exhibitions at Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Yale Union, Portland; S.M.A.K., Ghent; ICA Philadelphia; The Artist’s Institute, New York; Shanghai Art Museum; and Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Buenos Aires. She participated in Manifesta 7. Her work is included in many public collections, such as Kunsthalle Bern; Royal Museums of Fine Arts Belgium, Brussels; M HKA, Antwerp; and the University of Chicago. In 2023, she was commissioned to produce a mural for Kanal–Centre Pompidou, Brussels.