COME CLOSER at Kasteel Oud-Rekem, Belgium

Site specific installation by Tyna Adebowale

Come Closer is not only an invitation into the various worlds of each of the site specific works by the 23 artists from almost as many countries, but also an invocation of the past in this evocative three story building. The physicality in this former castle, former boarding school, former institute for those classed as insane, and recently the traces of past exhibitions in this unique building are part and parcel of this invitation to look, see, listen and feel.

Curated by Annemie Van Laethem and Erik Croux of ForumTri, an arts foundation, some of the artists are former students of the nearby Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht which explains in part the site specific installations by artists from diverse geographical locations this tiny romantic Flemish village. Although Nigerian, Tyna Adebowale, is a graduate of the Rijksakademie. A video of hers against the end wall ran continuously of what seemed at times a performance, at times a documentary, of African individuals dressed in various manners, walking as if in a procession. This was flanked by two enormous finely detailed equally eery and compelling paintings.

On the third floor, German artist Malte Bruns’ has suspended casts of his body parts in the nooks and cranies of this enormous attic space and stacked and balanced larger assemblages in the centre spaces of this enormous attic space.

Amsterdam based artists Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukacs’ main work was a video projection of a mixture of disorienting yet also illusionistic drone footage of a forest, with an opera sung in Farsi (one of the languages of today’s Iran) with English subtitles by the young man who walked continuously in this rolling forest scape that was both marred and beautiful. The imagery and texts were free flow associations with nature and the spirits of nature. I was fortunate to step into this space just as the opera, sung by the young man started, and so found the layerings of the story fascinating. If I had stepped in at another moment I would have not been able to follow the plot because nothing was repeated and the disparate was part of the story too.   Sonja van Kerkhoff    26th September 2019


The artists in the show are:-
Tyna Adebowale, Lyndon Barrois, Amani Bodo, Persijn Broersen & Margit Lukacs, Malte Bruns, Cheri Cherin, Pii Daenen, Hanane El Farissi, Hadassah Emmerich, Moke Fils, Vera Gulikers, Lien Hillen, Christopher Meerdo, Ana Navas, Stefan Peters, Steven Peters Caraballo, Shula, Vincent Spaas, Diego Tonus, Ricardo Van Eyk, Han Van Wetering en Sarah Joy Zwarts.

The show is open on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, 11-6pm, closes on September 29th

Castle d’Aspremont-Lynden, Groenplaats 1- (BE) 3621 Oud-Rekem