On Being and Belonging—Lieven De Boeck’s Work

In his talk, Wouter Davidts looked at the different ways the work of Lieven De Boeck subtly plays upon the various facets of these implacable contradictions: “from rising nationalism to cultivated domesticity, from personal introspection to public exposure, or from poetic gestures to bare acts. […] It is said that Mies van der Rohe always carried a small Paul Klee painting in his suitcase. Whenever he stayed in a hotel, he hung it in place of the paintings that decorated his room, transforming the space—albeit only temporarily and partially—into a room of his own. It seems even the godfather of Modern Architecture needed a personal belonging to feel at home in a hotel room, the spatial epitome of the nomadic existence that modernity initiated and his later colleagues would experience at length. Charming as it may be, the story points to the irresolvable question of being and belonging in the modern era.”

Wouter Davidts

Lieven DE BOECK is an artist based in Brussels and New York. He was a researcher in Fine Arts at the Jan van Eyck Academy (2003/04) and artist-in-residence at the ISCP New York (2006). Selected exhibitions: Making Things Public at Witte de With, Rotterdam (solo exhibition, 2004), Making Traces (together with Elena Herzog) at LMAKprojects, New York (2007) and Mimétisme at Extra City, Antwerp (group show, 2008). Major publications include Housing (2004), the first book from the series Dictionary of Space, Texts#1, (2007) a compilation of texts about Lieven De Boeck’s work and Public Space, l.e.t.t.e.r.s. (2009), the second publication in the series Dictionary of Space.
www.studiolievendb.com

Wouter DAVIDTS was then a postdoctoral researcher in the area of architecture and urban planning at the University of Gent and was working on a book about size and scale in contemporary art and architecture.
www.wouterdavidts.wordpress.com

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