Garance Debert
Mysterious CANTATERROR

A character akin to a disenchanted Pierrot takes on the guise of a virtuoso karaoke anti-hero. From his multifunction Android, he lights up the crowd with his thunderbolt, sometimes melancholy, sometimes ironically joyful. His shy, dark dance makes him furtive, stormily in love with his shadow. Losing himself to the sordid refrains, his icy mirrors embracing him all around, these copies impervious to dynamic detours, impenetrable voyeurs of his brilliance. Deceptively subtle, with skillful dimples, he crosses cities, rivers, forests, people.

Garance Debert is a French performance artist based in Brussels. She is developing a practice at the crossroads of dance, performance and video, and occasionally tries her hand at publishing. Her work explores the body as an archive and a space for transmission, where gesture becomes a territory for experimentation and reactivation. Through an anachronistic approach to movement, she hijacks the codes of mime, virtuosity and the grotesque to question the ways in which meaning and the common imagination appear and disappear. Her work questions the origins of performativity by turning notions of virtuosity and superficiality on their head. Between expressiveness and emptiness, instability and precision of gesture, she sees the stage as a collective, interactive space where memory is embodied without nostalgia. She trained as a classical and contemporary dancer, earning a DNSPD at the CNDC in Angers before moving on to the ERG in Brussels, where she graduated with great distinction with a Master's degree in Visual Arts. Her work has been presented in a variety of artistic contexts, including institutions such as WIELS, Bozar Rooftop and CC Strombeek, and experimental spaces such as Ateliers Mommen, the Project(ion) Room and SB34. Alongside her artistic practice, she has developed a curatorial activity and organised events combining exhibitions and performances in Brussels, notably L'Opéra Discret at the 312 Foundations and Grotte et Ist at the Ateliers du Loto.

Abstract Entities

Abstract Entities, Thomas Hitchcock's first institutional solo exhibition in Belgium, delves into the intersections of Art Nouveau and Europe’s fin de siècle cultural period and contemporary technological developments. Situated within the context of today’s global capitalism and digital shifts, he critically examines and juxtaposes themes of exploitation within a broader movement of retreating into interiority and dream-like realms.

Hitchcock’s newly created sculptural installation, within KIOSK’s former anatomical theater, also functions as an open platform for temporary interventions by Belgian art students. A multitude of different interventions across several media will take place throughout the exhibition period, including performances, music, collective readings, talks, workshops, discussions, body practices, poetry, and screenings – starting with the first contributions during the opening.

Practical information about the exhibition

• Opening on Saturday the 25th of January 2025, between 3 and 6 p.m.
• Open daily between 12.00 and 6.00 p.m.
• Open until 16.03.2025
  
• Free entrance
• Louis Pasteurlaan 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

This exhibition was produced in collaboration with Phileas - The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art, and with the support of the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport (BMKOES) of Austria.