Judith Geerts
What will be your question

On how many feet will you enter the stage to consult the Oracle of Judith Geerts?

Praktische informatie

• Performance on Wednesday 07.12.2022 at 7 p.m.
  
• Louis Pasteurlaan 2, 9000 Ghent
• Free entrance
• First Oracle of the exhibition Oracles, curated by Koi Persyn (komplot x KIOSK)

Interview

Annemarija Gulbe: Could you tell us more about the project you are working on right now? How did you encounter the sources of inspiration that led your artistic practice to this moment?

Judith Geerts: For me, working is a sport and this is where the production of my practice takes place. I like to see the marks of construction and workmanship inherited by the material. The other part of my practice involves exhibition-making: this is where the work appears and often responds to the regulations of the architectural authority of a space.

My ideas come from familiar objects or public spaces. I like to play with dimensions and scale: often the work is situated between an image and an object. For KIOSK’s exhibition space, I have developed a fragmented steel structure. This structure is a newer version of an earlier work. Its function is unclear and therefore the work serves no immediate purpose.

AG: How do you navigate in this exhibition’s collective cycle of narratives and how does your voice exchange with the other stories and artists? How will your project interact with the other artworks, the approach of Oracles, and/or the space of KIOSK?

JG: The Oracle will be the opening act in a cycle of performances and I am curious to see how this steel structure will interact with the artists' other works and performances. My work consists of sculptural forms and has been described as performative or even intrusive. For example, I made a series of small benches where the physical familiarity with the object is evident. However, the objects I make display a suggestive autonomous potential where an ordinary object exhibits a function beyond its serving role.

AG: The Oracle’s spell heralds a turning point in someone’s life. We are curious to know what you envision for the future and how your performance will predict a shift in the narrative.

JG: A friend told me that performance is the expression of the ability of something capable of real achievement. You can compare this to how achievement is expressed with machines: lifting power, compression force and tension. I like to think of work that can be measured and expressed mechanically or in force. For this first future Oracle, I like to start with nothing and predict that physical observation measures the map of this space.

About Judith Geerts

Judith Geerts (b. 1989) is a Dutch artist based in Brussels. She graduated her MFA with honors from LUCA, Brussels (2022) and completed her BFA at Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (2015) with a degree in sculpture at the Cooper Union, New York (2014). Her artistic practice is based on combining sculpture and writing through references to architectural systems and devices found in public spaces. By replicating, altering, and diverting the design of everyday objects, she produces structures that subvert and reflect upon their function. She reacts to regulations of architectural authority and examines new ways to activate her work in relation to space and viewership.

Her works have been shown at several exhibitions including: BHQF in New York (NY, USA), Vincent van Gogh Huis (Zundert, NL), Sharp Projects (Copenhagen, DK) and Cc Strombeek (Brussels, BE). She participated in residencies at Het Van Gogh Huis (Zundert, NL), Het Domijn (Weesp, NL) and 51Cth (Copenhagen, DK). In Brussels, she co-founded the project space 8-Track. She has been supported by Master Mind Scholarship in Belgium and awarded with grants including: Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds, Stichting Niemeijer Fonds, Hendrik Muller Fonds.