Valérie Mannaerts: Antennae

Valérie Mannaerts (b. 1974, Brussels) explores the visual language of sculpture and its boundaries, driven by a deep fascination with the notion of metamorphosis. When does an object become a sculpture? How does a sculpture relate to the pictorial plane, space and the viewer? In this context, sculpture manifests itself not as a fixed object, but as a process of constant transformation. This focus on sculpture deepened her interest in architecture, spatiality and the relationship with the human body, leading to installations, paintings, textile works, kimonos, functional objects and projects in public spaces that engage directly with their surroundings. In ‘Antennae’, Mannaerts looks back on thirty years as an artist while also presenting new work. The title of the exhibition is telling. On the one hand, Mannaerts uses it to refer to the antennae with which insects sense their surroundings. At the same time, it functions as a metaphor for her own artistic sensitivity: a reference to the ‘antennas’ with which, as an artist, she establishes subtle and complex connections between her world, her work, the viewer and the exhibition space. The publication ‘Antennae’ was published on the occasion of the solo exhibition of the same name at M Leuven. The exhibition serves as the backbone of this book and is reread through Mannaerts’ subjective gaze. In an associative interplay of archival material and sources of inspiration, an insight into her world and artistic sensibility unfolds. Images by the artist herself and Filip Dujardin are complemented by an essay by curator Valerie Verhack.