Books published by APE

And then, as if out of nowhere, everything built be-came HERITAGE. The regulation would be confirmed in writing shortly, but on the telephone the office clerk left no room for doubt. Every brick, every beam and pipe, every tile, faucet and roofline had to be preserved. THE SITUATION AS IT IS, WILL BE THE SITUATION AS IT IS. The administration chose a new approach: a radical shift from ambiguous-at times obscure-decisions, procedures and decrees to an era of HYPER-REGULATION. Startled, THE ARCHITECT hung up. He looked at the list of construction sites he planned on visiting that day, grabbed his car keys and camera, and left. He wondered if, later on, his wife and kids would still be in the living room where he heard them playing now. THE SITUATION AS IT IS** is the story of an architect's ring binders, an archive filled with negatives and scattered subjects. THE PHOTOGRAPHS try to tell a story of an existing condition*: this is the state things are in. Within these binders buildings are perpetually unfinished. The dog keeps barking. It's our third birthday, again. Decades after they were exposed, these photographs appear to reveal the first traces of THE IMPASSE. **** Documenting the existing condition (de bestaande toestand) is a legally required aspect of a building application within the context of architecture and urban development: photographs describe a building, a landscape, infrastructure.... in order for it to be demolished, adjusted, built. The existence of the image, the document that presents THE SITUATION AS IT IS, usually implies and initiates change. ** THE SITUATION AS IT IS unfolded in 15 episodes of three frames that revolved rhythmically on a billboard mounted onto 019's facade. *** Part of the research project Documenting Objects, conducted by Arnout and Michiel De Cleene at KASK, the school of arts of HOGENT and Howest.

'Replica' suggest a new reading of the body and the model as a pure image, a pure tool, without referring to any representative identity, hereby ignoring today's contemporary society of what the self should be. Lino refers strongly to American mid-century photographer William Mortensen, who states that a body is simply considered to be "a machine that needs adjustments. " According to Mortensen the body must be the basis, "representation of personality and emotion [...] are irrelevant and misleading". There is a certain dehumanization in Mortensen's approach to the model, a return of the body to an object without meaning, in front of the camera. Mortensen saw models as clay that form the image, a body was articulated only by the operator's intention. He wanted to strip the figure from its emotion and personality, so that we, as an audience, could consider the body as a formed prop and stare at the image as the essence, and not the subject. In Lino's case she is the model, the operator / photographer, the subject and the image at the same time. She is in complete control. She found a way to remove herself from representation and reduced her own body to a pure object and image, almost like a machine. 'Replica' is a manifestation of the artist's understanding of her role in front of and behind the camera. 'Replica' is a prescient of an approaching future in which identity will surrender to the carefree machine of image magnification.

This photographic statement is a chronological record of an obsessive four-day walk through one of the twentieth century's most battered cities. Rosa Smalen crisscrossed Berlin with her eyes and camera pointed down, unflinchingly recording the worn-out and often patchwork sidewalks that carried her along. The pavements of Berlin silently bear witness to great turmoil, and so does Smalen, who managed to recover from a coma after an accident that nearly took her life. Facing the site of a trauma exceeding her own, Smalen set out to keep it simple and focus on the literal ground beneath her feet, an act to which this book forms a determined and resilient testimonial. (Taco Hidde Bakker)

Erwin Wurm Photographs is being published to accompany the first retrospective (4 March - 7 June 2020) organized by the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) of this world-renowned Austrian artist's photographic work.The book explores Wurm's eclectic practice from this new angle. In addition to bringing together some 600 photographs from the late 1980s to the present, this exhaustive compilation includes original contact sheets and prints from the artist's personal archive that have never been seen before. It examines the artistic process through which Wurm created many of his major works and series, from his "Dust Sculptures" and "Fabio Getting Dressed" to his influential "One-Minute Sculptures," and also features his recent large-format Polaroid photographs.

"I met Lilly when I was working at the Foire du Midi fair in Brussels," says Claude van Halen of his late partner, Liliane Maes. "I met her on the 14th of July 1995. The boss of a bar asked me, ' Claude do you want to go with her because her man is beating her? ' I said yes. I even left my job for her. I went with her and and we stayed together for so long, for 23 years. "Lilly passed away on 6th June 2018, Claude by her side till the end. The romance between them is kept alive through Vincen Beeckman's pictures of Claude and Lilly. They are pictures of love, small sequences of affection, of touching, holding, kissing and being together in each other's company.

In The Member of the Wedding, a 1946 novel by the American author Carson McCullers, the twelve-year-old protagonist Frankie Addams sighs: 'They were the two prettiest people I ever saw. Yet it was like I couldn't see all of them I wanted to see. My brains couldn't gather together quick enough and take it all in. And then they were gone. You see what I mean?' That Stief DeSmet 'understands' what Frankie means like no other, how could it be otherwise? What he invariably presents in his work, and again in Paradise, Prototypes & Other Deconstructions, is the fragmentary representation of something that is too agile and too fleeting in its totality - far too agile and fleeting - to be fully grasped. Paradoxically enough, that 'something' cannot be equated to what we often call the 'unreal' beauty of supremely attractive people, or to colourful skies filled with billowing clouds, or even with artistic masterpieces. Nor is it related, in a non-aesthetic sense, to the type of incident that is often characterised as 'too good to be true'. That 'something' is unambiguously real - the absolute reality, namely, of an animal. More specifically: a creature that is wild and non-domesticated. In DeSmet's work, this reality appears to be inherently flawed, or rather, it is too fleeting and agile to be seen and experienced, since we are such imperfect, torn and flawed beings. Our brains don't work fast enough, that is true, and furthermore, a new moment dawns with every blink of the eye, each one of which is diametrically opposed to its predecessor. When reality chooses, above all else, to reveal itself in the form of an animal, it perpetually eludes us - 'you see what I mean?' - and to such an extent that it no longer seems to exist. It is this fact that Stief DeSmet seeks to impress upon us with his work. (extract from the text of Christophe Vekeman)In collaboration with Be-Part Waregem

The books included in the series Choreography as Conditioning are rooted in a cycle of work sessions entitled CASC at KASK, in which students work together with invited guests. They explore the notions of choreography, understood as ways of organizing subjects in their surroundings, and conditioning in both art-making and society-making. Where, how, and by whom are things organized and what kind of landscapes of experience are made (im)possible by the practices we enact and encounter?Thinking Conditioning through Practice, the first book in this series, addresses the question of how these practices destabilize and (re)constitute the concept of conditioning through six writing processes performed by Alex Arteaga, Julia Barrios de la Mora, Julien Bruneau, Laetitia Gendre & Miram Rohde, Heike Langsdorf and Kristof Van Baarle.

"The lasting one, that didn't last, that still lasts" is an overview of Hannelore Van Dijcks most recent work. Van Dijck works with charcoal on paper and in situ. With text contributions by Michael Newman, Laura Stamps and Christophe Van Gerrewey. "When Van Dijck brings a new 'skin' to a space, by completely covering the walls with a drawing, or sometimes the floor or ceiling, she confounds expectations by doing the very opposite of what might be expected in a regular-sized drawing. As certain properties of the walls come to the fore, others are automatically hidden. She 'distorts' space. Time and time again, she will execute a tour de force that allows us to see what she sees, to view what she deems important. When, charcoal in hand, she finds her rhythm, she can draw for days, and long into the night. It is a form of craftsmanship and, with it, she brings the space to life. She is present even when absent. Her hand is, indeed, everywhere. By allowing us to share her unique perception of space, she confronts us with what we think we see. " (Laura Stamps)"Van Dijck's drawing is not the work of the day, but rather a nocturnal work, whether carried out during the day or not. Its light is not solar but lunar. " (Michael Newman)

"After the Midst" is a multi-layered visual and textual interpretation of HOOGTIJ/laagtij, Gouvernement's performance-festival on rituals of celebration. Authors Jelle Martens and Raimundas Malašauskas started from the idea of "simultaneity" to observe, registrate & fictionalise all possible events that happened during those 10 days in July 2017 . "After the Midst" is anything but a factual report of an arts festival. Martens and and Malašauskas created their own stories, in which they allowed small details, fleeting moments and interactions with people, objects and performances. All possible ingredients were treated as of equal value. Just as the festival gradually transformed into a Gesamtkunstwerk of blending festive evidence, so the publication unbinds itself from disciplinary or chronological boundaries. Layer after layer, it seeks new interpretations, new possibilities, new connections. HOOGTIJ/laagtij Participating Artists: Joris Van de Moortel, Rutger De Vries,, Charlotte Adigéry, Nicole Twister ???????, Bert Jacobs, Micha Volders, Jaak DeDigitale, Pieter Ampe, Sibran Sampers, Nienke Baeckelandt, Boris Van den Eynden, Borokov Borokov, De Zwarte Zuster Fanfare, Gamelan Voices, Matthieu Ha, van Twolips, Sachli Gholamalizad, Sebastiaan Van den Branden, Lotte Vanhamel, Kim Snauwaert, Anyuta Wiazemsky. HOOGTIJ/laagtij & "After the Midst" became possible with the support of Stad Gent, Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Kunstencentrum Vooruit, Provincie Oost-Vlaanderen, SMartBe.

Mastering the Curtains is the result of an intensive research of 2 perspectives in the Islamic Republic of Iran: on the one hand the public and transparent, on the other hand the hidden. The first approach focuses on the content and implementation in the public space of the old popular and politicized street theatre Tazi'yeh. The second approach explores the hidden world of the Sufis and their political difficulties within the current policy. Originally, these seeming opposites have common ground in Iranian collective memory through a rendition of social and spiritual resistance. The four-year research process involved continuous oscillation between exploration and self-reflection. Reflections on religion, other and I, position and opposition, private and public, transparency and control are combined with series of images as in a 'flow of consciousness'. The social potential of secular mysticism is distilled from this research. With the support of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp.

Thorsten Brinkmann (1971, Herne (D)) calls himself a serial collector. In the storeroom at his studio you can find the most varied objects. He finds these objects on flea markets, in thrift shops, on the street, at refuse dumps, etc. They are part of middle-class domestic culture. He uses these objets trouvés to show how we relate to the objects that surround us. Objects define our identity and inform our culture, and as a result what belongs to us is of considerable importance. We shape and design the objects that surround us and in turn they shape us and the lives we live. The Great Cape Rinderhorn is a word-play which on the one hand refers to a monumental bull's horn, to a cape (a sleeveless garment) and Cape Horn at the southernmost extremity of Chile. Apart from a lighthouse, a house and a chapel, Cape Horn is a barren landscape. The Great Cape Rinderhorn has been shown at the Rice University Art Gallery in Houston, Texas (US) and Be-Part, Waregem (B). This publication is made with images from these two exhibitions and acts as a new chapter for this installation. With the support of Be-Part (Waregem) and Rice Gallery (Houston).

EN Why copy an album of postage stamps from the former Belgian Congo, page after page, stamp after stamp, and so precisely in terms of dimensions, illustrations and colours? Despite the initial confusion about Tuur and Flup Marinus' project, when confronted by the materiality it soon becomes clear that there's something interesting going on here. We see perfectly reproduced sheets; sets of exotic stamps in soft hues, protected by a transparent strip of varnish, and framed by an intrusive black background. Go on looking and this painterly appropriation becomes the magnifying glass and the mirror which unmask the colonial rhetoric. When we look at colonial collections some 60 years after deco­lonization, we are struck first and foremost by what is missing in those collections: the real world of colonial subjects and their relationships with Belgians (and other Westerners) and the structural inequalities between the two categories which made the passion for collecting possible. In some of his best stories Jorge Luis Borges showed the absurdity of attempts to create an imaginary world which corresponds fully to the reality or even to another imaginary world, such as Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. Flup and Tuur Marinus' artwork does something similar: the patience and diligence with which they toiled to create it reminds us how absurd it was to try and collect the complete colonial world through collections and by ex­tension how absurd it was to try and control and dominate politically an area as large as Western Europe through colonial rule. (Bambi Ceuppens)

A questioning of the role of the camera as obstacle between the photographer and reality continually enters into young Belgian photographer Tom Callemin's artistic process. This inquiry is translated into haunting images that are usually created in the studio, requiring long periods of preparation. His work therefore reads as an ode to slowness. Meticulously constructed black-and-white compositions are contrasted with Callemin's ongoing exploration of the portrait, resulting in a selection of enigmatic and refined images. This book is published on the occasion of a solo exhibition of Callemin's work at FOMU Antwerp and includes a text by Taco Hidde Bakker.

Every conceivable object-from an ordinary thing to a readymade that is presented in an artistic context or an intentionally constructed artefact-once probably had a photographic pendant, either as a document or an artistic interpretation. On the one hand it's a lovely and even comforting idea that things are given a second life, but on the other hand it's a depressing thought that reveals something about our obsession to portray.

The latest episode in F&R R&F's artistic course is tangible and real. Dealing with killing hardware and all its social, political, economical, cultural and sexual ramifications, the Guns?project (2014), which consists of 400 hand?made wooden weapons, leaves no room for ambiguity. It is distinctly about guns, yet the project offers a productive lead to reflect upon a broad set of issues, from the production and distribution of fire weapons, to the guns' presence in our everyday lives and social imaginaries. Not only does the Guns?project reflect the global omnipresence of fire weapons (be it in the media, in the film industry or in our direct environment), it equally touches upon some recent questions concerning the DIY?manufacturing of armory. The Guns?project comes at a time when designer Cody Wilson has conceived the first 3?D printed gun, now owned by the V&A in London, the world's largest design museum. In 2014 a New York Times article indicated how the rise of open?source education has smoothed the path for Al?Qaida militants in distant lands to carry out smaller?scale solo attacks by virtue of hand-­?made artillery. And one shouldn't forget how easily child militias living in the Third World craft their homemade guns from scrap metal at junkyards. Yet, for some, guns are closer to home than we'd sometimes want to believe. Guns are the comfort objects hidden underneath the thousands of pillows in American homes. Guns are the means through which children, for the first time in their lives, learn to enact power dynamics and hierarchies when playing racist Cowboys and Indians games. Guns are the symbols of patriarchy: hard and erected, the guns impertinently point at human flesh, ready to explode. Guns are the tools of oppression and control, the instruments of brutality and domination of the police state. Why have in F&R R&F decided to devote one month of their artistic practice to the creation of a wide collection of harmless weapons made of wood? The answer is very simple. "Weakness is provocative", President Rumsfeld famously observed, "It entices people into doing things that they otherwise would not do. " When your power is weak, you give power to your weakness. With vulnerability and humor as their weapons, F&R R&F happily play the game?and they play it quick and with a slight twist. (Laura Hermann)