Liesbet Waegemans puts the world to bed in first solo show
Liesbet Waegemans is part of a younger generation of Flemish artists putting the spotlight on their own lives, bodies and trials to criticise the society spinning around them at increasingly dizzying speeds
The selfie generation
Standing in the train toilet, she grabbed a Pritt glue stick instead of her deodorant from her bag and almost spread the solid adhesive under her arm. It was in that moment that the 33-year-old felt very strongly that life lived this fast has side effects that can really stick to and control a person.
Another time, the Antwerp artist was walking through the streets. She didn’t feel well, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what was wrong. Suddenly, the idea of a pill that would push everything out of her felt very tempting.
She subsequently spent hours mulling over how she could transform this idea into an art installation. Her face had to be on the pills, since the idea was to press herself out/express herself.
Waegemans’ ideas obviously often arise accidentally, after which they end up in a notebook until they are shaped to perfection. She decided to take a picture of her idiosyncratic pills only three months ago. Her Pritt experience also became a photograph.
Both are currently on view in The World Needs Some Sleep, her first solo exhibition, on view at the eyeLoco Gallery in Antwerp.
“I don’t know exactly why I started with installations and now stick to photography,” Waegemans says. “Maybe because I was a big fan of the mysterious sculptures of Louise Bourgeois and Kiki Smith. I like to think that going back to basic materials gives me some grip on the world.”
Borderline times
In The World, Waegemans also expresses herself through a “sentimental city map” of Antwerp that indicates where she feels at home, where she experiences “pain caused by memories” and “irritation caused by a large number of people”.
Between the self-portraits depicting Waegemans’ small tics and very 21st-century still-lifes of smoothies, the artist offers a friendly plea to slow down in a world she feels is going slightly mad.
It’s not really me to be totally open about everything, but art helps
At the same time, her art represents a small step back to (her very own) basics while the system at large explodes. Together with contemporaries such as Julie Scheurweghs and Julie Calbert, both based in Brussels, she’s part of a younger generation of artists putting the spotlight on their own lives, bodies and pain to criticise, or at least reflect, the society around them.
They might be called the voices of a selfie generation, one that is trying to cope with the digital age and borderline times they live in, but also shows a deep longing for simplicity and authenticity. It is by mirroring their own pain that they point out the weaknesses of society; it’s by sharing it with others that their art becomes relevant, with the socially committed installations and photographs of Waegemans a particularly strong example of this larger dimension.
The title of the exhibition refers to a work in which a globe is put to sleep, under a soft blanket, as if given a chance to take a break from the constant motion.
That work could just as easily refer to one of the artist’s own experiences; last year, her world unexpectedly came to a halt when her boyfriend, the talented West Flemish writer Thomas Blondeau, unexpectedly died from a traumatic aortic rupture at the age of 35.
“People had to take care of me; friends cooked for me and slept next to me. It took a few weeks before I was able to show my face to the outside world again. I was dependent like a child, needed a lot of people around me and, afterwards, I had to learn to live again.”
This should help you understand her 2013 installation “Sentimental citymap”, in which the woman in one of the self-portraits (pictured) clutches a broken necklace, indicating that the relationship is over, but she can’t let go. “It’s not really me to be totally open about everything, but my art helps me with it,” she says. “It’s all about finding a way or a form that makes it acceptable to show the very personal stuff.
A comforting message
“It’s an interesting topic: making something interesting out of loss,” she continues. “I learned a lot about the power of the individual from two Bosnian friends I met in Italy.”
After obtaining degrees in Roman languages at the University of Antwerp and cultural studies at the University of Leuven, Waegemans completed an internship in Trieste, Italy. “They experienced the war in their home country but did not get cynical. On the contrary, the awareness that they can lose everything revitalised them. The only thing you cannot lose is what you have given away.”
The only thing you cannot lose is what you have given away
Realising that you’re not the only one who is chaotic, who needs more sleep, she says "is a comforting message I want to share with all the visitors to my exhibition: ‘Come join us under the blanket; there’s still some space left for you.’”
In Waegemans’ view, the world’s challenges are fascinating since the urgency to address them has never been bigger. “I am always looking at where art and social commitment can meet,” she says. “I do believe art can make a difference, not by wanting to change the whole world, but by starting with your own little island – your family, friends and neighbours.”
She only began making installations six years ago, and her work has since been featured in Fier op A4 in the Antwerp comic book store Mekanik Strip and in Share in the Ghent gallery Espace Ladda.
Waegemans’ current show at eyeLoco also includes a few installations, but in recent years she has mostly relied on photography. “I would never take photos of an intimate domestic scene, or snapshots of life. My ideas do best in a studio environment, even the most intimate ones,” she explains. “At first, I didn’t want to pose myself and was looking for a model. But sometimes it gets so personal that it’s me who’s pulling her nose or straightening her underwear. It’s about all these little imperfections of mine. When they lead to a beautiful image, I can rise above them. I really believe that if I do my part, life will take care of the rest.”
Until 26 October at eyeLoco Gallery, De Brouwerstraat 5, Antwerp
Photo: “The chain is broken”, Liesbet Waegemans
More visual arts this week
Par les Bretelles
Every evening, Antwerp-based artist Arpaïs Du Bois draws, paints and writes for a few hours in her carnets quotidiens, notebooks she uses as a visual diary. The results offer ghosts from the past but also serve as fragile and often poetic suggestions of the darkness of the future.
Until 8 November at Fifty One, Antwerp
Lending Enchantment to Vulgar Materials
The largest exhibition to date of 2008 Turner Prize winner Mark Leckey is spread across two floors at the auditorium of Brussels contemporary art centre Wiels, and it brings together nearly all of the London-based artist’s videos as well as sculptural works made in the last decade. Also included is the new installation “UniAddDumThs”, which reveals the artist’s fascination with icons of popular culture.
Until 11 January at Wiels, Brussels
Panamarenko Universum
After transforming his former house in Antwerp’s Biekorfstraat into a public monument, arts centre M HKA has now turned its attention to the actual oeuvre of Panamarenko, one of the city’s leading artists. This retrospective, almost 10 years after the one at the KMSK in Brussels, offers a thematic and chronological overview of the fiery universe of the avant-garde Flemish pioneer.
From 3 November until 22 February at M HKA, Antwerp
