Edition 2017

Edith Dekyndt works with video, sculpture, installation, drawing, and sound to address timeless themes such as light, time, and space in the most subtle ways. Throughout her work, she shows a profound interest in physical phenomena and fleeting events by focusing on materials and their transient nature. She transforms her sensory perceptions into a conceptually rich and materially engaged visual language.

The work They Shoot Horses, created by Edith Dekyndt for the BelgianArtPrize, places the viewer between a gigantic velvet curtain pierced with steel nails and a screen showing archival footage of the sardonic “Marathon Dances” from the 1930s. The luxurious velvet, reminiscent of the heavy curtain that falls after a performance in a concert hall, stands in stark contrast to the harsh and cold steel nails that pierce through the fabric. The installation refers to the “iron curtain” that has blocked the southern entrance of the Palace of Fine Arts since the terrorist attacks in Brussels, and more generally, to the towering barriers being erected around the world. The work also links the history of reality shows to contemporary society. In the archival clips showing couples dancing for days on end in hopes of free food and a chance to win a cash prize, Dekyndt sees a reflection of the situation faced by many underprivileged people today.

Edith Dekyndt lives and works in Brussels and Berlin. She recently exhibited at the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2020), Kunsthalle Hamburg (2019), the Belgian Contemporary Art TANK in Shanghai (2019), the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), and WIELS in Brussels (2016).

The Italian-Belgian artist duo Simona Denicolai and Ivo Provoost work with animation, objects, installations, performances, video, and editing. They propose process-based collaborative protocols, creating a complicity with actors who are not part of the art world but are embedded in the surrounding social environments. Often, the artists use existing elements from a context, either linking or dissociating them to formulate their own language. They prefer to operate as mediators between these elements, allowing them to engage in a dialogue through their unique forms. It is this intermediary position that interests them most: What is the role of the artist in both the intimate and political spheres of society?

The project EYELINER, conceived by Denicolai & Provoost for the BelgianArtPrize, focuses on objects displayed in the windows of small local shops and on window sills, and thus on the people who place them there. These objects provide a deeper glimpse into the backstage of the city.

The artist duo Denicolai & Provoost live in Brussels and have been working together since 1997. They have exhibited at international institutions such as S.M.A.K. Ghent (2005 and 2021), Le Carré, Château-Gontier (2008), Le Plateau FRAC Île-de-France, Paris (2011), Le Quartier, Quimper (2015), M HKA, Antwerp (2016), Spazio Ridotto, Venice (2016), and the Brno Biennial (2016). Their work is part of private and public collections in Belgium and France.

Otobong Nkanga’s multidisciplinary practice spans drawing, photography, installation, video, and performance, focusing on the interconnectedness of environment, architecture, and history. Concerns about land, natural resources, and architecture—along with their associated values and the dynamic state of memory—are woven together in her work. These predominantly political subjects are incorporated into poetic combinations of autobiographical and collective stories, memories, and concepts.

For the BelgianArtPrize, Otobong Nkanga explored notions of corrosion, oxidation, infusion, and contamination. In Steel to Dust – Slow Growth, she experimented with the crystallization of textiles. In In a Place Yet Unknown, she allowed a textile piece to slowly become infused with liquid, contaminating the poem that was woven into it. And in Steel to Rust – Resistance, she used a laser to cut through a rusted steel plate, evoking an effect of corrosion. Nkanga examines these transformations in light of what is happening in our society—a society seemingly founded on ironclad values, yet one in which (in)visible mechanisms such as corrosion, the crystallization of ideologies, and the emergence of new structures are at play.

Otobong Nkanga lives and works in Antwerp. She has held solo exhibitions at, among others: MoMA New York (2024), Gropius Bau Berlin (2020), Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town (2019), and Tate Modern in London (2015). Nkanga received the Special Mention Award at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019.

Maarten Vanden Eynde’s artistic practice encompasses sculptures, photography, and installations, and is often context-driven. The artist questions the changes brought about by globalization. What is progress? Are we advancing? Where to? And why did we even start moving? His work places itself precisely on the boundary between past and future; sometimes he looks forward to the future of yesterday, other times he looks back at the history of tomorrow.

For the BelgianArtPrize, Maarten Vanden Eynde drew a triangle between the trade in cotton and uranium, Belgium’s mercantile past, and the ability of every individual to rewrite history. He presented three works that are part of Triangular Trade, a long-term research project: Ils ont partagé le monde, created in collaboration with Congolese painter Musasa, lists the key raw materials that form the foundation of the world as we know it. The Gadget is a lacework 3D version of the first atomic bomb, referencing the significant link between cotton and uranium. The installation Around the World, a spool in the shape of a rocket, symbolizes the major role that cotton plays on a global scale.

Maarten Vanden Eynde works in Brussels and Saint-Mihiel (France). In recent years, he has exhibited at, among others, the Bruges Triennial (2024), Z33 (2023), La Kunsthalle Mulhouse (2022), Mu.ZEE (2021), the Lubumbashi Biennale (2015), and Manifesta 9 in Genk (2012). In 2005, he co-founded the mobile arts platform Enough Room for Space together with Marjolijn Dijkman. Vanden Eynde also holds a PhD from the University of Bergen in Norway.