MER. Books

Book Launch, 11.06.2024 — 18:30 Wiels Brussels Av. Van Volxem 354, 1190  Forest free access

Join us for a conversation on art and politics between artists Luc Tuymans and Zlatko Kopljar and curator and author of the book Ory Dessau, followed by festive drinks and the possibility to meet and talk with the artists and the author.

8 December 2022 was the opening date for Mercy, a joint exhibition by Zlatko Kopljar and Luc Tuymans in Vilnius, Lithuania. The history shared by the two artists, as well as the fact that they both cerebrate the consequences of historical narratives in their practice, provided the background to their joint exhibition in a city where the ghosts of history are actualised on a daily basis.

he book Mercy (Politics) has its origins in the exhibition Mercy. It contains in-depth interviews with the artists about the politics in and of their work, and about their political views. The interviews were conducted prior to 7 October 2023. Nevertheless, the insights given by the artists, covering a range of topics from post-Colonialism to the “Woke movement”, are given additional significance in light of the war in Gaza, which, like the ongoing war in Ukraine, has shaken the world to its core and rearranged established definitions of moral and cultural positioning, further undermining the already compromised distinction between aesthetics and politics.

Ory Dessay