23 May 2018

Laurent Van Lancker at ARGOS – Centre for art and media

Departing from the multiscreen installation Limbo, Argos is proud to present a solo exhibition of filmmaker and artist Laurent Van Lancker. In his work, be it film, documentaries or installations, Van Lancker moves within the area of tension between ethics and aesthetics.
In Limbo, Van Lancker presents a dialogue between poetry and politics. In six sequences, filmed in an abandoned refugee camp, he evokes the feeling of disorientation and the eternal stream of migrants. Instead of dwelling on the miserabilism of the refugee camp, he wants to open our eyes and have us look from a different angle at a complex whole that is probably all too often felt to be a social burden and that may lead us to draw the wrong conclusions...
Apart from this new video installation, we will present a number of recent works that not only deepen the layeredness of the themes already visible in Limbo, but which may also create an electrifying and fascinating image of Van Lancker's oeuvre. The artist's work has been on view in several countries and has met with international acclaim. With this exhibition, we not only want to show powerful and relevant work, but we also want this impressive oeuvre to become widely known to a large public.
Disorientation(s), is foremost an immersive experience allowing the sensorial cinema' of Laurent Van Lancker to expand into the exhibition space. The works presented are at the same time evocative and physical, personal accounts and universal tales. In this way, without dismissing his political commitment, Van Lancker outlines the timeless quest to understand what is being and feeling at home.

In the framework of this exhibition Cinematek, organises a special programmation with my films from 20th to 30th of june including a Masterclass on the 24th of June.

In the same period, Argos presents also Dialoguing Gazes, a duoshow by Bie Michels and Marie Voignier. In their videos, photographs and sculptures, both artists openly question their own position with regard to their subject. Juggling with narrative structures, Michels and Voignier subvert the dominant Western perspective and the myth of the unequivocal story.