The Porous Lodge

In which nothing moves forward on straight lines - Yoel Pytowski

07.09 — 01.12.24

Solo exhibition

Curated by Zuzanna Rachowska

A solo exhibition by Yoel Pytowski with artistic interventions by Amel Omar, Rosario Aninat, Nina Canell, Manon van den Eeden and Sandy Williams.

This exhibition is a culmination of years of ongoing exploration of architectural gestures as artistic expressions by visual artist Yoel Pytowski. At Kunsthal Extra City he received carte blanche to create an installation that completely alters the space of the former Dominican chapel. Its orientation is defined by the grid of tiles on the floor, and the transparent walls and corridors create pores in the structure, allowing the viewer’s gaze to penetrate the work and discover the original architecture of the building.

As typical of his practice, this multipartite installation exists in a precise spatial configuration and operates on three interrelated levels: the space of the chapel, the installation itself and the dynamic presence of the viewer. The elements of this site-specific installation are still and restrained but ultimately informed by movement and transformation.

The exhibition showcases the consistent trajectories in Pytowski’s visual thinking and the deepening of his interest in repetition, movement, time, partition and difference. His fascination with the constant evolution of space was formed by his childhood and adolescence, his identity having been shaped by displacement, changing landmarks and fluid socio-cultural contexts. This experience drove him to explore architecture as a shifting space where human intelligences converge with the physical. The architectural elements unfold a sort of unknown, elemental, often embodied way of communication that plays with the spatiotemporality and universality of experience.

To emphasise these qualities, Pytowski and the curator invited four visual artists and a choreographer to respond to the installation with their own artistic interventions throughout the duration of the exhibition.

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The artistic interventions will be visible from the following days:

  • Saturday 12 October 2024: Amel Omar
  • Friday 25 October 2024: Rosario Aninat
  • Saturday 2 November 2024: Nina Canell
  • Saturday 9 November 2024: Manon van den Eeden
  • Friday 29 November 2024 at 19:00: Sandy Williams
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    This exhibition is supported by funds from CultuurCulture initiated by the Ministry of Culture of the Flemish Community and la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles and in collaboration with Komplot.

    Location Kunsthal Extra City, Provinciestraat 112, 2018 Antwerpen