Paradise Kortrijk 2021 is the successor to Play Kortrijk 2018, the interactive art event that transformed the city of Kortrijk three years ago into a playground of contemporary artworks at various indoor and outdoor locations in the city, and which was a real success with more than 175,000 visitors.
The second edition maintains the recipe for success – a dynamic and free urban exhibition with interactive works of art by an ambitious list of Belgian and international artists in various indoor and outdoor locations in the city of Kortrijk – and focuses on the utopian dream of paradise. The project draws inspiration from our zeitgeist and is a reaction to our current living environment, which sometimes seems miles away from a hopeful, positive and utopian environment.
Curators Hilde Teerlinck (Han Nefkens Foundation) and Patrick Ronse (Be- Part, Platform for Contemporary Art) selected 32 contemporary artists, among them including Jeremy Deller, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Lily Van der Stokker, Olaf Nicolai, Art Labor Collective, Dora Garcia, and William Forsythe.
The Kortrijk triennial invites these contemporary artists to participate and reflect on modern questions. What are meaningful values today and how can we construct a better society? By installing artworks in the heart of the dynamic city, the significance of the artists’ vision becomes present in public.
Image © William Forsythe, Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time No. 3, 2015. Courtesy the artist. Collection MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt
