Exhibition view ‘OEEEEEEUUUUVVRE’, Peter Morrens, M Leuven, 2024, Photo: © Useful Art Services for M Leuven
Peter Morrens brings his multifaceted oeuvre to M Leuven. His work includes paintings, drawings, photographs, installations and performances. Language, sound and image converge in his practice, in which knowing and not-knowing are inextricably intertwined. With disruptive humour and often searing images, the artist questions the things around him. His work is both playful and generous. It questions a wealth of conventions and prejudices, which lends it a provocative and contemplative character.
‘Richtingen’, Peter Morrens, 2020, Flemish Community Collection at M Leuven / Photo: We Document Art, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
Peter Morrens, Zelfportret als doorgang (maquette), 2024 © Useful Art Services
Peter Morrens, Opgeschort, 2021 / Photo: We Document Art, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
‘Fotografie’, Peter Morrens, 2019 / Photo: We Document Art, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
Peter Morrens
Peter Morrens (b. 1965) lives and works in Antwerp and teaches at the LUCA School of Arts in Ghent. Solo exhibitions include Club Solo, (Breda, 2023), Valerie Traan Gallery (Antwerp, 2022), de Warande (Turnhout, 2021), Les Brasseurs Art Contemporain (Liège, 2017), Loods 12 (Wetteren, 2016) and Art Page Gallery (New York, 2000). He is represented by Kristof De Clercq Gallery in Ghent, where he regularly exhibits.
Covers #2’, Peter Morrens, 2020, photo: We Document Art, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
Help Yourself: tre zucchini’, 2021, photo: We Document Art, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
Peter Morrens & Benoit Felix, PRESQ (de tafel dekken voor Peter Morrens), 2020-2021 © Useful Art Services voor M Leuven
Dusver’, Peter Morrens, 2020, Flemish Community Collection at M Leuven © Peter Morrens, photo: We Document Art, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
Peter Morrens was co-founder and artistic leader (together with Rik De Boek) of artists’ initiative Voorkamer in Lier between 1996 and 2016.
His work is held in numerous private and public collections, including S.M.A.K. Ghent, the Flemish Community Collection and M Leuven. In 2022, Morrens was a guest at the Playground performance festival in Leuven. His work is currently on view in M’s collection exhibition, ‘DOKA’.
Morrens’ multifaceted practice takes shape in a variety of media. He proceeds intuitively and associatively, using chance, doubt and unexpected links to shape his oeeeeeeuuuuvvre. Sowing the seeds of doubt is part of a deliberate strategy. Like a radio jammer, he plays with our expectations and need for recognizability. He encourages us to look and appeals to our imagination, with a keen eye for poetic beauty.
Dead end’ (Travestie), Peter Morrens, 2020 © Peter Morrens, photo: We Document Art, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
Peter Morrens, A.a., 2020, Flemish Community Collection at M Leuven / Photo: We Document Art, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
We zullen misschien een werk kopen na uw dood (Point Blank Press n°10), Peter Morrens, s.d., photo: the artist, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
Peter Morrens, Untitled (Deling), 2020, Flemish Community Collection at M Leuven / Photo: We Document Art, courtesy Kristof De Clercq Gallery
This exhibition presents a comprehensive survey of Morrens’ oeuvre from the past 35 years. New work, encounters and collaborations with other artists also have a place within an adapted architecture, in which Morrens seeks links with works from the collection of M. He presents his personal view of the collection on a monumental display case, which runs throughout the galleries like a connecting thread.
The artist has devised his own audio tour for this exhibition, in which he accompanies you on an associative journey, a true stream of consciousness, and offers an insight into his crackling thinking.
Exhibition view ‘OEEEEEEUUUUVVRE’, Peter Morrens, M Leuven, 2024, photo: © Useful Art Services for M Leuven
Peter Morrens, ‘Covers#2 and #3’, 2020-2024, photo: © Useful Art Services for M Leuven
Exhibition view ‘OEEEEEEUUUUVVRE’, Peter Morrens, M Leuven, 2024, photo: © Useful Art Services for M Leuven
Publication
This monograph, published to coincide with Peter Morrens’ retrospective at M, provides a detailed overview of his diverse artistic practice over the last 35 years. Richly illustrated, the book collates existing and new work, installation views and archive material. It contains an interview between curator Eva Wittocx and the artist, as well as an essay by Ronald van de Sompel, along with poems by Lieke Marsman and Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Image, poetry and text thus merge, as in Morrens’ oeuvre, into a single, organic whole.
Peter Morrens: Oeeeeeeuuuuvvre
October 11, 2024 – March 2, 2025 / M Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
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