On Sunday 16 October, from sunrise (8.08am) to sundown (6.43pm), Laurence Petrone presents her new book, Weerloos, at ZEIT. A selection of guests will read the whole book, consisting of 440 fragments, starting with Hans Theys, and continuing with Idris Sevenans, Bernadette Zdrazil, Meryem Bayram, Guy Rombouts and Simon Delobel amongst others. The full list will be published on the ZEIT website closer to the time of the event.

For this book Laurence read everything that art critic Hans Theys ever wrote and selected 440 fragments, which she structured into nine chapters, with ‘radical, unexpected, exciting transitions’.

Laurence:
‘It is my wish not to take the reader by the hand. Either a fragment speaks to someone and you read it or you don't. Either someone looks and feels something, or not.
I read one essay by Hans Theys and I wanted to read everything, and I still get lost. This makes me question things and look again. I call him the Nestor of the Belgian art world, as a joke and conviction in which recognizing someone is about the depth of a gaze and the corresponding attitude to life.

'Weerloos' is (only) one possible window that offers a view of his (written) oeuvre. From this window I recognize a core from which all fragments depart. This undercurrent confirms the unknowability of the world and the seemingly arbitrary (unfathomable?) externalization of this existence. In line with this, the writer emphasizes the importance of experiential knowledge – knowledge gained as an acting being – and the importance for every human being to be able to emancipate himself from any form of teleology or compulsive efficiency. In doing so, his writing mind sheds light on a multitude of questions that have struck me, such as what scientists, real statesmen and artists do, what artworks embody, what freedom and a truly spiritual attitude to life could be, how societies form and cultures survive.’

We will welcome you with coffee and cake, minestrone and bread.

Artists: Laurence Petrone