The series of works entitled "35 Synonyms for 'hammered into'", presented as one installation on the ground floor, has migrated from another context: the works were displayed for the first time in an exhibition at Yuri G. Gallery in Antwerp (2020). A total of 29 hammers, all with a different length, head, handle and weight are hung up, divided across 9 racks. During their first display, the hammers were lent out to visitors for a year, leaving the racks partially empty for the remainder of the exhibition period. At the occasion of the current exhibition they are being brought back by the borrowers. Something is missing or is taken away; the sculpture becomes a synthesis of action and form.There are links to the upper room as well, where "The puddle" is displayed. A
sculpture reminiscent of a jacuzzi provides the base for a puddle: another evaporating, disappearing element. There is a kind of emancipation going on here, with all its connotations: a puddle of dirty water is ideologically placed above a mass of clear, bubbling water. The series of works entitled "A firm promise for future schemes", a series of real, in the sense of correct, calendars of years from the near and distant future, is again related to the basic concepts of expectation, borrowing, engagement and the idea of promise which underlie this exhibition. Here again, Dheedene strips everyday objects and actions of their pretension; he liberates them from their function and from their categorical limitations. He lets them evolve freely through shifting contexts, like a kind of organizer of a process, all within a radical democracy of objects. There is room for misunderstanding and there is room for what is missing. This is the first solo exhibition at Annie Gentils Gallery by Stefaan Dheedene (born 1975 in Kortrijk, lives and works in Ghent). (excerpt from text Dries Verstraete, May '21)

Artists: Stefaan Dheedene