Wheel of Fortune for Beginners 2026 (Bram Van Damme, 2026)
Very Very Hush Hush begins with a pair of stylized grey men’s wigs orbiting one another. They function as a shared prop for a public demonstration of power and secrecy. Any potential wearers must conform to the roles of ruler versus lackey, the latter bowing his head with due humility to whisper privileged foreknowledge into his master’s ear. This takes place in full view of everyone, of course, but sotto voce—through voiceless vibrations intended solely for that one auditory channel.
The paired 3D wigs (more helmet than hairstyle, really) are derived from a press photograph taken in an elementary school in Florida on September 11, 2001, at precisely 9:07 a.m. Andrew Card was the lackey on duty: in the middle of a reading session with G.W. Bush, he stepped forward in his role as Chief of Staff to whisper, as he later recounted, the following words into Bush’s ear: “A second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack.” We can still vividly recall Bush’s disorientation, that stunned gaze lingering painfully long into the void. The news itself had already reached the public faster, making any notion of privileged information obsolete—quite the opposite. Suddenly, everyone had an unobstructed view of the delayed mental registration of a message that was already sending shockwaves across the world. Very hush hush, indeed. “Timing is everything,” as the saying goes, not least in the spectacle of power.
The Butler (crisis management meeting)
The audio play unfolding in the same space transports us to the boardroom of an organization confronted with a sudden crisis. No further details are provided. The anonymous board members lose themselves in a random escalation of hollow stock phrases from a Business English for Beginners course, in a futile attempt to project professionalism. No one seems to feel the need to actually intervene. The priority of this language game, it appears, is not to offer a concrete solution to a given problem, but to consolidate a managerial status quo—to maintain one’s position, in other words. To outsiders, it sounds more like a support group for managers with a limited vocabulary, more “Globish” than English. As Stefaan Dheedene notes: “These slogans are ‘universal instruments of persuasion’ that must be deployable in any environment and on any occasion. They radiate a self-satisfied truth that stands above all discussion and need not be tested against empirical correctness.”

Artists: Stefaan Dheedene