C A S S T L presents Absence, Returned, a new exhibition by Antwerp-based artists Yves de Brabander and Cedric Jacquemyn, opening during Antwerp Pride.
Yves de Brabander and Cedric Jacquemyn have lived and worked alongside one another for many years. Their practices have developed in close proximity, shaped by a shared attention to material, transformation and the relationship between presence and disappearance.
Absence, Returned considers what remains after something has disappeared: a garment without a body, an image removed from its original context, a fragment carrying the presence of something incomplete. The exhibition follows these shifts between absence and presence, and the ways in which objects and images continue to change over time.
In E/Motion of a Garment, Jacquemyn considers clothing as a form that outlives its wearer. Coats, jackets, canvas works and textile constructions retain the suggestion of a body that has withdrawn, while continuing to respond to movement, gravity and time.
De Brabander’s new installation, Ancestral Inferno, departs from inventories of looted and disappeared cultural heritage. Taking the form of a fictional lost altarpiece divided into fragments, the work examines how images are transformed through loss and displacement. The fragmented panels become the remains of an artwork that never existed, questioning how histories are assembled and passed on.
Together, the works reveal two different ways of approaching what is absent: through the body’s imprint on material, and through the survival of images beyond their original form.
Absence, Returned forms part of TOGETHER, a city-wide initiative supporting the LGBTQIA+ community, initiated by Carla Arocha and developed in collaboration with Stéphane Schraenen, Vanessa Van Obberghen, Jesse Siegel, Tom Sanders, Philip Huyghe, Lieven Segers, Luc Tuymans, and Clara Lissens through which a network of Antwerp art spaces unite in the context of Antwerp Pride.
C A S S T L is a nonprofit artist initiative founded and run by Carla Arocha, Stéphane Schraenen, and Luc Tuymans since 2017. Our intention is to provide an experience that is not limited by the traditional and practical constraints of an institution or commercial space. We organize project-based events, including exhibitions, performances, readings, screenings, and publishing editions by local and international artists.
Where: C A S S T L, Braziliëstraat 27, 2000 Antwerpen
When: Opening Thursday 6 August, 18:00 - 22:00. Exhibition 6 August - 11 September, Wednesday to Friday, 12:00 - 17:00