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photo: Isabelle Arthuis

24.01.26 – 15.03.26, Malgré Tout

Centered on the notion of protocol, Malgré Tout is an exhibition in motion, grounded in transmission, activation, and participation. The four invited artists—Marthe Merckx, Vicente Fuenzalida Lafourcade, and LAB D (Lars Bernakiewicz & Andreas D’hondt)—act simultaneously as authors, performers, and mediators of works that are re-enacted, transformed, and reinvented across different contexts.

Within contemporary art, a protocol refers to a set of instructions, rules, or conditions that determine how a work is realized without necessarily fixing its final form. Drawing on musical scores, dance notation, conceptual art, and performance, this approach shifts attention from the object to the process, from the author to the performer, and from the artwork as a product to the artwork as potential.

The protocol introduces a degree of indeterminacy, repetition, and variation. Each activation becomes a singular interpretation, situated within a specific context and in relation to particular bodies, temporalities, and relationships. The work thus exists malgré tout—despite everything: despite constraints, deviations, translations, and misunderstandings.

As a point of departure, Marthe Merckx, Vicente Fuenzalida Lafourcade, and LAB D activated a work by stanley brouwn: the idea of a square measuring 26 × 26 cm. This square is the work itself—an outline, a potential space in which art can emerge. From this premise, the format was gradually expanded into an empty square of 208 × 208 cm, conceived as eight exhibition spaces within the space.

These squares do not function as boundaries, but as points of departure. The invited artists are allowed to exceed the contours of their assigned zone, provided that the work originates there. Crucially, the square must always remain visible, however minimally. The spatial scenography acts as a constant: the patchwork flooring and the red-and-white striped walls remain unchanged throughout the entire exhibition. This intervention was jointly realized by Merckx, Fuenzalida Lafourcade, and LAB D and functions as a fixed framework within which successive interventions take place.

Following a simple protocol, Merckx, Fuenzalida Lafourcade, and LAB D invited eight young artists. After a period of two weeks, each artist selects another artist to continue working in the same space. This process of transmission repeats itself until the end of the exhibition. In this way, a dynamic of handover emerges in which artists curate one another. The exhibition unfolds as a chain of choices, driven by attention, curiosity, and a pronounced love for the work of others. The viewer is thus offered insight into how artists look at one another—despite everything, malgré tout.

Taking place in KIOSK's side space, the exhibition is organized in collaboration with the artist Nefeli Papadimouli and the École nationale supérieure d’art de BourgesMalgré Tout mobilizes student communities in Ghent and Bourges to propose protocol-based works or to activate protocol-based works conceived by their peers.

opkomende presentaties / evenementen
24.01.26
Opening
Brothers Monteny, Zoë Dejonghe, José Haberland, Katrijn Ooms, Chiara Sap, Pepijn Vendel, Maarten Viaene, Senne Wettinck
19.02.26
Opening
Michiel Favoreel (invited by Brothers Monteny), Alyssia Reale (invited by Zoë Dejonghe), Louisa Moerman (invited by José Haberland), Rosalie Jacqué (invited by Katrijn Ooms), Renee Seynaeve (invited by Chiara Sap), Lou De Smedt (invited by Pepijn Vendel), Tim Smit (invited by Maarten Viaene), Margo Vanneste (invited by Senne Wettinck)
05.03.26
Performances
04.04.26
opening
30.04.26
opening
28.05.26
opening
07.06.26
Finissage & performances
free
Cloquet
Louis Pasteurlaan 2
9000 Gent
opening 24.01.26, 15:00 – 18:00

Mon-Sun, 12:00 – 18:00