Joëlle Tuerlinckx - WOR(L)D(K) IN PROGRESS

Arnolfini presents a major solo project by Joëlle Tuerlinckx. The most comprehensive presentation of her work in the UK to date, WOR(L)D(K) IN PROGRESS? offers an overview of the artists’ practice from the past 20 years, along with newly produced works. For the exhibition, Tuerlinckx revisits several of her past projects and integrates elements of these in a new installation that serves as an overview of the artist's practice.

The exhibition is the third part of a series of retrospectives, which started at Wiels in Brussels and Haus der Kunst in Munich. Each of the exhibitions concentrates on a specific aspect in the artist's work: the work, the world, and - at Arnolfini - words, as means of communication and a system of signification, of making sense within the world.

Tuerlinckx's site-specific practice often focuses on the formal properties of gallery spaces, the role of museums, and the museums’ relationship to their communities. Her work is distinguished by a unique sensual and transient approach and a precise use of materials, colours, and abstract shapes, culminating in expansive, complex installations. Film projections, video, drawings, collages, photographs and found objects are often combined with subtle alterations to the spaces and gestures that highlight the time and space of the viewing experience.

The format of the retrospective exhibition is employed by Tuerlinckx as a medium to investigate her interests in the relationship between the perception of space and time, and the long-term trajectory of her artistic concepts. The exhibition at Arnolfini is conceived in precise consideration of the gallery spaces and the context of the institution.

"An exhibition is, first and foremost, an experience of space - space composed, perhaps, of objects of space – that proposes action, or reaction, as a means of reflection, of thinking our human condition, as a common experience, it regards itself as public and open to all." (Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Lexicon, 2012)

While rigorous in its artistic methodology, Tuerlinckx's work engages our perception and senses. Her exhibitions function as containers in which the visitors encounter spaces through the artworks that inhabit and represent them. Arrangements often include large number of vitrines, cabinets, and wall texts, referencing traditional presentation modes of museums and creating a landscape of experience, in which objects and images are encountered in specific ways.

A new publication available in Arnolfini bookshop, accompanies the exhibition, co-produced by Arnolfini with Wiels in Brussels and Haus der Kunst in Munich. The book offers an overview of Tuerlinckx' work, and includes essays by Julienne Lorz, Catherine Mayeur, Dirk Snauwaert, Tom Trevor and Joëlle Tuerlinckx.

Joëlle Tuerlinckx
WOR(L)D(K) IN PROGRESS?

venues:
WOR(LD)K IN PROGRESS? WIELS Brüssel,
WORLD(K) IN PROGRESS?, Haus der Kunst, München
WOR(L)D(K) IN PROGRESS?, Arnolfini, Bristol

curators:
Tom Trevor, Axel John Wieder