KRIS MARTIN
WHO CARES
KUNSTHALLE TRIER, TRIER, GERMANY8 DECEMBER 2022 – 29 JANUARY 2023
Kris Martin is a pivotal figure on the contemporary Belgian art scene whose artistic practice revolves around the human condition, life, death, and religion. His conceptual approach towards art and the artistic creation calls for an awareness of the transience of meaning: meaning and value attributed to objects change over time. It is precisely this fluctuation in perception that is at the centre of WHO CARES. In cooperation with the Museum am Dom in Trier, the exhibition, thus, thematises the afterlife of Christian art and problem of crossing or surpassing boundaries by creating an unmediated encounter between the works of Kris Martin and Christian artworks from the museum collection. This juxtaposition of secular and religious objects in a neutral space challenges the visitors to critically perceive and contemplate Western European cultural heritage and contemporary art. The eponymous work WHO CARES, conceived especially for the Kunsthalle, transforms the 800 square meters of the Kunsthalle’s White Cube into a secular chapel of art. The large white space with its 6-meter-high ceilings and natural light provides the ideal environment: it oscillates between sober neutrality and creative potential. The projection room becomes a treasury or cabinet of curiosities under the title of pars pro. The exhibits – sculptural fragments – invite the visitors to reflect on each object and fill in the gaps.
Under the title Kris Martin WHO CARES the Kunsthalle explores the role personal sensibility plays in the viewing and perceiving of objects. What influences the aura of a work of art? What feelings are triggered? What makes us care?
© Images Jean-Luc Caspers