Panagiotis Balomenos, Petri Huurinainen, Lukas Schaller, Sílvio Salgado

Vienna International Apartment, Brussels

22 November - 20 December 2007

Vienna International Apartment in Brussels opens its doors to the public this autumn with the exhibition Welcome to the Kingdom of Belgium - Homage to Marcel B.*. The exhibition features artworks by four contemporary artists from four different countries: Panagiotis Balomenos (Greece), Petri Huurinainen (Finland), Lukas Schaller (Austria), and Sílvio Salgado (Portugal). Vienna International Apartment continues to challenge the public through the exploration and subversion of boundaries between the private and public domains.

Marcel Broodthaers (1962 -1976) was - or perhaps still is - one of the most controversial artists from his generation living and working in Belgium. The idea for the exhibition’s title and concept, Homage to Marcel B., emerged from Artist and Curator Sílvio Salgado’s first arrival in Brussels late summer 2007: having moved from Finland to Belgium, he was in search for his own space and meaning in the newly established home. Four weeks after his arrival, the artist turned to the search for Marcel B. Although being familiar with some of Broodthaers’s art, Salgado new yet little about the artist’s beginnings and life in his home town – on his private Musée d’Art Modern, his contribution in the ‘Crisis in Modernism’, his explorations in the communication with the audience, his political criticism. Themes, not far from those elaborated in the Vienna International Apartment project... The artists taking part in the exhibition have responded to the exhibition concept from their own perspectives, within their own artistic practice. The exhibition is curated by Sílvio Salgado.

The Artists:

Panagiotis Balomenos was born in Greece in 1976. He lives and works in Helsinki and Athens. Balomenos’ work draws on a wide range of media, such as drawing, sculpture, object making, installation, performance, and creation of happenings. The cross-disciplinary nature of Balomenos’ artworks subverts the everyday by bringing the language of fashion glamour into the arts arena. The human body plays an important role in Balomenos’ artworks; and tailoring becomes for the artist a way to sculpt the human body. The museum, gallery, or any other art space attendant becomes part of the artist’s work.

Petri Huurinainen was born in Finland in 1972. He lives and works in London. Huurinainen is a musician, sound artist, and improviser. He plays electronically processed classical guitar and various effects units, and sonically expand his personal vocabulary, where music is literally constructed from the instrument, by scratching and hitting, abusing and stretching its limits. Fascination with sound art itself has provided Huurinainen an opportunity to explore widely issues around memory, identity, space, and time in a variety of different contexts resulting site-specific installations, videos, performances, soundtracks, and audio CDs. For the present exhibition, the artist presents a new video-performance titled ‘Beyond The Skin’, exploring the balance of being and having the body and relationship of internal and external body. He will also perform live on 15 December 2007, at 8pm.

Lukas Schaller was born in Austria in 1973. He lives and works in Vienna. Schaller’s main art medium is photography. In his photographic works, the artist is interested in capturing the remains of human action within architectural spaces – their contemporary structures and their history. Schaller’s photographs capture the remains of time, the past human action, and at the same time project the image to a level in which the visual concept materialises in the depicted subject.

Sílvio Salgado was born in Mozambique in 1968. He lives and works in Brussels and Helsinki. Salgado is an artist, independent curator and founder of Vienna International Apartment. His artwork comprises of site-specific sculpture installations, often dealing with social, cultural and political contexts, and in reference to the space and location where the artists presents his artwork.

As part of the exhibiton a live performance by Petri Huurinainen:

What could be worse/ It makes me perfect, electronics, words and music

Saturday, 15 December 2007, at 8pm

VIENNA INTERNATIONAL APARTMENT

Rue de l'Etuve/Stoofstraat 81

1000 Brussels

Belgium

The exhibition is supported by The Arts Council of Finland and FuocoDesign Madrid.