CONTOUR

SERIES

For the first time in Belgium, the selected works by Dutch artist Aernout Mik are showcased, including a newly reworked version of White Suits, Black Hats (2012-2024), an installation featuring archival footage from the Dutch East Indies in the 1920s and 1930s. Mik’s staged multichannel works, such as Daytime Movements — created in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Boris Charmatz — present improvised scenarios often featuring non-professional actors following unstable and unwritten patterns. These pieces expose hidden power dynamics, latent violence, and unconscious group behaviors, reflecting on historical events from colonial power struggles to the aftermath of modern terror attacks. Mik represented the Netherlands in the Dutch Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007) and has held solo exhibitions at prominent venues, including Jeu de Paume (Paris), MoMA (New York), Schirn Kunsthalle (Frankfurt), and Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam).

The work of Jelena Jureša, an artist and filmmaker born in Yugoslavia and now residing in Belgium, operates beyond conventional film language, pushing the boundaries of the medium while continuously interrogating historical and political narratives. Through her meticulously researched film projects, she weaves a tapestry of connections that often prompt reflections on displacement, as seen in several works referencing W. G. Sebald and Dubravka Ugrešić. In her film works like Aphasia, Jureša subverts documentary tropes while confronting dark chapters of European history, from Belgian colonialism and Austrian anti-Semitism to the atrocities in Bosnia during the Yugoslav wars. Jureša’s works have been exhibited internationally, including lately at Manifesta 14 Pristina, the Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade), argos (Brussels), Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien (Graz), Contour 9 (Mechelen), Maxim Gorki Theater (Berlin), and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst (Utrecht).

Run-through is an encounter that unfolds a network of references and connections between historical denial and contemporary behaviors, offering a critical perspective on Europe while holding a mirror to the consequences of our historical choices.

PRACTICAL

Jelena Jureša / Aernout Mik – Run-through  (20.09.2024 – 24.11.2024) is part of Contour Series, a series of visual and audiovisual exhibitions and projects produced and presented by kunstencentrum nona, this time in the context of the city festival Construct Europe.

Curator: Andrea Cinel
With the kind support of the Mondriaan Fund and Kunsthal Mechelen.

Jelena Jureša is a postdoctoral researcher at KASK&Conservatorium in Ghent, and her latest work Don't Take It Personally is developed within her project titled "Revolt! On a Refusal to Sing—Thinking Resistance Through Music, Waste, and Complicity."

Location: De Garage, Onder-Den-Toren 12, 2800 Mechelen, België
On 17 October and 14 November, there will be a Nocturne, and the exhibition will be open until 21h.
Tickets are sold at the door, at De Garage. More info on ticket prices can be found here.