21 august 2025, Flor Linckens
Five walls as a framework at Coppejans Gallery: what happens when the walls remain empty
Until 7 September, Coppejans Gallery in Antwerp presents the exhibition '5 walls, 5 works': five artists spread across an equal number of walls. The presentation brings together five distinct voices, each with its own approach to form, material and meaning. Yet the walls themselves remain bare, while the works occupy the space between them. In this way, the exhibition becomes an invitation to look more attentively at each individual work.
The most discreet piece in the exhibition was made by Denmark. "Last Post" (2014) consists of 129 art newspapers, compressed between steel plates and resting on an iron rack. Active since the 1970s, Denmark has long worked with cut-ups and assemblages of books, magazines and newspapers. His archive installations serve as a critical reflection on the excess of information that floods us on a daily basis. What was once fleeting news has here been stilled and fixed into a solid block, its inherent information no longer accessible. Urgency gives way to silence and reconsideration: which news remains relevant after all these years?
Alexandra Phillips suspends a monumental string of coloured beads in the gallery. Her work often emerges from unexpected materials, ranging from packaging to ceramic fragments, which she brings together in new constellations. In doing so, she raises questions about the value we assign to objects and the systems that underpin them. For this piece, she used recycled festive lighting. Here, the boundary between ornament and object blurs, forcing the viewer into a physical relationship with the work. Phillips often plays with scale and meaning: what initially appears playful and light-hearted reveals itself, on closer inspection, to be layered and complex. This tension lies at the heart of her practice, in which the everyday is imbued with a new significance.
A large and brightly coloured painting by Ronny Delrue, part of his series "Sculptures of Stones", depicts a female figure constructed from bricks and masonry-like patterns. In doing so, he creates a counterweight to the multitude of male statues that dominate our public space. His work also poses questions about the ways in which bodies and identities are represented in society. For Delrue, drawing is a direct and spontaneous act, a form of resistance against the speed and ephemerality of digital communication.
Ewerdt Hilgemann demonstrates in his "Imploded Column" how geometric perfection can collapse under pressure. His sculptures are created by allowing natural laws and unpredictable forces to enter the process. The gleaming steel folds and buckles, and it is precisely in this imperfection that an unexpected beauty emerges. Hilgemann’s work reflects his long-standing investigation into matter and structure, in which chance and control constantly confront one another. His implosions have previously been shown at major locations, including Park Avenue in New York.
Adriaan Rees places a ceramic torso in the space, painted with blue and white motifs that recall Delftware. His sculpture embodies both the strength and the fragility of the human body. The openings and cracks in its surface expose a tension between beauty and vulnerability, between tradition and contemporary visual language. Rees works internationally, often from his studio in China. He remains faithful to the craft of ceramics, while at the same time creating works that carry a personal and contemporary signature.
