Belgian artist Guillaume Bijl (Antwerp, 1946 - 2025) was known for his large-scale installations and visual realism. Since the late 1970s, Bijl created realistic décors using found objects. In doing so, he played a pioneering role in the resurgence of the ready-made. In his artistic practice, Bijl was considered something of an anthropologist who, for once, does not research into the life of exotic overseas cultures, but, instead, operates between Antwerp and New York, Amsterdam and Paris, observing and mimicking our Western existences.
Bijl's Sorry works, initiated in 1987, mark a deliberate departure from his earlier realistic installations. These pieces are characterized by absurd assemblages of everyday objects, creating surreal tableaux that challenge the viewer's perception of reality. Often infused with humor and irony, the "Sorry" series serves as a poetic extension of Bijl's oeuvre, reflecting on the kitsch elements of mass culture and the constructed nature of societal norms. By presenting these absurd compositions, Bijl invites viewers to reconsider the boundaries between art and reality, and to reflect on the cultural artifacts that define our contemporary existence.
Daniel de Paula (b. 1987, Boston; lives and works between São Paulo and Amsterdam) is a Brazilian visual artist whose research-informed practice critically examines the production of space as a reproduction of political and economic power dynamics. He uses an interdisciplinary approach that intersects visual art, human geography, geology, architecture, and urbanism, giving life to sculptures, installations, collages and mixed media artworks. Central to de Paula’s work is the strategic appropriation, displacement, and reuse of infrastructural and everyday objects. When recontextualized, they reveal hidden narratives about technological, bureaucratic, and economic systems.
For instance, the sculpture titled Power-Flow, juxtaposes fragments of submarine or underground data cables (symbols of rapid information transfer that underpin modern economies) with fulgurites, the glassy natural formations created when lightning fuses sand. This pairing underscores tactile and symbolic tensions between technological networks and natural geological time.
In his series Deceptive Physicality, Veridical Shadows, de Paula appropriates images from luxury watch advertisements. He uses these images as points of departure to unearth their symbolic references: how light and shadow, along with materials such as rocks, diamonds, and gold, are used to naturalize the abstraction of capitalist and modern time, while constructing an aura of trust, precision, and immutability.
Recent exhibitions include: group show, Frac Poitou-Charentes (2025), Lyon Biennale (2022), solo show at LABOR, 2023, solo show at Galeria Jaqueline Martins, Brussels (2023), São Paolo Biennale (2021), Arts Club Chicago (2020).
Thierry Oussou (b. 1988, Allada, Benin; lives and works between Amsterdam and Benin) is a visual and conceptual artist, practicing through drawing, painting, video, installation, and performance. He studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (2015–16) and he is the recipient of the 2023 Royal Award for Modern Painting and one of the three nominated artists for the Prix de Rome 2025.
Oussou’s signature imagery is rendered on large-format black paper, where paper is not just a support but a conceptual material. His compositions feature drips, splatters, calligraphic marks, and distorted figures, faces, objects, and symbols that float within dark, expressive spaces. In his on-going project Equilibrium Wind and, more generally, in his practice, Oussou focuses on marginalized professions (from cotton laborers, to bus drivers and construction workers) making visible the lives and toil of those often unseen and undervalued in society.
Recent shows include: Prix de Rome, Stedelijk Amsterdam (2025, upcoming) Stellenbosch Triennale (2025), Growing Poetics, Kasteel Wijlre NL (2024), Makers on Materials, Textielmuseum, Tilburg (2024), Impossible is Nothing, Centraal Museum Utrecht (2024), Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst, Royal Palace, NL (2023), Biennale Architettura in Venice (2023), British textile Biennale (2023), Aichi Triennale, Japan (2022), Berlin Biennale (2018).