黑料不打烊

An exhibition inspired by a novel, a city and a scene.

Displaying the raw energy that he would later develop to establish himself as one of the most original writers of his generation, Roberto Bola帽o鈥檚 early experimental novella Antwerp remains unclassifiable. Written in 1980, but only published in 2002 shortly before the author鈥檚 death, Antwerp is a highly-fragmented story, displaying deep irreverence to the form of the novel. Avoiding linear narrative, it progresses using a multiplicity of perspectives, with images, scenes and characters called up in different forms each time. The whole remains elusive.

In Antwerp, detectives, victims, artists, alter-egos and vagabonds inhabit an enigmatic story. Bola帽o thematises contemporary reality expressed through topics such as crime and corruption, sexual violence, relative truth, memory and erasure, marginality and urbanism, the male gaze, and the sea as a metaphor, all of which resonate with the history and reality of Antwerp. It is the structure, themes and character archetypes of Antwerp that we take our inspiration from as modes of reflection in this exhibition, which we have titled Amberes 鈥� referring to the book鈥檚 title in its original Spanish.

The novella鈥檚 actual relation to Antwerp remains elusive and even a bit absurd 鈥� 鈥淚n Antwerp a man was killed when his car was run over by a truck full of pigs鈥� is the seemingly random anecdote that opens chapter 49. Yet, the innovative way of writing 鈥� converging many styles, scenarios, characters and perspectives 鈥� resonates with the characteristics of visual art in, or inspired by, the city 鈥� a scene which also comprises many positions, generations, dynamics, and comings and goings. An exhibition in Antwerp taking inspiration from the book might adopt the multiplicity of perspectives Antwerp mobilises, as a way to provide reflections on the city, and how artists translate experiences of the city into different forms.