Wij zijn handelaars shop/work
10 JUN — 20 JUN 2015
Between 10 and 20 June, De Handelaars (The Handlers) will be setting up a “shop/work” for the final presentation of their training period at Beursschouwburg.  De Handelaars (Kelly Schacht and Pieter Van Bogaert in tandem with garage64) completed a training period in and around Beursschouwburg in Brussels which lasted a whole year. Not only did they tell the history of Beursschouwburg and its fiftieth anniversary differently, they also became familiar with every nook and cranny of an overexposed bit of Brussels: the 'Dansaert District'. 

De Handelaars?
Those are Kelly Schacht, artist from Ghent, and Pieter Van Bogaert, curator from Brussels accompanied by garage64. Together, they explore how people act, what exactly they do and why. For Kelly, this is the logical consequence of the performative practice in her artistic work, while for Pieter, this forms part of the imaginary practice in his work as curator. 

Training period?
That is the period De Handelaars have worked in and around the building since July 2014. They follow colleagues, artists and visitors and make regular trips to dealers in the neighbourhood. What they learn from those contacts finds its way into inserts they leave in their wake. Since February, they also have a blog: http://wijzijnhandelaars.wordpress.com.

Shop/work? 
That is the temporary space where De Handelaars present the fruits of their labour. They collect the material found there, finalise the De Handelaars Book and organise several meetings with dealers they got to know during their training period. A full calendar of those meetings will follow shortly. Kelly and Pieter will definitely feature on it, of course, along with Maaike and Fairuz of Garage64, the cinetypography agency with whom they join forces, colleagues and artists of the Beursschouwburg and local dealers. 

Kelly Schacht?
Kelly Schacht creates images that are not (quite) finished. Her work is in the form of invitations in which she offers others elements, allowing them to create their own images. Areas play a decisive role in this, as do performers and an audience. In her career, she has staged a scenario for Cinema ZED in Leuven, played the audience in the main exhibition hall at the Heysel during Art Brussels, transformed the Bogaerden Chapel in Bruges into a tourist universe and created a dialogue between the mercantile areas of the Vleeshal and the market in Middelburg. In 2011, she won the Young Belgian Painters Award with an installation for the Palace of Fine Arts roundabout. It seems economical to use a character already in play, became an exhibition that is not one, where she got performers to create the work on the spot, at Kiosk in Ghent. All those areas, images and practices came together in 2013 in The Backstory, the book with pictures as inserts related to her exhibition at the Meessen-De Clercq Gallery in Brussels.

Pieter Van Bogaert?
Pieter Van Bogaert is a critic and curator. He works with images in, and as, an environment and creates exhibitions at the intersection of art, philosophy and politics on behalf of establishments such as Kunsthal Bergen (Norway), Witte de With (Rotterdam) and Z33 (Hasselt). He works in theatres (Vooruit, Kaaitheater, Beursschouwburg, KVS) and uses his own office as exhibition space (for Die Fröhliche Werkstatt in 2009). In 2010 and 2011, he worked with a programme grant from the Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie (VGC) (Flemish Community Commission) for Square vzw on enSuite, a study into imaginary practice. Some results of that study were used in 2013 in Blijven Kijken / Ce qui nous regarde / Dropouts, the exhibition and homonymous book for Museum M in Leuven.

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