MILAN.- Pirelli HangarBicocca presents a retrospective of the work of Belgian artist Ann Veronica Janssens, one of the world’s foremost artists. Throughout her 40-year career, Janssens has continued to experiment with light, her primary material. She has investigated the sensory and performative nature of space and architecture, creating works that are mutable and ephemeral.
Emerging from her research, the artist's interventions are set on the border between art and science, and investigate the limits of human perception and psyche, as well as the aleatory connotations of natural phenomena, down to their minimum scale.
"Grand Bal" is conceived as an extended choreography that situates environmental installations alongside more intimate works, tracing a visual, aural and tactile path that invites visitors to move between the incorporeal, the tangible and between surreal atmospheres and the socio-political and cultural signs of our present time.
Since the late 1970s, Ann Veronica Janssens (Folkestone, UK, 1956; lives and works in Brussels) has developed her research around light and its relationship to what surrounds it, often creating site-specific works that challenge the immutable nature of sculpture and installation. Frequently associated with the work of "Light & Space"—the 1960s group of American artists that included, among others, Robert Irwin and James Turrell—Janssens has built her practice on overcoming the art object through its dematerialization and deconstruction. Through minimal forms and gestures that have an anti-monumental quality, Janssens is actually able to change the public's perception of space. With their use of light, color, mirrors, air or artificial fog, the works of Janssens call for the direct participation of viewers, inviting them to experience reality differently, to develop an awareness of their senses, of the architecture and spatial-temporal categories by which we define it, emphasizing its sociopolitical and cultural aspects. Often based on experiments carried out in collaboration with scientists, the artist's works become labs for testing the boundaries between properties and physical-material elements that are regarded as opposites, such as light and darkness, sound and silence, emptiness and presence, the tangible and the incorporeal.
"Grand Bal," curated by Roberta Tenconi, explores the career of Ann Veronica Janssens as well as different aspects of her practice. Presenting the most comprehensive selection of her works to date, it includes both historical projects and new productions designed to interact with the space of the Navate within Pirelli HangarBicocca and the outdoor area, expanding its boundaries. To do this, the artist has come up with an unprecedented intervention, waves (2023), in which she transforms some of the exit doors into openings: by replacing the doors with a porous, transparent PVC net, she allows natural light, as well as sounds, air and other external elements, to penetrate into the exhibition space. The resulting alterations fit dynamically within the exhibition plan, conceived by the artist as a visual and sound choreography that centers not so much on objects as on visitors: they are called upon to move and participate directly, following the train of sensations and perceptions generated while experiencing the works. The title "Grand Bal" (grand ball in French) evokes precisely this performative dimension, and the dynamic relationship that is established between works, architecture and the human body as in a dance, where each and every element is necessary for the other to reveal itself completely.
Ann Veronica Janssens' work has been featured in solo exhibitions at institutions of international importance, including Louisiana Museum of Modern Art Humlebæk and South London Gallery (2020); Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris (2019); Baltimore Museum of Art, De Pont, Tilburg, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2018); IAC – Institut d'art contemporain – Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes (2017); Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2016); Wellcome Collection, London (2015); Ausstellungshalle Zeitgenössiche Kunst, Münster, CRAC Alsace - centre rhénan d'art contemporain, Altkirch (2011); WIELS, Brussels, Espai d'Art Contemporani de Castellò, Castellón (2009); Museum Mosbroich, Leverkusen (2007); Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, CCAC Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2003); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2001). The artist has participated in major international exhibitions—including Sharjah Biennial 14 (2019); Manifesta 10, St. Petersburg (2014); Biennale of Sydney (1998 and 2012); Biennale de Lyon (2005); and Bienal de São Paulo (1994)—as well as group exhibitions in institutions such as Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; SMAK, Ghent; Grand Palais, Paris; Punta della Dogana, Venice (2019); Hayward Gallery, London (2018); Mudam, Luxembourg, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Buenos Aires (2015); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014); Fundació Juan Miró, Barcelona (2013). In 1999 she represented Belgium (with Michel François) at the 48th Venice Biennale.
