It's Hard Being a Character in Someone Else's Novel

09 - 31.03.2023, with a public program by Cally Spooner and Georgina Starr on 29 & 30 March

KRIEG? university gallery, PXL-MAD School of Arts, Hasselt (BE)

Why do artists write novels? What impact does the artist’s novel have on the visual arts? How should such a novel be experienced? Visual artists such as Salvador Dalí, Leonora Carrington, Carl Andre, and Andy Warhol have written novels since the 20th century. But the artist’s novel is something else: in recent years, there has been a proliferation of visual artists who create novels as part of their broader art practice. They do so in order to address artistic issues by means of novelistic devices, favouring a sort of art predicated on process and subjectivity, introducing notions such as fiction, narrative, and imagination. In this sense, it is possible to see the artist’s novel as a new medium in the visual arts, as is the case of video or performance, for example. Yet very little is known about it.

As part of their research on the artist’s novel, The Book Lovers (David Maroto and Joanna Zielińska) have created a collection and bibliography of artists’ novels (642 titles as of today) with the continuous support of M HKA, which has generously loaned it for 'It’s Hard Being a Character in Somebody Else’s Novel' exhibition at KRIEG?

The collection of artists’ novels is put on display in its entirety, so that the audience can freely access and read them. The public will thus have the opportunity to come into direct contact with the artists’ novels and experience them first-hand. On 29 and 30 March, there will be a public programme and workshop aimed at students from PXL-MAD School of Arts as well as the general public. The Book Lovers will offer a keynote presentation followed by an afternoon of discussion and performance that will examine the work of artists Cally Spooner and Georgina Starr, whose artists’ novels are currently in progress. The attention will be placed on the creative process, in order to discuss how their projects lie at the intersection between writing, art making, and performance.

https://www.thebooklovers.info