The Still House Group - Project space I

The Still House Group has been invited to occupy Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens for nearly four months, exhibiting both their work and a program of nine rotating projects.

Room A: Gift Shop

As the first of three projects in Room A, The Still House has produced a museum gift shop of their own. With an installation by artist Joe Graham Felsen, the space has been divided into three separate sections.

The first is comprised of second-hand books purchased by the members of the group. With a limited budget, each artist was given the freedom to choose (from a flea market, eBay etc) any printed material they felt was worthy of consumption by a museum audience.

In the second section, Still House sourced a selection from publishers of limited artist books, exporting to Belgium rare zines, textbooks and hardcovers by young contemporary artists.

In the final area, the artists of Still House have created limited merchandise specifically for the museum.

Room B: Peter Sutherland & Augustus Thompson

A presentation of recent work by artists Peter Sutherland and Augustus Thompson.

Room C: The Hazard Will Supply the First Verse (Presentation MDD’s Collection)

This room has been allocated to three consecutive exhibitions designed by Belgian inmates within the Prison of Andenne, comprising their project This World of Cut Thorns.

In partnership with Art Without Bars, artist Zachary Susskind led a series of workshops within the prison during 2014. Introducing the notion of the exhibition as an art form in itself, he hoped to promote the inmates’ collaboration toward aesthetic and conceptual statement-making.

Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens opened its collection to the inmates for The Hazard Will Supply the First Verse, a shared biographical narrative in three nave-like segments (My Child, You and I; My Suffering, You and I; My Job, You and I). They exercised authorship by retitling many of the works on view. Could time dedicated to a curatorial engagement with art encourage the optimism and responsibility necessary for rehabilitation?