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M HKA reserves its fifth floor for surprising interventions and intimate pop-up presentations. INBOX is a place that inspires and surprises, one that offers us a glimpse into the world of passionate thinkers and doers. With INBOX, M HKA creates a physical space in which the museum addresses often-recurring questions.

In the periods between the various events, we present a selection of our collection works, with particular attention to video art.

INBOX can be visited for free.

GADFLY

While I'm writing this text, I still have no idea what Leendert Van Accoleyen has in store for  INBOX in M HKA. Maybe he himself has no idea, and so M HKA's organisation is still in the dark. That's not a problem at all. Because I assume that this young artist seizes the opportunity offered to him as winner of the Prize Hugo Roelandt with both hands. I'm curious, because I've known Leendert for a while.

Every organisation needs its gadfly, an individual or a group of individuals that irritates the policy and keeps it alert. Until recently, Leendert Van Accoleyen was such a gadfly for the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. When I saw his work for the first time, on the occasion of a mid-term evaluation in the sculpture studio, it reminded me of Jean Tinguely's rattling anti-machines. I seem to remember that at that moment Leendert knew little or nothing about Tinguely. That didn't surprise me, for Leendert did not like to sit through my classes 'contemporary art: neo avant gardes'.

The static, monolithic character of traditional sculpture did not appeal to him either. Gradually, his tumultuous and moving objects obtained a pronounced performative character. At the time when Leendert started experimenting with self-made ovens, he touched on something new and adventurous. Roughly created using bricks or welded together, his rudimentary wood ovens not only spewed clouds and sparks, but strange sounds too. With their feverish heat and bizarre appearance, these sculptures resembled living creatures that had to be fed constantly, while significantly increasing the academy's environmental footprint.

At another moment, during a jury in Extra City in Antwerp, I saw Leendert, agilely climbing a scrawny sculpture of beams, monkey-like, then taking a seat, about six meters above the ground, just below the ceiling of the exhibition space. A question arose: where does the sculpture end and where does the performance start – and vice versa. Because of this mixing of both frameworks (the sculptural and the theatrical), Leendert acted like a gadfly, especially because his action clearly involved a refusal to leak any information about his work or sources of inspiration (his 'preparatory research').

Around that time, I understood that Leendert lived and worked in a big delivery van he had equipped as living and working space. It enabled him to place his mobile home/studio where it was needed. This regularly turned out to be the academy's parking lot ('forbidden for students'). He used the same parking lot to attach a plastic tube to the facade of the school, or to deposit material. The way in which he transformed his workspace into a permanent repository of recuperation and work material also regularly caused nuisance, and sometimes required physical intervention.

The name 'Leendert' became almost synonymous with unpredictable situations and 'putting out  fires'. But his work was, and still is, unanimously appreciated, both by students and teachers and by external jurors. And so the academy delivers Leendert to the professional field with a mixture of pride and relief. Leendert has successfully graduated with a degree in the liberal arts and is from now on both the dream and the nightmare of the curator. We hope that he will stay a gadfly for a long time. We have already done our duty.

Johan Pas, Antwerp, February 2019

 

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In INBOX – 5th floor

Installation Transport to Mars, 2019
Cobblestones, wood, rope and human

 

On the roof terrace (city) – 4t floor

Singing Stove V, 2018

Metal

 

Performance

Leendert Van Accoleyen will let his singing stove ‘sing’ every Thursday in March (14, 21 and 28) at 19:00.