Abel Hartooni

For some time I’ve been standing
(Co-Curated with the Curatorial Studies 2024-2025 participants)
Kunsthal Gent 2025
Chupan Atashi, Manon de Boer, Michael Kleine, Brigitte Louter,
A workshop by Emma Ydiers and a performance by Astrid Specht Seeberg

The exhibition sets out to trace gestures of rehearsal, repetition, and return, exploring what it means to pause, to stand still, or to remain in motion.

By entering into dialogue with the fresco on the back wall of the Old House, the artworks reiterate its significance as a palimpsest — responding to, echoing and reimagining it. Immediately drawing the gaze, the fresco tends to direct a body’s movement in the space. Between the other white walls, it attracts the eye, inviting it to wander over its worn, bodily surface, to follow the contours of the gaps and cracks, to glide over the smooth areas and to acknowledge its most vulnerable parts.

The exhibition takes its title from a passage in Kathy Acker’s 1993 novel My Mother: Demonology, “For some time I’ve been standing, in front of a white stucco wall, on a white road that is raised above all the surroundings and the dirt underneath, as though it’s a platform. All around me are masses of luggage, suitcases and bags”. Integral to Acker’s writing is the process of rewriting and reinterpreting, often plagiarising other sources as her own. This reflects the impetus of the exhibition to enter into conversation with the fresco on the back wall of the Old House, reiterating its significance as a palimpsest with artworks that respond, echo, and reimagine.

The public programme extends these questions. Emma Ydiers's workshop Relating to Lesbian Archives reflects on the ongoing erasure of queer narratives and the potential of archiving as an activist method. Astrid Specht Seeberg's performance Clayplay, developed through a series of performances in different environments, invites a group from the audience to build clay masks in a blind improvisation, working with the tangible weight of the material under the artist's guidance.

Photography by Michiel de Cleene, Isaac Poonsele and Lukas Neven