Starting from the art collection of the museum M in Leuven, Vilanova reflects on the art of
exhibiting and explores display modes from showcases to postcards.
In his practice, Oriol Vilanova investigates the characteristics of men and cultures. This investigation is also key in an extensive collection of postcards he has been collecting for years on flea markets and that he regularly uses as a starting point of his works. Chance, repetition and exaggeration often return in his minimal installations, performances and texts.
In M Vilanova focuses on the act of exhibiting. He explores how museums show artifacts in images on postcards or through exhibition devices such as showcases and plinths. What stories do they tell? And does this also create at the same time a certain distance towards an audience?
“Museums generally use display cases as a neutral presentation format that is pushed into the background, so that full justice is done to the objects they contain. In the pictures, they are shown for what they are, an arrangement of display cases from different museums and institutions from Belgium.”
Oriol Vilanova
Born 1980 in Manresa, Oriol Vilanova lives and works in Barcelona and Brussels. By rummaging through flea markets, his favourite places for research, he builds up a collection of postcards to create a “thinking machine” that provides the conceptual foundations for his plays, installations and performances.
