May 8–October 24, 2021
Triënnale Brugge: TraumA
Musea Brugge: O.L.V. ter Potterie
Bruges, BE
Curated by Till-Holger Borchert, Santiago De Waele, Michel Dewilde, Els Wuyts
Commissioned Site-Specific intervention in museum collection including a multi-channel molecular animation triptych sculpture
Disentanglement was a site-specific intervention commissioned for the 2021 Bruges Triennial and was located at the Museum of Our Lady of the Potterie whose hospital, established in the 13th century, once served plague victims. The Potterie houses a still functioning Gothic church with Baroque interior and a museum collection that includes tapestries depicting miracles and a silver treasury with reliquaries. I was inspired by the complex history of the Potterie that is rich with entanglements of the earthly and heavenly. It is a site that has offered medical healing as well as spiritual salvation for over 700 years. I wanted to situate my work in the Potterie in a way that was both interwoven and in conversation with the collection. The installation attempts to evoke a “biomedical imaginary” with provocations of curiosity and wonder while providing space for psychologically charged liminal states of recognition and obfuscation that can feel both otherworldly and intimate. The installation connects both newly-commissioned animation with existing artworks that make poetic connections between material artifacts of the biomedical landscape with everyday domains. A new multichannel video sculpture created with molecular models of the coronavirus responds to both the unique Potterie location as well as the timely triennial theme of “trauma”. Selected works from the lace virus series Doilies are also installed in the museum including a SARS lace sculpture created in 2004 in response to the first coronavirus outbreak. Together, these works examine contemporary experiences of trauma with a historical lens on the cultural present.
Disentanglement was a site-specific intervention commissioned for the 2021 Bruges Triennial and was located at the Museum of Our Lady of the Potterie whose hospital, established in the 13th century, once served plague victims. The Potterie houses a still functioning Gothic church with Baroque interior and a museum collection that includes tapestries depicting miracles and a silver treasury with reliquaries. I was inspired by the complex history of the Potterie that is rich with entanglements of the earthly and heavenly. It is a site that has offered medical healing as well as spiritual salvation for over 700 years. I wanted to situate my work in the Potterie in a way that was both interwoven and in conversation with the collection. The installation attempts to evoke a “biomedical imaginary” with provocations of curiosity and wonder while providing space for psychologically charged liminal states of recognition and obfuscation that can feel both otherworldly and intimate. The installation connects both newly-commissioned animation with existing artworks that make poetic connections between material artifacts of the biomedical landscape with everyday domains. A new multichannel video sculpture created with molecular models of the coronavirus responds to both the unique Potterie location as well as the timely triennial theme of “trauma”. Selected works from the lace virus series Doilies are also installed in the museum including a SARS lace sculpture created in 2004 in response to the first coronavirus outbreak. Together, these works examine contemporary experiences of trauma with a historical lens on the cultural present.
Disentanglement (2021, molecular animation triptych) echoes conventions of the presentation of portable altarpieces in the tradition of Flemish Primitive painting. The mesmerizing animation was created with molecular visualization software and models of the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins, ACE2 human cell receptors and llama nanobodies. The colors of the animations are drawn from paintings in the Potterie’s art collection including a 15th century depiction of St. Michael that was removed for the placement of the Disentanglement triptych. St. Michael, considered the patron of both warriors and the sick alike, is shown waging battle against two demons in the painting that is thought to have been commissioned by a nun from the convent of Our Lady of the Potterie. The slow undulating movements of the animation evoke the sense of wonder and reverence commanded by such religious subject matter of the devotional works and altarpieces of Early Netherlandish painting.
Doilies (2004, computerized machine embroidered lace) which includes renderings of the SARS, Hepadna, Herpes, and Influenza viruses, is installed adjacent to a 17th century painting of the archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia as a nun. Isabella was one of the most powerful women in 16th- and 17th-century Europe and a patron of artists including Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck. Many portraits of the Infanta Isabella as a nun were painted with practically identical compositions and evoke a sense of duality in which the humility and virtue symbolized by the habit sit at odds with the wealth and power of its wearer. Situated together in this quiet corner of the museum, the lace viruses and the painting of Isabella create multiple layers of camouflage and mutability of meaning.
With TraumA Triennial Bruges delves into the 'uncanny' history and reality of Bruges. Historical layers are exposed, forgotten or hidden storylines are discussed. This edition explores the thin line between dream and trauma, between paradise and hell. It responds to the imagination, to the splendor, but also to the 'uncanny' that is present underground. Because although Bruges seems to many to be a dream destination, poverty, loneliness, pollution or fear also lurks in this picture-perfect world. Bruges Triennial 2021: TraumA uses artistic and architectural interventions to bring out the less attractive aspects and let them become part of the image of the city. She creates a polyphonic discourse, where there is room for imagination, beauty, darkness and complexity.
Till-Holger Borchert, Santiago De Waele, Michel Dewilde, Els Wuyts
Amanda Browder, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Jon Lott, Joanna Malinowska, Nadia Naveau, Nnenna Okore, Henrique Oliveira, Hans Op de Beeck, Laura Splan, Gijs Van Vaerenbergh, Adrián Villar Rojas, Héctor Zamora
"TraumA in medicine: from the plague to COVID-19"
Lecture by Dr. William De Groote
Sunday, 17 October 2021 from 11:30 to 13:00
OLV ter Potterie, Bruges, BE
Free
See Laura Splan’s installation Disentanglement at the 2021 Triënnale Brugge at O.L.V. ter Potterie when attending "TraumA in medicine: from the plague to COVID-19", a lecture by Dr. William De Groote examining the current COVID-19 pandemic from a medical-historical perspective.
...the Potterierei, has seen a significant increase in its visitors thanks to the installation “Disentanglement” by the American artist Laura Splan. 25,000 people have already found their way to the museum...
...Interdisciplinarity is the foundation on which artist Laura Splan conceives her work...Through her practice, science is moved out of the laboratories while keeping its axioms and experiments present...A number of its mechanisms are paralleled with the cultural dynamics that inhabit our everyday lives, putting a magnifying glass on the interconnections that exist between diverse fields of knowledge...
...What stayed with me most when it comes to Laura Splan, were her lace sculptures based on virus structures. This sophisticated medium’s reference to both Bruges and the coronavirus is at once adorable, extraordinary, and powerful. Furthermore, I do appreciate the contrast between this traditional craft and contemporary art...
…While the complex, and often alienating science behind the pandemic has inundated the globe over the past year, artist laura splan dove into the study of virus structures to explore the interconnectedness between cultural and biological systems…
…Splan presents textile patterns, digital animations and woven structures that appear as if they have always been at this site…
…Disentanglement…is interspersed with the rest of the permanent collection … In this, science, fiction and religion intertwine in the realm of pain and healing, life and death...
...surprisingly beautiful...That Splan’s erudite aestheticization of COVID-19 can enchant as much as it does is baffling...
...soon after the SARS epidemic, Splan brought out a series of works called Doilies...Splan’s doilies were inspired from the structure of viruses...‘Conflating the traditional radial doily form with a deadly virus was an attempt to create a situation in which the viewer could transpose a state of wonder on to the very structure of the virus which they feared,’ she says...
...Splan swathes scientific observation in elegance. Splan’s creations demand a double take—a second look that reveals the scholarly rigor behind the pretty surface...
Additional Project support provided by Triënnale Brugge, Musea Brugge, Brugge Plus, Silja De Bruyckere, Shendy Gardin, Nele Vermeire, Jasper Van Het Groenewoud, Joke Geldhof, Elviera Velghe, Okita Daels, Els Degryse, Mieke Parez, Reuben Lorch-Miller, Dietl International, DNA Company
Special Thanks to NEW INC (Stephanie Pereira, Kelsa Trom, Melinda Wang, Fiona Raby, Laura Forlano, Siddharth Ramakrishnan, Janet Biggs, Ross Keong, Krystal Persaud), Lindsey Grothkopp, Katia Goldin, Fred Frith, Heike Liss, Shanna Maurizi, Gizmo Art Production (Mark Sabatino), Video Circuits (Andrew Rayner, Dave Jones, Tom Bass, Derek Holzer)
Artist Profile on Laura Splan for "Triënnale Brugge: TraumA", 2021, Video by Triënnale Brugge
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