M HKA Ensembles

Photography, 80 x 100 cm.

Collection: Collection Yves Gevaert, Courtesy Jan Mot, Brussels.

A pioneer of conceptual art, David Lamelas used the venue of his first solo exhibition at the seminal Wide White Space in Antwerp in 1969 as a point of departure for the Antwerp series, hiring a professional photographer to shoot three main sites in the city between 9am. and 5pm. Each photograph documents Antwerp’s urban life and is marked with the exact time it was taken. Lamelas is telling the viewer that this place will never exactly be the same again. Things happen. The camera angle, the unspectacular choice of view and the notation of the time all generate the impression of a documentary, whose objectivity is under investigation, but they also reveal how framing and selection disrupt any sense of unity of time and space.