Antonia Brown at Belmonte

Artist: Antonia Brown with contributions by digestivo (Lucía Bayón & Lukas Meßner)

Exhibition title: Sway Foul

Venue: Belmonte, Madrid, Spain

Date: April 22 – June 3, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Belmonte, Madrid

Antonia Brown’s practice looks to what she calls a ‘sympathetic field’, to explore different forms and risks of being with. Brown proposes sympathy as something that proffers an outcome of transformation or transfiguration, even if this doesn’t occur. But, with sympathy comes a level of distortion. In her practice she uses this as a device, which is used to find a position of inter embodiment or inhabitation, which she opposes to critical distance.

Antonia Phoebe Brown (1989, ZA) born in South Africa, based in Brussels. Her practice orientates through sculpture and, at times, film and writing. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and a MA in Fine Arts from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. Recent exhibitions include: The Artificial Silk Girl, Brunette Coleman, London (2023), The Postcard Party, CC Strombeek, Brussels (2023), Le Voeu du Faisan, M.Simons, Amsterdam (2023), Les Anneaux de Saturne , Galerie Derouillon, Paris (2022) Rama da sasa say so and, Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris (2022) Superposition, Hinterconti, Hamburg (2022), Roaring Shelters, 10n, Brussels (2022).

digestivo is a collaborative initiative founded in 2019 by artists Lucía Bayón and Lukas Meßner as an itinerant project space in Rotterdam.

Acting at times as host to other artists’ practices, they foster a space for encounters, establishing a common thread through notions of trial or accident: in and around the kitchen, with material, with substances that spill, ooze, or get spoiled. Throughout these entanglements their role hovers around the figure of interlocutors to other practices they like to respond to, generating means of compilation, correspondence, and fragments that operate as part of an ongoing conversation.

Guided by concepts of season and cycle, they investigate the reach of materialities that develop around acts of foraging, fermenting or preserving: promoting leftovers and immersing them in a future prospect of sharing.

Past events include: where do the clouds go? with Raphael Pohl y Aaron Amar Bahmra en Galerie Le Carceri (Caldaro, 2023); Blown Blossom at Grazer Kunsteverein (Graz, 2023); Tempest Gourmand with Pedro Herrero Ferrán at Haus Wien (Vienna, 2020); A voice can only break a glass that already has a crack in it, with Hrefna Hörn Leifsdóttir (Rotterdam, 2020); Colofonia líquida y saliva with María Nolla Mateos (Rotterdam, 2019), and Moodring II (Rotterdam, 2019).

Lucía Bayón (b. 1994, Spain; based in Madrid) centers her practice around sculpture and writing.

Lukas Meßner (b. 1989, Italy; based in Vienna) is an artist working with sculpture, text and images.

Antonia Brown with contributions by digestivo, Sway Foul, 2023, exhibition view, Belmonte, Madrid

Antonia Brown with contributions by digestivo, Sway Foul, 2023, exhibition view, Belmonte, Madrid

Antonia Brown with contributions by digestivo, Sway Foul, 2023, exhibition view, Belmonte, Madrid

Antonia Brown with contributions by digestivo, Sway Foul, 2023, exhibition view, Belmonte, Madrid

Antonia Brown with contributions by digestivo, Sway Foul, 2023, exhibition view, Belmonte, Madrid

Antonia Brown with contributions by digestivo, Sway Foul, 2023, exhibition view, Belmonte, Madrid

Antonia Brown, w.w 5, 2023, Cane, tape, dyed silk organza, black ribbon, 41 x 36 x 36 cm

Antonia Brown, w.w 1, 2023, Cane, tape, dyed silk organza, black ribbon, 70 x 60 x 52 cm

Antonia Brown, w.w 1, 2023, Cane, tape, dyed silk organza, black ribbon, 70 x 60 x 52 cm

Antonia Brown, w.w 2, 2023, Cane, tape, dyed silk organza, black ribbon, 64 x 58x 40 cm