Artists: Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys
Exhibition title: The 48 Hours of Kwik & Kwak
Venue: STUDIOLI, Rome, Italy
Date: December 17, 2023 – February 4, 2024
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and STUDIOLI, Rome
Note: Exhibition’s booklet is available here
STUDIOLI opens a new studio-garçonnière presenting the exhibition The 48 Hours of Kwik & Kwak by the Belgian artist duo Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys.
The exhibition is a re-reading of the perfomance of 2004 The 48 Hours of Kwik & Kwak, when the artists themselves, dressed as woolly beasts, lived for 48 hours on the ground floor of the project space “Etablissement d’en face” in Brussels.
For this occasion, the space was converted into a stable. The floor was covered in straw and various props were available for Kwik & Kwak: an armchair, a ball, a little library and a car tire suspended from the ceiling. The space was not open to the public. Passers-by could observe from the street the two creatures in their daily doings.
The exhibition includes an installation composed by new works.
Two large life-size puppets Kwik & Kwak conceived by the artists for the STUDIOLI space, a re-edition of The 48 Hours of Kwik & Kwak posters and the screeening of the un-seen video of the performance recorded in 2004 by a surveillance camera.
On this occasion Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys present a special limited edition of a plush toy version of Kwik & Kwak.
Jos de Gruyter (1965, Geel, Belgium) and Harald Thys (1966, Wilrijk, Belgium) have collaborated as an artist duo since the late 1980s. They use a wide range of media, including, video, painting, sculpture, and photography. Their work has been exhibited in numerous solo exhibitions, including at Kunstverein München; Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; MoMA PS1, New York; Kunsthalle Wien; and Kunstverein Basel. They represented Belgium at the 58th Venice Biennale and have participated in numerous other biennials, such as the 5th Berlin Biennale and Manifesta 7, Trentino-Alto Adigo. De Gruyter & Thys live in Brussels and Rome.
