P A N O P T È S

#MaryCorse, “Untitled (White Diamond, Negative Stripe)” (1965), on the left. When I visited Mary Corse’s studio in Agoura Hills in April 2024, I was struck by how deeply moved she was. When I told her that this “Negative Stripe” painting was now held within our collection, her reaction was immediate, almost visceral. It revealed something quietly remarkable: despite decades of exhibitions and institutional recognition, certain works remain deeply personal — as though their whereabouts still matter. This painting belongs to a decisive moment in Corse’s practice — 1965 — when key elements emerge: the diamond format, the central division, and above all a rigorous investigation of white, not as a color, but as a perceptual condition. The central line is not painted; it is left bare — less a division than an opening. What I find compelling in this work is its singular position. While Turrell and Irwin relocate perception into real space, and Flavin works with light itself, Mary Corse remains within painting — yet brings it to a threshold. Nothing is depicted, and yet something takes place. The work does not assert itself. It requires time, a certain quiet, the right light. It exists at the edge of visibility. And perhaps, at the edge of what painting can still be.

Merci @thierrydavila31 for today’s conference on #FranzErhardWalther. Here is a souvenir in the 2014 exhibition @wiels_brussels , “The Body Decides”, with @thibstock ;-)

Have you ever held a “Bicho”—literally an “insect” or “creature”—in your hands? I experienced this for the first time in 2024 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. The gesture is instinctive at first: you try to orient the object, to impose a form upon it. But very quickly the sculpture resists. It redirects the movement, asserts its articulations, frustrates any desire for control. What emerges is neither domination nor surrender, but a form of co-creation. Bichos have neither front nor back, nor any privileged orientation in space. They demand a gradual process of familiarisation, both physical and perceptual. This demand lies at the heart of #LygiaClark’s practice and of Brazilian Neo-Concretism in the late 1950s, which posits that a work of art only fully exists in relation: to the viewer’s body, to the temporality of experience, to the indeterminacy of becoming. The work is no longer closed; it is open, processual, fundamentally relational. Because a “Bicho” is discovered through touch as much as through sight, I feel it’s important to seek opportunities to experience it. The work in the collection is an original in an exceptionally fine state of conservation, and it would therefore not be appropriate to manipulate it. We are currently exploring various avenues and, in the meantime, encourage seeking out institutions where such encounters are made accessible. This sculpture will be loaned to the Kanal-Centre Pompidou, as part of its inaugural exhibition exploring the notion of movement. Finally, curator and art historian Thierry Davila will speak about Lygia Clark on Wednesday the 21st of January, from 3 to 5 pm (in French). Registrations: [email protected].

The collection opens with a column conceived by Robert Irwin in 1969. Originally trained as a painter, Irwin very early on moved away from the object-as-picture to focus instead on the conditions of perceptual experience. Between 1965 and 1969, anticipating this column, he developed the « Disc » series, in which the object is still present but already put under pressure: its contours dissolve, shifting attention towards the relationship between the work, the space that contains it, and—crucially—one’s own act of seeing. In 1970, Irwin completely emptied his Californian studio, leaving only this five-sided column of optical acrylic at its centre. Almost invisible, without any spectacular effect, the work does not draw attention to itself. Rather, it subtly alters our experience of the place: it displaces it, destabilises it, awakens it. In doing so, Irwin makes perceptible our condition as sensing beings in relation to our environment—what one might call the time of the body, prior even to that of words. That same year, Irwin permanently closed his studio, abandoning the production of objects in favour of site-specific works conceived for the lived world. He described his art as “conditional”: never autonomous, always situated. Within the Brussels collection, because the house that hosts the work does not belong to us, the column had to be placed on a platform. This solution is not ideal, as it risks reinstating the work as an object to be looked at rather than an experience to be lived. We nevertheless chose to live with it here, while imagining a future setting more attuned to its nature—perhaps, one day, in the corner of a Venetian portego… Like many artists associated with the Light & Space movement, Irwin did not wish his works to be photographed. They are not fixed images, but perceptual devices that can only exist through experience. What is offered here, therefore, is not so much an image of the work as an invitation to encounter it. #RobertIrwin #BobIrwin #PerceptualArt #ConditionalArt #LightAndSpace

“γ (gamma)” (2023), a work by @elsvermang , investigates the behaviour of visible light. The installation consists of glass elements cut at specific angles and mounted within the window structure. When daylight enters the room under certain conditions, the glass refracts the beam into its component colours, producing optical phenomena that shift according to the time of day, the season and the position of the viewer. A woven tablecloth accompanies the installation. Its interrupted checkerboard pattern aligns with the architectural axes of the house, functioning as a secondary indicator of the light’s orientation and incidence. Together, these elements form a single perceptual system in which geometry, material and light interact. “gamma” situates a domestic space—here, the kitchen—as a site for observation. Rather than adding an image or an object, the work activates the existing environment, rendering visible processes that ordinarily remain unnoticed.

#RyojiIkeda, “data-cosm [n°. 1]” (2024) commissioned by @180.studios in London. ••• “data-cosm [n°. 1]” functions as a giant microscope, a scientific apparatus, a clinical device, a monitoring system, and a window to an infinitely vast space. Visitors are invited to lie down on the floor and look up at the large LED screen set on the ceiling above them, their bodies surrounded by Ikeda’s soundscapes - a total sensory experience.

On Friday 10 October from 3 to 4 pm, Panoptès will host a conversation between artist Germaine Kruip and Kasia Redzisz, artistic director of Kanal–Centre Pompidou, at Avenue Molière 140 in Brussels. This exchange will be an opportunity to delve into Kruip’s practice and reflect on how art shapes our ways of seeing. Seats are limited, please RSVP at [email protected].

On October 1st, 2025, writer and philosopher Jean-Christophe Bailly will give a lecture entitled “Le paysage ultrasensible” at @bozarbrussels , as part of the long-standing conference cycle organized by @jeunesseetartsplastiques (JAP). For more than sixty years, JAP has been opening up the history of art and contemporary creation to a wide audience through lectures, encounters, films, and publications. Their work also extends to younger generations: every year, thousands of secondary school students in Brussels and Wallonia attend JAP’s programs free of charge or at very low cost — an exceptional initiative in a field so often absent from school curricula. Panoptès is delighted to support JAP, whose educational mission continues to shape the way we look at art, images, and the world. 🔗 More information and tickets: https://www.jap.be/evenement/le-paysage-ultrasensible.

#AnnVeronicaJanssens, “Aerogel” (2000-2002) @wiels_brussels . ••• “I’m interested in the ephemeral, the fragile, the almost nothing.” (Ann Veronica Janssens). ••• « Aerogel » uses the world’s lightest material of the same name - simultaneously gas, liquid and solid, and containing around 99.9% air - to make ‘the ultimate sculpture’, encapsulating the way light moves through air. Hovering on the edge of perception, it appears like captured light, a materialization of the immaterial, an object that both reveals and dissolves itself. Between science and poetry, it invites us to linger in the uncertainty of what is seen, and to discover wonder in the almost invisible.

#GermaineKruip, “The Illuminated Wind, Tetepare” (2025) @minerve_brussels by @maud_salembier . ••• “This is a monochrome. It’s one spotlight, and the format of the projected light refers to a film format. The intensity of the light is directly connected to the intensity of the wind on an inhabited island. The wind is measured, translated into the intensity of the light. So you have this rectangle of light that pulses on the wall following the wind. Sometimes it disappears, and then sometimes you can see that there is a huge gust of wind on the island and the light is at full power on the wall. What I like here is that there is a distant phenomena outside that is coming in, the unknown is entering: in the form of an island that is totally uninhabited and therefore abstract. It becomes a mental image. (…) The light is responding to the wind at that instant moment. You are simultaneously in two places, connected in the present. Sometimes it’s very bright and very active, then there is a storm. I like the moments when the light is almost absent, because then it feels like a film on the verge of appearing on the wall, it’s shimmering. During the day it’s more subtle, daylight at Minerve will mingle with it. At night it becomes more present and contrasted.” (Germaine Kruip). ••• We spend seconds on art, but Kruip’s works ask for minutes. What changes if you stay? In an age where our attention flickers—changing apps every 47 seconds, glancing at an artwork for barely half a minute—Germaine Kruip’s practice asks something different. Her works unfold slowly, almost imperceptibly: a shift of light, a shadow stretching, a geometry repeating itself into silence. They remind us that perception deepens when we linger, when we resist the impulse to move on. To stand before her work is to reclaim time itself—one look becoming many, one second becoming infinite. °°° #GermaineKruip #Minerve #SlowLooking #ArtAndAnttention #PanoptesCollection

#JesúsRafaelSoto, “Esfera Amarilla” (1984) @fondationcarmignac . Bravo @mattthieupoirier ! ••• Jesús Rafael Soto’s 1984 work “Esfera Amarilla” is a yellow sphere suspended from the underside of the Villa’s central water ceiling, brightening the Atmospheric Turbulence space with its sunny presence. The 453 metal tubes, all painted the same colour, seem to pulse as we move round it, an effect similar to walking past rows of vines in a vineyard. The sensation, created by the parallax effect, is amplified by the shimmering light of the water ceiling overhead. Here Soto invites us to stroll around his work to grasp its materiality, its alternation of empty and occupied space, its shards of light, its interplay with its surroundings, and its colour and movement. For Soto, the relationship between artwork and audience foregrounds the world’s “matter-energy” and lets us feel mobility and invisibility.

#SteveMcQueen, “Bass” (2024) @schaulagerbasel . ••• “What I love about light and sound is that they are both created through movement and fluidity. They can be molded into any shape, like vapor or a scent; they can sneak into every nook and cranny. I also love the beginning point where something isn’t a form as much as it is all-encompassing.» ••• Deep bass frequencies resound through the space - at times louder, at times softer, reverberating as individual notes or suggesting a melody. Bright riffs alternate with muffled, oscillating vibrations. Schaulager’s vast interior is flooded with soundwaves and bathed in colored light that changes slowly, almost impercep-tibly, from deep red to ultraviolet, covering the entire spectrum visible to the human eye. The cycle is controlled by over 1,000 LED tubes that were temporarily installed in the place of the architecture’s regular ceiling lighting, creating illuminated tracks that traverse the building’s five levels and soaring atrium like luminous contour lines. The acoustic epicenter of the installation is a column of subwoofers and speakers weightlessly suspended in the air - a paradoxical image as the impression of lightness contradicts the immense weight of the technology. Bass frequencies and light instantly cast a spell on visitors entering Schaulager, inescapably drawing them into the maelstrom of the experience.