Now: FROGTOPIA BRUSSELS!
Frog King Kwok Mang Ho - 蛙王郭孟浩 and Frog Queen Cho Hyun Jae - 蛙后趙顯才

Vernissage – Friday, April 12, 2013, 18:00 – 21:30
Exhibition runs: 12 April – 12 May, 2013

NO CRISIS FOR CREATIVITY. NO AUSTERITY FOR IMAGINATION. Co-Create. Transform. Art is life, life is art …

Following four days of the Frog Fun Workshop, Harlan Levey Projects is proud to welcome you to Frogtopia Brussels. The first exhibition of the Frog King and Frog Queen in Europe following their presentation at the Venice Biennale in 2011. The exhibition features the workshop results as a collaborative installation, a selection of works created in Brussels (Brussels Breakfast Residency 2013) using pre-existing elements from former projects and a series of collages created in 2009 as well as videos of various Frog interventions and performances.

Read a review of “Frogtopia. Hongkornucopia” at the Venice Biennale by Wen Yau – International association of art critics Hong Kong.

Evening with Frog King and Queen at Hotel Bloom!
Wednesday 10 April, 2013, 19:00 – 20:00

Past

“On Paraphotography: Uncertainty, the Occult and the Uncanny.”In partnership with the Brad Feuerhelm Collection.

March 07 - April 03, 2013

Order is never observed; it is disorder that attracts attention because it is awkward and intrusive. – Eliphas Levi

Can the radical idealism inherent to occult be catalogued into a manuscript of aesthetic strategy? Brad Feuerhelm assembles photographic investigations of the occult that transform the material world with a language of disorder that confronts the paradox of unknowns. The exhibition features works from Tereza Zelenkova, Paulina Otylie Surys, Joel-Peter Witkin, and Jeffrey Silverthorne as well as an additional selection of vintage works from the Brad Feuerhelm collection.

Marcin Dudek – Too Close for Comfort

January 26 – 02 March, 2013

Catastrophic modernism and anti-ready made are on the agenda as critical emphasis swings between production/intention and the potential of images and objects to infiltrate collective perception and behavior via heterogeneous networks.

Starting with the sound of the first rubber bullets fired in Poland, Marcin Dudek (Poland, 1979) reduces violent posturing to a series of sculptural and photographic works that take a somewhat autobiographical look at the dangers of consensus and sub cultural resistance with particular interest in ‘Basement Fitness’ and its discontents. And yes, it’s all a little too close to remain comfortable.

Isaac Cordal – Prestige

November 08 – January 09, 2013

There is no authority without Prestige even once it’s sunk. Tens years after The Prestige polluted more than 1000 beaches, Isaac Cordal (Spain, 1974) presented new works and a full look at his project, ‘Cement Eclipses: Small Interventions in the Big City.’ The project has been exhibited in both public locations and art spaces in Brussels, London, Riga, Zagreb, Malaga, Vienna, Barcelona and in De Panne as part of the Beaufort 04 Triennale.

Petr Davydtchenko – Mental Properties

September 07 – October 21, 2012

The bank has nothing to do with your mental property. Or do they? “Mental Properties” acknowledges that with no authority left to believe, in the words of German Philosopher Wolfgang Schirmacher, what we have to build a better future is ourselves: “thinking power, intellectual honesty and intuitive understanding.” The first solo exhibition by Petr Davydtchenko involved site-specific installation, sculpture, video and photographic works, which deal with the civility of aesthetics as we enter what can rightly be called European Autumn.

Zoe Strauss, Abner Preis, Jeroen Jongeleen and Jordan Seiler – Running with Rocky

April 14 – June 10, 2012

Harlan Levey Projects presented four long-term performance based art projects that take place in (and show concern with) public space. In the gallery, these projects received a second life as photographs, video and artifacts were presented to demonstrate the notions of trust, generosity and civil participation that each reveals.

I-95 / ZOE STRAUSS
The Art of Urban Warfare / JEROEN JONGELEEN
A Portrait of America / ABNER PREIS
Public Ad Campaign / JORDAN SEILER

Admir Jahic – Don’t Love Me Too Much

Febuary 14 – March 18, 2012

Exhibiting for the first time in Belgium, Admir Jahic (1975) presented a relational installation as well as his latest works and select recent pieces from series created with Comenius Roethlisberger under the pseudonym, ‘The Invisible Heroes.’ From ready-made to ornamental assets, when looked upon together, the common line between these works becomes an operation that employs aesthetics to bring the viewer over the ‘do not cross,’ line and into a tender yet revealing contradiction zone; a place where old meets new, true grapples with false and the aesthetics of mythology get reassembled.

During the last four years, Jahic has exhibited in France, Germany, Kuwait, Italy, Switzerland, England and across the United States. Works shown at Harlan Levey Projects include: Don’t Love Me Too Much Death or Glory (Death or Glory: Abstract Sculptures) Without You Baby, There Ain’t No Us (with Comenius Roethlisberger) In God We Trust (with Comenius Roethlisberger).

Stefan Gross – Sustainable Trash

December 15 – January 29, 2012

Is art nothing more than sustainable waste: Garbage with purpose and a place in the future? Maybe. But if something endures, has it been wasted? Is it still qualified as trash or does it speak of alternative possibilities for value?

The recent work of Stefan Gross sees him as a sort of scientist setting out to transform both material and immaterial cultural waste by employing a formalistic approach to physical properties and a slapstick approach to cultural underpinnings. Found objects, rescued toys and human practical and spiritual necessity are employed as the artist works to recreate a problematic that concerns him: “The world is a serious place these days. This is the problem that I try to solve with my work.”

Stefan Gross is the recipient of the AEG Art prize, the Kunstverein Drawing Prize and the Frits Philips Art Prize. He has been awarded funding for his ‘art you can hit’ project with Stella Boess (Love, Hate, Punch) by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture.

Tobias Allanson – Mac Gyver and the Mousse

September 10 – October 15, 2011

In the digital world we can recreate everything. Can we mirror that offline? Allanson excels at transforming the digital back to analogue: hand made, DIY, skate schooled design fun.

Swedish Designer Tobias Allanson has earned recognition for his inventive use of common items and the emphasis his practice places on action and approach. Having begun his career as a Graphic Designer, he then worked as an art Director (Modart Magazine), a Creative Director (Freitag) and later a freelance Concept Designer engaged by brands such as Electrolux, L&G and Absolut Vodka. He prides himself on maintaining a rigorous DIY attitude and transforming all types of objects in ways that please him, considering his professional endeavors ‘pseudo-commercial’ as he manages to satisfy clients with his own playful artistic vision.

Willehad Eilers – More Future

April 23 – June 01, 2011

Willehad Eilers’ latest project, ‘The Ill Mannered Milkman,’ is a film, which follows the infamous Teddy Milks and the ABC kids into the woods, as a fictional story is transformed into a real event through coincidence, ritual and the reflection of opening doors and dodgy decisions.

In addition to the film’s premiere at HLP in Brussels, the accompanying solo exhibition ‘More Future’ displayed some of the illustrations,masks and experiments that develop the ambitious world of Teddy Milks, the Alphabet kids and a series of sheds that became the skeleton of the film’s story.

“If a story has not happened you can’t commit it to memory. If it has happened, you have to be careful you don’t end up repeating it until it bores you. Eiler’s latest film, ‘The Ill Mannered Milkman’ avoids this trap. The work does not tell a preconceived story, but creates situations so a story might tell itself. Real people, fictional characters, performance and animation collide in the woods where kings are only kings if they are treated as such and ice cream in the sun is always good after a swim.”

Abner Preis – The Superhero Project

October 2010

I = S / S = I // = S = Superheroes are in our imagination. If you have an imagination, you are a Superhero.”
In The Superhero Project, we find the artist (as hero) performing by going to work in different cities around the world. His job is to transform experience, shift the perspective of other citizens and help bring out the hero in their hearts. His superpower? The ability to help you imagine yours and become a hero. Taking art to the pedestrian public at large, Abner Preis engages strangers where they work, live and play, getting them to consider: If they were a hero, what three powers would they have?

As citizens ponder the possibilities and applications of power, Preis transforms them into superheroes for a second or two before documenting their diverse reactions. Following performances in Brussels, Istanbul, Rotterdam, Den Hague, Munich and Perugia, the Superhero Performance brought Preis home after a decade in Europe. ‘Invisible: A Portrait of America,’ is the most recent work in the Superhero Project and sees him reinvestigating the American landscape through photography, film, and performance as he created heroes across the country.

For information on previous installments and work from the Superhero Project, please contact info@hl-projects.com

Events

Paper Parade

October 06 – 12, 2012

A Nina Boas project, the Paper Parade was a costume making workshop that culminated in a parade that appeared as gentle protest during the Brussels Fashion Weekend. Local participants created their own fashion items from paper and followed Nina and choreographer Chris Harrison-Kerr through the fashion parcours picking up followers like the pied piper as Nina sang her latest song through a mobile karaoke machine.

Second Mousse Sunday / The Race to Clean Air

September 16, 2012

The second Mousse Sunday, last year’s event was a team/community building workshop that took the form of a ‘car race’ on the city’s annual no car day. Teams sponsored by local businesses and institutions, brought Brussels native and international residents in contact as each team was given a standard set of materials and six hours to transform their bikes into their dream vehicles. The event finished with performances by Rodolphe Coster and Joy Wellboy.

End of Education: The Circle Game

June 29 – July 01, 2012

Curated by Merzedes Sturm-Lie in collaboration with the Royal College of Art (Stockholm), this event engaged soon to be and recent graduates from various academies in Belgium with students from Stockholm in an exhibition, which addressed artistic production, employing the notions of public space as research field, gallery as laboratory and museum as cultural vault.

Downtown Gallery Days / Abner Preis Performance

April 20, 2012

As a compliment to the exhibition ‘Running with Rocky,’ Abner Preis performed in homage to the people’s champion. Supported, insulted and egged on by Joy Wellboy, Preis’ performance spoke of endurance and joy, rallying the growing crowd.

Showroom MAMA

April 07 – June 23, 2012

An exhibition featuring artists in Modart Book 2, which included projects from Nomad (DE), Admir Jahic (CH), Zoe Strauss (USA), Mark Jenkins (USA), Stefan Gross (DE), East Eric (FR) and Isaac Cordal (ES). Following the exhibition artist talks with Harlan Levey and Zoe Strauss were held at MU (Eindhoven) and 21Roosendall (Enschede).

Beaufort 04 – Isaac Cordal

March 31 – September 12, 2012

For Isaac Cordal’s contribution to Beaufort04 he created a body of work called ‘Waiting for Climate Change’ that was being exhibited on the beach of De Panne as well as in a local historic villa once occupied by Chalutier.

Beaufort has efficiently created an enormous space for contemporary art in the public landscape and produced a series of work along the coast that would make any museum collection drool. The first three editions included artists like Wim Delvoye, John Baldessari, Al Wei Wei and Anthony Gormley and this year promises not to disappoint. Artists including Arne Quinze, Jaume Plensa, Erwin Wurm and Isaac Cordal will exhibit in a series of public and private spaces throughout the Flemish coast.

For more info visit: www.beaufort04.be/

UN – Say No To Violence Against Women

October 20 – November 06, 2012

HLP designed an exhibition of submissions to the UN social awareness campaign: Say No To Violence Against Women. During the exhibition’s two week run, the gallery hosted a series of lectures, debates and film screenings on this layered pandemic. Exhibition designed by Winglam Kwok with performances by Nina Boas.

First Mousse Sunday

July 17, 2011
The book launch party for Modart 2: ‘Highbrow, Lowbrow, Nobrow – Mousse!’

This event was sponsored by local business Café Costume, Cut Me and Mapp. It featured an exhibition of works presented in the book as well as performances from artist Nina Boas and local musicians Teuk Henri, Spookhuisje and ExcuseExcuse. The event was supported by the Salvation Army and 40 couches were placed up and down the street turning it from book launch to block party. Guests were free to claim the couches and 24 hours later were all in their new homes.

HLP offers a range of consultancy and creative services. These include acquisition, private events and team/community building workshops as well as curatorial assistance, art direction and design/project management (print/digital/installation/campaigns).

Corporate Patron Packages offer additional services like art rental  and CSR opportunities.

Please drop us a line and tell us how you’d like to be connected. We’re happy to speak with you personally. We offer a variety of consultancy services for art collections of all ambitions.

Harlan Levey Projects

Harlan Levey Projects (HLP) is located in downtown Brussels, at the heart of the European capital’s new gallery and design district. The gallery works closely with a small roster of artists who earned attention for various forms of agitation, which exercises mechanisms of control in contemporary society to reveal personal or shared beauty, highlighting opportunities for transformation. Since its origin, the gallery treats art in the tradition of Frankfurt School and Postmodernist thinkers: contemporary art as the art of living; a hyper-narrative revolution of the senses that proposes creativity as a guide through worldly experience.

HLP also provides critical texts to clients like Gingko Press (DE/USA). the VanAbbe Museum (Eindhoven), Showroom Mama (Rotterdam) and the Domein voor Kunst Kritique (Amsterdam), and produces an annual programme that includes solo projects, thematic group exhibitions with guest curators, performances and workshops.

Harlan Levey Projects
37 Rue Léon Lepagestraat 1000 Brussels, Belgium
+32 (0) 485 699 146
info@hl-projects.com
Wed – Sun 13:00 – 19:00 and by appointment