Lambrecht, Luk

De Morgen: Kunstgrepen [Artifices].

Day and night (Phill Niblock, Jens Brand, Zjuul Devens - January 1996).

Met 43 [43 of them] (Schilderkunst Hedendaags Belgisch - November 1997).

Exit 1997, a busy year for contemporary art (January 1998).

Intimacy versus crash. Solo projects by Lieve Dhondt and Wendy Hirschberg (1999).

LL invites Croxhapox for a project in CC Strombeek-Bever (Brussel, February 2000): Carte blanche for Croxhapox. Hans prepares the project and selects Dirk Zoete, Jan De Cock and Anton Cotteleer. In October 1999 he vanishes to Spain and the new crox-team finalises the project.

DAY AND NIGHT - kunstgrepen [Artifices], January 1996, De Morgen. Review of projects of Experimental Intermedia and Croxhapox. About Croxhapox: The vzw Croxhapox in Gent is famous for its so-called 'installation windows', shop windows bringing art into the streets day and night. At present a lovely double play is presented in two opposing windows in Onderstraat. American artist Phill Niblock has an ingenious transposition of tourist slides shown digitally deconstructed. German artist Jens Brand fills the other window with a tragicomic and taunting play between a zooming camera and a misleading and seductive circular orange sticker at the window. The sensitive autofocus reacts to every passage and change of light. The constantly changing resulting image creates an impressive display of colours./ At the other side of the street Zjuul Devens is our host with a contribution in two parts. To one side is a kind of viewing box with a minute tomb of a frog and to the other side a monumental slide projection showing, at sunset, an impressive image referring to the tomb./ It is especially fascinating to see how the curators look for artists combining experiments in new high-tech media with a debate on art in public space.

EXIT 1997, A BUSY YEAR FOR CONTEMPORARY ART - kunstgrepen [Artifices], Friday 2 January 1998, De Morgen. This review  (side to side with an article about a Woody Allen play) discusses the following events and mainfestations: The big Summer exhibitions in Kassel, Münster, Venetië and Lyon (LL prefers L'autre, a project by Harald Szeemann); the happy expectancy in Gent which is waiting for the new Museum of Contemporary Art [later SMAK]; Ann Veronica Janssens in MuHKA and the art market-sensitive private collection of baroness Marjon Lambert; it is the private sector, says LL, which again offers the most interesting exhibitions:  Annette De Keyser, galerie Meert-Rihoux, Zeno X, Micheline Szwajcer, Deweer Art Gallery (work by Panamarenko), galerie Jan Mot; Netwerk in Aalst continues to surprise, dixit LL, wit 'a clear and pointed prospection of young and lesser known Belgian talent' (Leen Voet is mentioned); in Gent Huize Jacobus and v.z.w. Croxhapox; in Brussel the shortcomings of the Paleis voor Schone Kunsten [later Bozar] are compensated by a.o. v.z.w. Roomade, v.z.w. Encore and Etablissement d'en Face ('Brussel is becoming the place to be, says LL, for thinking about architecture.'); other meaningful initiatives: v.z.w. Constant, Argos, the Sint-Lukas foundation and the appartment project of Moritz Küng; the capital is bristling with fresh new ideas; so sorry, contends LL, one has to cross the border for the real thing: On Kawara in Villeneuve d'Ascq in the North of France, Van Abbe showing Jan Vercruysse; he goes to great lengths discussing the project and the oeuvre of Jan Vercruysse; finally remarking that 1997 was an art year 'in which the centrifugal forces in the visual arts were forcefully emphasised'; doesn't discern satisfactory solutions for new models in political discourse; art in public space remains contentious; concludes with a hopeful preview of the upcoming second edition of Manifesta in Luxemburg.

[LL was art critic for De Morgen before becoming the curator/director of CC Strombeek-Bever