Edith Dekyndt L'origine des choses

For the vitrines at the Bourse de Commerce, Belgian artist Edith Dekyndt has composed loose arrangements of domestic objects (broken, fallen, collected, recovered, posed, covered, repaired, immersed, hung, suspended, floating, or otherwise) that recall the tradition of the theatre of objects, among other things. “These scenes, at once silent and alive, immobile and energetic, in which time is suspended, disconcert us in the same way that the artist was moved when she discovered Vermeer’s paintings in her twenties.

The non finito, or unfinished, is a key component of Edith Dekyndt’s work; her particularly open-ended creative process focuses on the notion of process and exploring ideas and experiences. As a starting point for this vitrine project, Edith Dekyndt decided to use a video of hers that has recently become emblematic and viral, Ombre indigène (2014), in which we see a flag made of cut black hair planted on top of Diamond Rock on Martinique.

Editions Dilecta –with the support of Kering and its “Women in Motion” programme– has produced a monograph devoted to Edith Dekyndt which features a new, large body of work made in the period since her major exhibition at WIELS in Brussels in 2016 and until the vitrines that surround the Rotunda at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris in 2023. The volume contains essays and presentations of the artist’s works, with contributions by Alexandra Bordes, Vinciane Despret, Tim Goossens, Léon Kruijswijk, Emma Lavigne, Dirk Snauwaert, and Katja Schroeder.