Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven

Some recent solo exhibitions
Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp 2009, 'On Mars the Rising Sun is Blue'
Wiels, Brussels 2009, 'Nothing More Natural'
Kunstmuseum Luzern 2008, 'Nothing More Natural'
Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin 2007, 'Oh, the sick Lady – Ah, the sick Lady (Explodes from Within)'
Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Aachen 2004, 'Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven'

Some recent group exhibitions
M Museum, Louvain 2010, 'Parallellepipeda'
Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, 2009, 'Rebelle - Kunst & Feminisme 1969-2009'
Manifesta 7, Trento 2008, 'The European Biennal for Contemporary Art'
SMAK, Ghent 2004, 'Dream Extensions'

Selected publications
Ludwig Seyfart, Über das Ich. Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven', Berlin: Berlin Künstlerprogramm/ daad 2009
Susanne Neubauer [et al.], Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven. Nothing More Natural, Cologne: Walther König 2005
Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven: 'The Headnurse-files', Aachen: Neuer Aachener Kunstverein/Bern: Kunsthalle Bern/Antwerp: objectif exhibitions 2005

Selected public and corporate collections
MUHKA, Antwerp, BE • SMAK, Ghent, BE •
Kunsthalle Bern, CH • FRAC Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, FR

Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven explores the relationship between art, science, politics and social issues. In the early 1980s, the fascination for mental operations led the artist to approach the scientific world. For many years she worked in the Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence in Brussels, where the functions of the human brain are studied and reconstructed. There she explored the uneasy accessible area of the unconscious. Hence, she positioned herself within a reviving tradition where scientists and artists collaborate and attempt to achieve a more human society. The subjects of Van Kerckhoven are frequently just on the verge of permissibility or 'normality'. Her multimedia installations, exploiting audio, video, computer and Internet, demonstrate a violent use of colour, and the harsh technological materials might put the viewer in a compromising position. Van Kerckhoven looks at the obscene in society from a female point of view. Since 1995, she has been working with images in which women play the key role, asking what pornographic pleasure consists of. Her aggressive pictures drift on nihilism. However, she refuses to take a moralising stand.

Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven is a former advisor at the Rijksakademie.