17 October 2026

 We had a day of art today in three museums around the Leie participating in a biennial. The theme was how painting can be/has been expanded beyond traditional notions of paint on canvas. 

At the Latem Dhondt-Dhaenens it wasn't clear if or how the slogan outside linked with the theme, but I've since discovered that it's a reference to Flemish government budget cuts to the arts -

 

Though not massively well curated, there were interesting works here and there, and certainly good spaces in this well designed museum. I liked the large, generously proportioned rooms that let light and nature in.

The most interesting for me were these human figures sandblasted into glass doors, titled and hearts shut by Carlotta Bailly-Borg

Their placing in this museum space (glass on glass, interior and exterior reflections) felt like the perfect context for them -

At the Roger Raveel museum in Zulte there were a few memorable works like the changing images created on video by the bodies of four people -

But finding some of the exhibition less interesting (besides Raveel's own work that I liked), I entertained myself by creating my own 'art' in random images from the surroundings -

and here amused myself by capturing our legs reflected in the mirror underneath this painting 

At the last stop, the Mudel in Deinze, my eye was caught by the juxtaposition of these aesthetic real-life chickens with their bold black and white patterns and the ROA mural of birds and fish on the wall behind the museum -

Again there were some good visual spaces for art here -

I liked the juxtaposition in the same space of street artist ROA's beautifully drawn animal figures (I read that as a child growing up in Gent he collected animal carcasses and skulls to draw) -

and Emile Claus's Beet Harvest 

but the caged birds in the centre of the room were disturbing (how depressed they looked, barely able to spread their wings) - what on earth could be the point of this prison?