BELGIAN FUNHOUSE - First Edition

‘What’s this duck doing in my establishment?’ ‘She wants to watch the movie,’ Tiny said amiably, cutting off Granddaddy who was already starting to froth. ‘We don’t want anything unusual,’ the manager said firmly, if without immediate reference. Granddaddy erupted, ‘Well that really narrows the shit out of your life, don’t it? This happens to be a Kung Fu Attack Duck, especially bred by the Tong Society. We’d leave her home, but she’s killing all the coyotes.’ ‘That’s not really true, sir,’ Tiny said quickly. ‘We found her in a posthole and raised her up. She’s kinda family.’ ‘Listen,’ the manager said, raising his hands in either exasperation or surrender, ‘we are willing to be reasonable about this but …’ ‘I’m not,’ Granddaddy snarled, grinding the two teeth that met. ‘If you don’t go away and leave us alone to enjoy our evening at this shithole excuse of a drive-in, we will come back tomorrow night with the bed of this truck full of wild pigs and a couple of throughs full of fermented corn mash, and if that doesn’t sway your intelligence we’ll come back the next night and my son Tiny will tear off your arms and pound on your head with them until you get the idea.’ ‘I’d only do that if I was really mad,’ Tiny assured him. Fup tucked her head under her wing. ‘I won’t be threatened,’ the manager shrilled. ‘No, you’ll be hurting,’ Granddaddy promised. Then he added, still sharply but somewhat softer, ‘A duck. A duck. What possible fucking difference could it make to your stunted heart or the world at large?’ ‘ All right, all right,’ the manager relented, backing away. ‘ But keep it in the car. And if there’s anything unusual, you’re out. And no refund.’ [from: Jim Dodge: FUP, Edinburgh, 2015, p. 72-74.] Theresa Büchner (*1993, Aachen) develops photographic, cinematic and text-based works. Making use of visual and verbal narrative tools, she precisely selects motifs from her surroundings to evoke the poetic attraction of the everyday. She holds a BA from Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam, and an MA from University of Applied Sciences Hamburg. In 2022 she completed her studies with a Meisterschüler title at Städelschule Frankfurt am Main (class of Willem de Rooij). Her works have been shown at Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Kasseler Dokfest, Nederlands Film Festival and Nederlands Fotomuseum among others. For Record-Nuter (2024) Theresa Büchner makes use of a depiction from a catalog for wood working tools, which belonged to her great-grandfather, a carpenter specialized in building staircases. Strong magnification lends the image of a precision tool for making grooves the visual character of a religious symbol. Record-Nuter, 2024 inkjet print on coloured paper, 118,8 x 189 cm Hannes Dünnebier (*1997, Germany) studied Fine Arts at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem and Bauhaus University Weimar, where he graduated in 2022. In 2023 he completed his post graduate studies at Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Hannes Dünnebier’s graphite drawings, textile pieces and stage-like installations are counter-models to the existing world. By means of fiction he examines social and (sub-)cultural phenomena and romanticizes doom and gloom with subliminal sensitivity. In HEAVY TRAFFIC (2024) he takes on the unassuming elegance and stoic solidity of double-t paving stones, that are laid on countless driveways, patios and parking lots around the world. The emphatic handcrafting of this textile piece, from dyeing the cotton fabric to meticulously hand-stitching the individual pieces together, stands in stark contrast to the standardized mass production and fast laying method of the referenced material. The collision of an ideal concept with the artist's very own perception, thus the universal conflict between (societal) expectations and self-experienced reality is a recurring theme in Dünnebier’s work. HEAVY TRAFFIC, 2024 raw cotton fabric, acrylic paint, thread, 385 x 180 cm Eduardo José Rubio Parra (*1994) is a Colombian artist based in Antwerp. His work consists mainly of graphite drawings and photographic self-portraits, in which he depicts himself as various imaginary characters that he uses as a medium to explore views on death, the afterlife, supernatural phenomena and the unknown. Straddling two cultures, Rubio Parra's work merges the living traditions of religious phenomena from his native Colombia with tales of European mythology and superstition. In our society, horns are objects loaded with many meanings, most of them negative. Many people associate horns with evil, the devil and his demons. At first glance, in the ongoing series of drawings TROFEOS, the horns seem to indicate nothing in particular, as they have neither a face nor a defined body. However, the title of the work, which translates as "trophies" in English, implies something different. According to the artist, the horns are the trophies of the demons he himself has killed. We all have to deal with demons in our lives. They usually come unannounced and attack us. No matter how many demons we have defeated in our lifetime, there will always be a new one lurking in the shadows. But what happens when, in anticipation of the inevitable, we decide to stalk and attack these demons first? How do we lure our prey? Perhaps by taking on their appearance? TROFEOS (I-IV), 2024 graphite on paper, glass, wood, 67,4 x 57,4 x 4 cm