Z33

New curatorial team Currents #9 announced

Lieneke Hulshof and Fenne Saedt put the physical and tangible at the center of their work

Z33 Hasselt and Marres Maastricht welcome Lieneke Hulshof and Fenne Saedt as curatorial team for the ninth edition of Currents. The duo opts for a colourful, physical, tactile and tangible exhibition experience. Currents is on view at Z33 from January 28 – March 13, 2022.

Currents #9: desire for coming together

An explicit desire for coming together, beyond social and cultural constraints, was at the heart of the 27 applications for this edition of Currents. Many proposals dwelt on different aspects of coming together, such as visitor participation, the collective nature of a group exhibition, and a focus on materiality and physical tangibility. From these, the jury (Adinda Van Geystelen, Valentijn Byvanck and Helena Julian) – chose Lieneke Hulshof and Fenne Saedt.

“Lieneke and Fenne’s proposal puts strong emphasis on the guidance of newly graduated artists. In addition, they focus their attention on how art is mediated to broad audiences, including a public program.”

Away from the digital

The curatorial team looks back on a strange and disruptive year for the art world. They are looking for bodily thinking and opting for a “physical” exhibition concept.

“We feel like we have never been so busy and at the same time we have never experienced so little art physically. For weeks we were just working behind our laptops and increasingly asking ourselves what is the role of art really when it is not being shown? What have we actually been working on in the past year and for whom? To find answers to these questions, we feel the need to create an exhibition that brings together artworks that are impossible to experience digitally. This physical quality of the artworks will be the substantive core of the exhibition. A visit will be a colorful, physical, tactile and tangible experience.”

Curatorial team

Fenne Saedt (NL, 1994) works as a freelance curator, editor, lecturer and moderator in the field of contemporary art. After studying Fine Art and Design in Education at ArtEZ in Arhem, she founded the RUIS foundation in Nijmegen in 2016, an exhibition space that focuses on the experimentation and development of the young artist. Since then she has been the artistic director of this young art space. In addition, Saedt works as a curator at presentation institution POST in Nijmegen and Arnhem and columnist/curator at exhibition space Omstand in Arnhem.

Lieneke Hulshof (NL, 1993) studied at ArtEZ in Arnhem and completed her master’s in Art History at the University of Amsterdam in 2018. Since 2015 she has been working for the online art magazine Mister Motley, first as an editor and since September 2017 as editor-in-chief. She also organizes lectures, teaches about contemporary art, curates artistic programs and guides academy students with their theoretical research.

Currents

Currents is an annual group exhibition of work by recently graduated artists from academies in Belgium, Germany and the Southern Netherlands organized by Marres in Maastricht and Z33 in Hasselt. The exhibition is embedded in a broader guidance program in which training, networking and professionalization are central. The exhibition takes place alternately at one of the two organizing parties.

In nine years Currents has grown into one of the most important platforms for talent development in the visual arts in the Netherlands, Belgium and North Rhine-Westphalia. In recent years, more than 130 artists from 14 art schools in the Euregion participated and an even larger number benefited from workshops, fundraising days and activities. Around 20 young curators also gave their careers a solid boost by putting together Currents.