The solo exhibition "It could be James on the beach. It could be. It could be very fresh and clear." by Edith Dekyndt takes as its point of departure an encounter between James Ensor and Albert Einstein on the Belgian coast. Curated by Martin Germann, the exhibition reflects on this moment through the few fragile photographs that remain of the meeting—images that would later inspire Robert Wilson and Philip Glass in their opera Einstein on the Beach. At its core is Ensor’s Still Life with Chinoiseries from the gallery’s collection, a painting depicting imported fabrics, ceramics, and decorative objects that exemplify a Western view of distant cultures.
In dialogue with Ensor’s work, Dekyndt brings together an ensemble of objects, including veils bearing traces of torn wallpaper, textiles, Chinese and Japanese ceramics, and marine organisms. These materials evoke themes such as mathematics, the passage of time, and the atomic catastrophe of Hiroshima. A key work in the exhibition is a locally woven curtain inspired by Japanese kimono patterns—motifs that were seared into the skin of Hiroshima’s victims at the moment of the atomic explosion. Both delicate and scorched, the textile recalls the instant in which the bomb reduced matter to ash.
Positioned between Ensor and Einstein, the exhibition traces a quiet yet profound shift: from a world shaped by colonial ways of seeing to a modern era in which scientific progress carries the potential for immense destruction. Rather than unfolding as a linear narrative, Dekyndt’s exhibition gives form to this transition through the physical presence of objects, the temporal qualities of materials, and the resonant silence they leave behind.
