Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (also known as AMVK) is an artist of singular complexity. Born in 1951 in Antwerp, where she still lives and works, she has been active since the 1970s as a visual artist, graphic designer and performer. She has always been a pioneer. She should, first and foremost, be considered an artist for the future. AMVK’s practice is truly interdisciplinary.

M HKA wants to introduce Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven to a wider audience as an innovator of forms and interpreter of moods - as oxygen of the whole society.

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven / AMVK

(c)still: AMVK
Theme for Thalys, 1996
Video , 00:03:50
VHS, computer animation

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven filmed “steady hand” with a small camcorder whilst travelling in the Thalys. She focused the colour in the three middle lines of the seat across her, until the tape ran out. She sat motionless and held the image fixed. The least vibration makes the image blur, but it corrects itself in the camera. This machine-correction brings movement anyhow.

Her work with colour is painting with new media. In video she feels a lot of relationship with drawing. The drawing as seismograph of the overload of information, impressions, words and notions from outside. While in language we can cope with things larger than ourselves, in drawing she handles things that are smaller. Lines merge unconnected matters together so we can control life anew. By drawing lines we keep the form together, in an attempt to gain control over impressions for which words are not enough. A theme is territory in chaos. (Ph. Luyckx)


Sound: Mo Becha & AMVK

Producer: AMVK /Club Moral