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.

What Would I Do in Orbit?

(c)image: AMVK
Decor voor Ballet in Wit van Marc Vanrunxt: Zwarte zon/Wit vierkant & Witte zon/Zwart vierkant, 1988
Installation , 400 x 400 cm, 800 x 400 cm
paint on pvc with iron hinged joints

(Decor for Ballet in White: Black Sun/White Square & White Sun/Black Square)

"These are elements from the sliding decor for Ballet in wit (Ballet in White), choreographer Marc Vanrunxt’s 1988 production in which five dancers perform cosmic rituals. The hand-painted mandalas on PVC express notions such as melancholy, God and time. The alternation between day and night, the subdivision of a day in 24 hours, the duality of dark and light: those were the themes.

I designed the images in the laboratory for Artificial Intelligence at the Free University of Brussels (VUB), with a symbolics-programme on a Lisp machine, the first commercial workstation. I have greatly increased the computer output, which makes the pixelation almost friendly, and then hand-painted it on PVC with screen printing ink.

My work at VUB inspired me to follow an evening course in animated film at the Academy of Merksem, in 1983, which then led to the film De 4 uitersten (The 4 Extremes), based on Marc Vanrunxt’s four short dances."

− AMVK