Modelling Life

An exploration of models in art and society

26 March 2025

© Estate of Helen Chadwick. Courtesy Richard Saltoun Gallery London and Rome.

From 30 March to 24 August 2025, Z33 presents Modelling Life, an exhibition exploring the role of models in art and everyday life. Featuring work by Mark Manders, Kasper Bosmans, Rosemarie Trockel, Atièna R. Kilfa and Helen Chadwick, among others, the exhibition brings together 14 national and international artists. Through installations, sculptures, painting and photography, they highlight the role of the model as a mirror and blueprint of collective desires.

Keys for new blueprints

Blueprints, models or floor plans are classic architectural models. Several artists playfully engage with these traditional conventions and challenge the dominant bird's eye view. For instance, Christiane Blattmann presents Passage, a rite of passage based on the shape of the key. Her sculptures combine hard (metal, fencing, plastic) and soft materials (cotton, cardboard, wax) to reflect on the transition of life stages. Mark Manders transforms a floor plan into an exploration of identity through everyday objects. With Pablo Bronstein, classical buildings are given playful extensions and modernist apartment buildings are set alongside ornate floral clocks. His watercolours model an alternative architectural history.

Personal boundaries

Several artists explore the limits of personal space. How something is worn takes on new meaning with artists such as Diane Simpson and Helen Chadwick. Simpson's architectural sculptures show how clothing and architecture model the body. Decorative garments and adornments are a point of departure. Chadwick challenges the sexist image of women in the kitchen with her photo series In the Kitchen. Not without humour, she places herself in handmade kitchen appliances, which she wears like clunky garments. Robert Gober and Sara Deraedt question scale.

Alternatives to see and be

Kasper Bosmans introduces a touch of intimacy to the expo. With a colourful architectural installation, he evokes the atmosphere of a bedroom. The bed becomes a a space to fantasise. In it, he places his well-known Legends paintings on the walls of the installation. These painted wooden panels combine graphic symbols with personal and collective stories. The same intimacy is found in Caroline Van den Eynden's sculptures, where memories, dreams and desires are captured in small psychological spaces. Architecture here is a metaphor for human psychology and development. Language as a model is touched upon in the work of Joseph Grigely. Grigely who became deaf in childhood, developed a unique communication strategy to communicate in the world. In his Conversations series, language becomes very concrete and tangible: talking together on pieces of paper containing words, scribbles, drawings and diagrams.

Mannequins and moulds

In Atiéna R. Kilfa's nocturnal photo series, one sees a woman looking in the fridge, taking a shower, going to bed. At second glance, the façade begins to crack: what we see is in fact a 1960s mannequin based on a living fashion model. The friction between the intimate domestic environment and the commercial model, makes one question the “ideal form”. A theme also present in Jakob Brugge's work. How does an object become a uniform for a certain lifestyle and ideology? In his new work for Z33, he uses the process of mould making and casting to reinvent garments such as baseball caps, belts or boat shoes.

The playground of life

Other artists zoom in on public space. Rosemarie Trockel looks at life as an adult through the eyes of a child. Eight different children's cars with their own personalities inhabit her installation: one is fluffy like a dog, the other resembles a delivery truck. It is a nod to Pieter Bruegel the Elder's painting Child's Games (1560), which shows children playing in a town square without an adult around. Park McArthurs' series Private Signs, a collection of US parking signs for people with disabilities, shows systems of inclusion and exclusion. The signs appear to communicate clearly but conceal specific requests. Are these signs there for those in need or not?

Artists

Featuring works by Kasper Bosmans, Christiane Blattmann, Pablo Bronstein, Jakob Brugge, Helen Chadwick, Sara Deraedt, Caroline Van den Eynden, Robert Gober, Joseph Grigely, Atiéna R. Kilfa, Mark Manders, Park McArthur, Diane Simpson, Rosemarie Trockel. Kasper Bosmans and Christiane Blattmann present new work tailor-made for Z33.

Curator: Kevin Gallagher