Every year the Frans Masereel Centrum commissions an artist or collective to develop and realize a brand new exhibition project. From 1 July to 1 October 2023, this will result in the solo exhibition ‘Simon Denny: Metaverse Landscapes’.

‘Metaverse Landscapes’ connects discourses around metaverse property, NFT ownership and digital scarcity with histories of modernist abstraction and colonial painting as property claim tools. An important part of the exhibition will be created in the spring of 2023 in the workshops of the Frans Masereel Centrum, supplemented with some recent works by the artist, as well as loans from private and museum collections.

Central to Simon Denny’s artistic practice, which includes sculptures, installations, videos and print, as well as games and exhibitions, is a focus on the social and political implications of the technology industry, as well as the rise of social media, start-up culture, blockchains and cryptocurrencies. Ranging from recent technological innovations to data extraction and distribution, he examines how technology shapes governmental organisations, culture and the economy.

Denny finds inspiration in materials, advertisements and packaging produced by technology and media companies. This translates into graphical interfaces borrowed from commercial applications, linking the utopian goals of the new media economy with those of historical modernism.

Simon Denny (°1982) is an artist from New Zealand based in Berlin, Germany. Denny has had solo exhibitions at MoMA PS1 New York; the Aspen Art Museum; Kunstverein Munich; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MuMoK), Vienna; Portikus, Frankfurt; and was included in the 2013 Venice Biennale. In 2015, he represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale.

Opening hours
Friday – Saturday – Sunday (1 pm – 5 pm)
Admission: free (no reservation required)

For a guided tour (including a visit to our workshops) mail to info@fransmasereelcentrum.be.