What is colour? Where does it come from, is it a quality of the matter, a property of light, or a reinterpretation of reality by our senses and brains? How is it related to our moods, emotions and wellbeing? Do we all see it the same way?

Colour is an elusive thing.
We can describe it in terms of hue, lightness, and saturation. We can talk about its physical origins, or about its intrinsic role in artistic practices. We can explore its implications in psychology and neuroscience, and delve into considerations about its subjective perception.

These questions have fascinated artists and scientists alike for centuries, and still today never cease to be explored and reinvented.

In The Colour Shifts, some of the artists supported by Ohme over the last two years explore the intricate and delicate interplay between shifting colours and our senses. Their works are presented alongside ongoing technical research conducted by Ohme itself.

Presenting an overview of the creative process and the artistic, scientific and technical explorations underway, The Colour Shifts is built around the concept of ‘Work in Progress’, displaying projects at different stages of development, ranging from initial conception to final realisation.

In this way, a dialogue between the gradual materialisation of ideas and the finished work unfolds from room to room, inviting us to explore, slow down, contemplate, and play.

With Karl Cazavet | Clara Duflos | Yannick Jacquet | Otto Lindholm | Adrien Lucca | Ohme | Thomas Raa

Artists: Laura Colmenares Guerra | Nazanin Fakoor | Federica Fantini | Ophélie Lhuire | Claire Williams

Why is mathematics so often perceived as an abstract subject, disconnected from reality, when actually it is the basic formalism humans created to understand everything in the universe, if not the very nature of the universe itself?
Is it possible to experience mathematics, moving beyond the printed pages of school textbooks and classroom blackboards?

Starting from these premises, Order of Operations unfolds in the vast space at the crossroads between artistic representations and mathematical objects, presenting the works of Belgian and international artists who – more or less consciously, more or less deliberately – have created pieces that make us experience maths in different ways.

The relationship between art and mathematics goes way back, to the very beginning of civilization, and it developed across continents and cultures for millennia.

In early Islamic culture, art and science joined in intricate star-shaped architectural geometries. The most famous figure of the Renaissance, the Italian polymath Leonardo Da Vinci, was simultaneously a painter, sculptor, engineer, botanist, and scientist.

In the West, the separation of disciplines – the so-called two cultures, scientific and humanistic – took place during the 19th century. It is at that time that mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss is said to have claimed that “Mathematics is the queen of the sciences”.

While both disciplines share their origins in the representation and interpretation of the physical world, over time their methodologies diverged.
The scientific school of thought became largely driven by specialization and hypothesis-based enquiries.
Art, in turn, developed its own schools and methods. Far from the vocation for a universal truth, it turned towards offering interpretations of ourselves, our experiences, our world.
Nonetheless, there are many points of convergence between art and mathematics we can see today.

Articulated in two main chapters, about representation and application, the works of the 17 artists presented visualise, interpret, apply, or unveil these convergences.
Through their creations, Order of Operations aims to start conversations about a more integrative approach to mathematics and the arts.

When we look at something, do we really see it? Do our eyes really see things, or only images of them? 

By asking these questions, IMG brings together images that belong to two distant universes, art and science, which seem to share nothing but their nature as images. Yet a surprising dynamic of parallels and analogies emerges, becoming evident as soon as they are presented together.

Based on art critic John Berger’s reflections presented in “Ways of Seeing” (1972), IMG explores the concept of the image as an abstraction of the physical object to which it is normally linked. By removing the materiality of the artworks and laboratory samples, and simply presenting the images printed on a semi-transparent floating immersive structure, the exhibition invites the public into a game of transparencies, overlaps and similarities, where the boundaries between art and science are blurred to make way for images alone, challenging the viewer’s perception and preconceptions.

Through a selection of microscopic images from the laboratories of the Université libre de Bruxelles, as well as images of works of art from the collections of the Musée d’Ixelles, .IMG invites us to enter into a game of transparencies, overlaps and similarities where the boundaries between art and science are blurred to make way only for images. Images in which we can then, perhaps, see something else.