.img: des images qui se regardent

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.

“L’œil ne voit pas les choses mais des figures de choses qui signifient d’autres choses.

-Italo Calvino, Les Villes invisibles

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.