Max Kesteloot
Index,ABOUT
Groupshow at Nightcafe Gallery, London (UK) Together with Ellie Pearch and Changpeng Li.
April 9th – May 2nd 2025
Groupshow with Enrico Bach & Cosimo Casoni at Valerius Gallery, Luxemburg (LU)
October 24th – November 24th 2024
Group presentation during Art Brussels with 10N featuring Julien Auregan, Eliza Ballesteros, Nicolas Bourthoumieux, Valérian Goalec, Max Kesteloot, Anna Ruth, Maarten Van Roy & Myrthe van der Mark.
April 25-28, 2024, Booth / 6B-31
Brussels, BE
Duoshow with Maarten Van Roy at 10N
March 28th – June 15th 2024, Menorca (ES)
“He go tapping his chromium walls like a crazy dancer.
In the labyrinthine corridors of existence, where the echoes of past and future intertwine, there exists a poetic dance between chaos and order, control and surrender. Here, amidst the celestial symphonies envisioned by Johannes Kepler, and the intimate landscapes explored by Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space , we encounter the profound tapestry of the human experience.
Kepler’s theories, like stars that guide sailors through the night, navigate us through the cosmic chaos, revealing the hidden harmonies of the universe. His celestial mechanics, a testament to humanities pursuit of control over nature’s whims, reflect our eternal quest for understanding amidst the vast unknown.
Within this quest lies the paradox of our human condition. We are but specks in the cosmic expanse, attempting to impose order upon boundless chaos. And as we grasp for control, we inevitably encounter moments of loss, where our best-laid plans crumble like sandcastles before the tide. In these moments of surrender, however, lies a beauty all its own. It is the beauty of remembering, of cherishing fleeting moments and ephemeral places that shape our lives. For in the fractures of memory, we find solace amidst the tumultuous seas of being.
Like the fragments of a forgotten dream, Max Kesteloot’s Untitled Paintings assemble in imperfect grids. Each part of the image is an image itself and the delicate white lines imbue proximity and distance with different meanings. Kesteloot documents his journeys with the camera, later selecting film stills to transfer onto canvas as pigment. He moves within his artistic practice between control and its loss. From this process emerge delicate, airy images depicting facades, window views, details of weathered surfaces, billboards and blurry light effects. We might be looking at the moving shadows of a leafless tree or the surface of a piece of marble.
Kesteloot presents memories with such openness that we can incorporate them as our own. The images bear noise, glitches and light disturbances. Small cracks and fractures deepen the poetic quest for traces when viewed from up close. These snapshots become abstract paintings, encapsulating the essence of different moments in time, blurring the lines between present and past, materiality and medium.
Maarten Van Roy’s sculptures and objects present a fusion of materials. The delicately crafted pieces are assembled in a way that they transcend their individual components. At their core, these creations evoke a sense of interconnectedness through their materiality. Whether fashioned from found objects or welded steel, they bear traces of their past encounters – a lamp stand reminiscent of a sunset stroll or a back-spinning wooden branch, chromed to a gleam.
Despite their laden memories, each of these sculptures possesses a distinct character. Each embodying a unique phenomenon, they seem to be everything from companions to ornaments, bearing titles like Diamonds, The Healing Game or Gravity Collapse. Like the broken glass object recalling the grace of a swan’s wing, these pieces find harmony within metal brackets and welding seems. Each connection, from cables to fasteners, crackles with tension, creating moments of synergetic alliance and evoking a unique sense of profound clarity. Van Roy’s works convey the feeling that they were fated from the outset, their parts moving through the cosmos, bound by an invisible thread until they ended up in the same place.
The artworks of Kesteloot and Van Roy appear to hint at the openness to the experience of life. It is the same notion that resonates within the walls of Bachelard’s poetic spaces, where the mundane becomes sacred and the ordinary transcendent. The secrets of their work lying in the visible, rather than the invisible, both artists conjure entities that connect us with the here and now and yet transcend time, space, and circumstance.
Flame on, I’m gone.”
Text by Luisa Schlotterbeck
Exhibition views by Jeroen Verrecht
Duoshow with Maarten Van Roy at 10N
March 28th – June 15th 2024, Menorca (ES)
Groupshow at Burr studio, Madrid (ES)
Curated & taken care of by Eloy Arribas
April 17th – 28th
solo exhibition by Max Kesteloot
1 April – 7 May 2023, Everyday Gallery
Installation shots ‘Darling, it could have been anywhere.’Credits image: Michael Smits
Max Kesteloot (1990, Belgium) delves up images from an extensive and chaotic archive of photographs and short films, looking for what he calls “things he could have painted”. Following the classical idea of what a painting is, the resulting works in this exhibition are acrylic and ink pigment on Belgian linen. Often when trying to photograph his finished works, the camera, not unlike the human eye finds it hard to find focus between crystal sharp edges and the blow-ups. The works of Kesteloot seem to frame the almost unnoticed background, the square centimeters next to a moviestar’s head, or a vague memory, halted. As the title, taken from an overheard conversation, says: Darling, it could have been anywhere.
Having “a five finger discount on everything he sees”, Max Kesteloot pickpockets images. A twig put on a windshield or a streetcorner view, they are stills from short films, often frozen mid-zoom. Working on canvas now with digital images rather than on wood with analogue print as he used to, allows him agility in size while letting him reframe the painting until the last minute, playing with its negative space. By working from short 10 second filmic captures, he has 10 times 24 frames, from which to make a concise curation. His choice of scenes suggest a presence of a “before” and an “after”, as the grain of the filmic early digital camera grants movement to his still lives.
A life between stillness and motion, he either spends stretches of time on each one of these paintings hibernating in the Ostend studio, or driving around the South with a mattress in the trunk, snapping images in a trail of continuity, like bugs on the rear window. Kesteloot, moved by a will to paint, looks for “good lost corners, places that appeal to him”. It’s a bodily thing too; standing in front of the large red car zoom painting, Max shows with a sway of the arm, how his movement ratio corresponds to the curve in the image. The way the painting is executed though, can be left mysterious, as “his private Coca Cola recipe”. Growing up in Benidorm, Max Kesteloot’s aesthetics have a strong air of that, and a salty sunny gush of America. A single yellow rose, a blurry palmtree outline, it’s the type of images you could imagine living in the corner of Lana del Rey’s batting lashes.
Text by Céline Mathieu
solo exhibition at Everyday Gallery, Antwerp (BE)
1 April – 7 May 2023
MAIN BOOTH –– 6B-18
WORKS BY: ASMA, Colleen Barry, Michiel Ceulers, Erik Chiafele, Daan Gielis, Serban Ionescu, Max Kesteloot, Bram Kinsbergen, Marc Leschelier, Mamali Shafahi, touche––touche, Dittmar Viane, Tom Volkaert
Groupshow with Nienke Baeckelandt & Bram Van Breda curated by Charlotte Crevits
Januari – Februari 2023, AHWNN Gallery, Ostend (BE)
installation views vandenbussche-vandenbossche for AHWNN
Madrid (ES)
200 x 150 cm
Acrylic, gesso and ink on Belgian linnen.
Stretched, signed in the back.
2022
Studio view, Ostend (BE)
Untitled painting #1 Alicante (ES)
145 x 110 cm
Acrylic, gesso and ink on Belgian linnen.
Stretched, signed in the back.
2022
Untitled painting #2 Madrid (ES)
145 x 110 cm
Acrylic, gesso and ink on Belgian linnen.
Stretched, signed in the back.
2022
Groupshow with Benoit Plateus, Tom Volkaert, Ricardo Passaporte, Natasja Mabesoone, Simon Laureyns & Nazif Lopulissa.
March 2022, Ostend (BE)
Groupshow at Deweer Gallery.
February – March 2022, Otegem (BE)
With works by Paulien Föllings, Hannah De Corte, Max Kesteloot, Bram Kinsbergen, Odilon Pain, Maude Sauvage & Emma Verhulst. Curated by Tanguy Van Quickeborne. With Demain.
Soloshow at NIGHTTIMESTORY.
December – January 2021, Los Angeles (USA)
Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be standards changes over time. Songs included in major fake book publications – sheet music collections of popular tunes and jazz reference works – offer a rough guide to which songs are considered standards. Such as The Real Book, The New Real Book, The Fake Book or 557 Swing & Bepop Standards.
Notes on adaptation. Not every corner can be captured trough a photograph. Not every movement can be shot on video. Not every logo can be painted again.
Not every memory should be brought home.
Not every souvenir should be adapted.
A STANDARD.
A go-to verse, widely known – however adapted from it’s original function. Performed by so many before. Not distinguished by content but by details, the little things, to make the adaptation stand out, or not.
THE REAL FAKE BOOK.
A printed collection of standards. A document that obliges pieces that were once adapted -appropriated – from different cultures, countries as a rule, call it a standard. A piece that was never intended to be performed like that, suddenly changing its status.
Groupshow at Everyday Gallery.
December – January 2021, Antwerp (BE)
With works by – amongst others- Tom Volkaert, Daan Gielis, Athos Burez, Benny Van den Meulengracht – Vrancx, Bram Vanderbeke, Ciro Duclos, Julien Saudubray, Thom Trojanowski, …
Groupshow at Avee Gallery.
October – November 2021, Kortrijk (BE)
Synchronised with the hybrid fair / exhibition event the organization of BIENNALE INTERIEUR Kortrijk.
Groupshow at Barbé Urbain Gallery.
August – September 2021, Ghent (BE)
With works by Adelheid De Witte, Charlie De Voet, Flexboj & L.A., Joost Pauwaert, Manor Grunewald, Max Kesteloot, Middernacht & Alexander, Nokukhanya Langa, Ritsart Gobyn, Sharon Van Overmeiren, Stan Van Steendam, Sybren Vanoverberghe, and Willem Boel.
Short video on my paintings which find their origin in pictorial translations of fragments from my short videos.
Oil, lacquer & acrylics on guache, paper. Various sizes.
Digital MP4, 4:3, colour, stereo, various durations.
2021, Madrid (ES)
June – July 2021, Groupshow at NIGHTTIMEPROJECTS, Los Angeles (USA)
Together with Christian Lagata, Katarina Zdjelar, Tommy Malekoff, Carl Andre, Matteo Cremonesi & Zhou Li Yang.
Exhibition views.
Fragment #102, Berlin (DE), Elche (ES)
110 x 145 cm
Magistra blueback 120 gr., acryllics, pigmented wall paste on board, 2020
ORDER HERE
First edition of 300 copies August 2020
Official book launch September 2020 at Centrale, Brussels (BE)
– available online and in selected bookstores throughout Europe.
ORDER HERE
design atelier Haegeman Temmerman
text & images Max Kesteloot
prologue text Bart Decroos
October – November 2020, Soloshow at NO Gallery, Ghent (BE)
“Tools are human-made objects for everyday life that exist out of the lack or disability to be able to fulfil a certain necessity. It’s a device to make something easier, or to just make it possible in the first place, although at first sight it would appear not to do so. The look of a tool finds it distinctive appearance most-likely in its functionality. Tools are for ever. What if we would take the aesthetics of found tools along the way. Parts of equipments that were once designed with care – although very neglect-able, I agree – for a very specific situation or place. A once required piece of equipment. Almost as if the witness of an urge. The witness of a result of a reply to an urge. Ah yes, tools are for ever and they come in very handy.”
September – November 2020, Soloshow at Centrale.Brussels, Brussels (BE)
August – September 2020, Groupshow at Barbé Urbain Gallery, Ghent (BE)
Together with – amongst many others – Adriaan Verwée, Benoît Platéus, Jan De Cock, Flexboj & L.A., Jens Kothe, Just Quist, Manor Grunewald, Middernacht & Alexander, Natasja Mabesoone, Panamarenko, Simon Laureyns, Sybren Vanoverberghe, Xavier Mary , …
Exhibition views – Barbé Urbain
July 2020, Groupshow at Goeben, Berlin (DE)
Together with – amongst many others – Maximilian Arnold, Jan Zöller, Jonas Weichsel, Conny Maier, Tobias Donat, Elisaveta Braslavskaja, …
Exhibition views – Stefan Haehnel
Villajojosa (ES), Biarritz (FR) on view Demain Belgium‘s private viewing space, Brussels (BE). July 2020
December – January 2019-2020, Groupshow at Barbé Urbain gallery, Ghent (BE)
Together with Marlies Declerck, Natasja Mabesoone, Marijke Vasey & Erlend Grytbakk Wold.
Exhibition views – Alexander Saenen for Barbé Urbain.
September – October 2019, groupshow at Espace Vanderborght, Brussels (BE)
With Bas Van Den Hout, Léo Luccioni, Lien Van Ranst, Luke James, Maika Garnica, Marlies De Clerck, Max Kesteloot, Mostafa Saifi Rahmouni, Natasja Mabesoone & Yoel Pytowski.
Happy to share I got granted 2nd laureate with both the Prize Collectioneurs et Amateurs d’art as well as the Prize CENTRALE for contemporary art during the 15th ArtContest!♥
Created by ArtContest. – exhibition view
27 unique filmstills from the film.
signed and numbered 1/1
unframed, edition of 1 + 1 AP
digital C-print on Fuji Crystal Archive
40 x 30 cm
each 200 € excl. shipping
info@maxkesteloot.be to order!
Click here to get an overview of the 27 different scenes!
Stills 2, 19 & 22 added above as a reference.
RE-EXHIBITING 019: MUSEUM OF MOVING PRACTICE
Part of the Tropical night installation found it’s place in 019 ‘s installation at the Biënnale van België. – June 2019, photo by Michiel de Cleene
ASANNAT
June 2019, groupshow in Ostend (BE)
Atelier Pica Pica, Lucas Dupuy, Dieter Durinck, Leo Gabin, Manor Grunewald, Max Kesteloot, Simon laureyns.
– exhibition views
Soloshow at 019, Ghent. BE
May 18th – June 2nd 2019
click here to read the introduction text by Bart Decroos.
Exhibition photos by Michiel Decleene.
TROPICAL NIGHT
February 2019, groupshow at Salon Blanc, Ostend (BE)
Max Kesteloot, Simon Laureyns, Yoann Van Parys.
Curated by Els Wuyts. – exhibition view
February – March 2019, Groupshow at Riot, Ghent (BE)
Curated by Manor Grunewald. – brought together by NEIGHBOURS.
On show: Fragment #5 – Benidorm (ES) – collection Manor Grunewald.
Exhibition view – Photo Riot.
January 2019, Curated by museum Dhondt Dhaenens – Deurle (BE)
September 2018, Groupshow at Subsidiary Projects, London (UK)
Curated by Nelle Gevers & Billy Fraser.
On show: Fragment #16 – Alicante (ES), Benidorm (ES)
Exhibition view – Juan Manuel, Max Kesteloot, Alexander Glass, Amanda Kyritsopoulou, Goncalo Lamas, Tristan Williams, Rhiannon R Salisbury, Alia Hamaoui & Fenella Brereton. Photo Nat Faulkner.
May 2018, 019 – Ghent (BE)
June 2017, MACAO – Milano (IT)
Videostill from SPOT SPOTS – Prologue due to circumstances.
Videostill from SPOT SPOTS – Prologue due to circumstances.
Videostill from SPOT SPOTS – Prologue due to circumstances.
2015, NUCLEO – Ghent (BE)
Group exhibition entry with GAFPA.
Alongside Thierry Mortier, Olivier Goethals, Luanda Casella & Giovanni Barcella, Bert Heytens, Kristof Lemmens & Paul C. Luttik, Thomas De ridder & Bert Joostens.
2015, NUCLEO – Ghent (BE)
Group exhibition entry with GAFPA.
Alongside Thierry Mortier, Olivier Goethals, Luanda Casella & Giovanni Barcella, Bert Heytens, Kristof Lemmens & Paul C. Luttik, Thomas De ridder & Bert Joostens.
October 2014, Soloshow in KERK, Ghent (BE)
October 2014, Soloshow in KERK, Ghent (BE)