Exhibition curated in the Henro and Ma-ka at Kanaal by Axel Vervoordt

It is generally accepted that we refer to ‘history’, as the Greek ‘historia’, from the moment there are written documents available. All events occurring before written records are considered as ‘prehistory’, although it is sometimes difficult to make a strict distinction between proto-writings and true writings. Sumerian cuneiform tablets and Egyptian hieroglyphs are considered as the earliest forms of true writing systems in which a linguistic expression is encoded so that another reader can understand the content. Throughout history, each civilisation has developed its own language and its own writing evolving from a picture writing system to a phonetical system with letters, words or symbols, using a large variety of complicated grammatical rules.

Writing allows societies to transmit information and to share knowledge. The greatest benefit of writing is that it provides the tool by which society can record information consistently and in greater detail, something that could not be achieved as well previously by spoken word.

Axel Vervoordt explains: 'The idea of this exhibition is to give form to something that cannot be expressed by words. Art is born when, at the moment of creation, the energy is stronger than the voluntary act of the artist. It’s an act that comes out of total freedom, without any commitment or obligation, opening the spirit to intuition. Artists have the unique ability to follow their intuitive feelings to express cosmic energy. They materialize what cannot be written. It goes beyond the act of writing.' This idea of 'automatic writing' was expressed on the second floor of the exhibition INTUITION in Palazzo Fortuny in Venice in 2017, concluding the series of biannual exhibitions we achieved there since 2007.

It was an exciting challenge to look in our own collection of artworks for works that represent this idea of Writing Beyond.

Press release courtesy Axel Vervoordt Gallery.