When is a work of art finished, done, terminated? In this essay, Christophe Van Gerrewey suggests that the incompleteness of art mirrors the undecidability of the world, about which the last word hasn’t been said yet either. An artwork can be unfinished in seven ways: it is completed by the audience, it suggests a better world, the artist can’t leave it behind, it is a collective process, it reflects modesty, it is too utopian (for the time being), or its value has yet to be discovered. Van Gerrewey’s philosophical essay appeared in De Witte Raaf #194 in 2018 and will now be published in book form, bilingual Dutch/English.
The text is illustrated by photographs of artists’ studios, places where all these thoughts and reflections can find an origin. Katrien Daemers photographed fifteen studios of contemporary artists, leaving the artist absent but letting the (un)completed work speak for itself. With studio photographs of Nel Aerts, Michaël Borremans, Kasper Bosmans, Ria Bosman, Luc Deleu, Nikolaas Demoen, Jan De Vylder, Bendt Eyckermans, Sophie Nys, Angyvir Padilla, Laure Prouvost, Clara Spilliaert, Carole Vanderlinden, Philippe Van Snick, Dirk Zoete.
Christophe Van Gerrewey (1982) is an author, critic and teacher. He published three novels and a collection of essays between 2012 and 2017. He has been an editorial board member of architecture magazine OASE since 2010 and, since 2018, of art magazine De Witte Raaf. From 2015 to 2024, he taught architectural theory at EPFL in Switzerland. In June 2024, the survey work Something Completely Different. Architecture in Belgium will be published by MIT Press (London/Cambridge).
