Joris van De Moortel was born in 1983, à Ghent (Belgium). He lives and works in Antwerp (Belgium).
Having graduated from the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (Germany) in 2013, and from the Higher Institute of Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent (Belgium) in 2009, Joris Van de Moortel is one of the most remarkable artists of the contemporary Belgian scene.
Joris Van de Moortel was the subject of noteworthy solo exhibitions, including Guitare préparée at SintLukas Galerie (Brussels, Belgium) in 2019; Cachivage Bugui Bugui at BOZAR (Palais des Beaux-Arts in Bruxelles, Belgium) in 2018 ; Pink Noises, his first solo exhibition in the United States, at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta in 2016; Ça vous intéresse l'architecture? Botanical vibrations travel through the air tangled as wires, attempting to play with the rhythmic structure at Centre d'art Be Part (Waregem, Belgium) in 2015.
Joris Van de Moortel also participated in several important group exhibitions, including Eyes East Bound during the 13th edition of the Cairo International Biennale of Art (Egypt) in 2019 ; Danser Brut at LaM (Lille Métropole Musée d'art moderne, d'art contemporain et d'art brut, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France) in 2018 ; Ecce Homo at the Mayer Van Den Bergh Museum (Antwerp, Belgium) in 2017, which brought together around fifty other Belgian artists including Luc Tuymans, Michaël Booremans, and Ann Veronica Janssens; Rebel, Rebel at MAC's (Musée des arts contemporains de la Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles, Grand Hornu, Belgium) in 2016; Passion - Fan behaviour and art, a traveling exhibition that took place in 2015 and 2016 at the Ludwig Museum (Budapest, Hungary), the Stadtgalerie (Kiel, Germany), the Kunstlerhaus (Nuremberg, Germany), and Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin, Germany); Des choses en moins, des choses en plus at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France) in 2014; Upside down Part 2 Let's Dance at SMAK (Ghent, Belgium) in 2013; Spontaneously at the Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Warsaw, Poland) in 2012; and Exploded view at Centraal Museum (Utrecht, Netherlands) also in 2012.
In June 2019, Joris Van de Moortel won the Cairo International Biennale award for his participation in its 13th edition (Cairo, Egypt).
Works by Joris Van de Moortel are held by important institutional and private collections, such as the Vehbi Koç Foundation (Istanbul, Turkey); the Dena Foundation for Contemporary Art (Paris, France/New York, USA); the collection of Centraal Museum (Utrecht, Netherlands); the Collection Raja (Roissy-en-France, France); and the Ghisla Art Collection (Locarno, Switzerland.
Joris Van de Moortel has been represented by la Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels since 2013.
Joris van de Moortel has created an extremely substantial and controlled body of work in which art and experimental music are treated as indissociable disciplines. At once a painter, self-taught musician, sculptor and performer, Van de Moortel continues his exploration of deconstruction as a generative dimension of creation.
Occasionally during performances that introduce his exhibitions, Joris Van de Moortel produces music (guitar, singing, mixing, drums, etc.) while also destroying his equipment: he may cut through aluminium sheets with a chainsaw, smash glass panels, throw paint over tangles of cables and demolish his musical instruments, which he leaves unplugged among the debris. The resulting debris is left to lie fallow during the exhibition until the artist recuperates it all so that he can use it as the raw materials for his next works of art.
The volumes-works created using the vestiges from previous sound sessions will complement the display of works around the central island on which the band will play. Taken together, the stretchers, formats and assiduous composition are suggestive of painting, the constraints of which Joris Van de Moortel splendidly transcends.
Veritable box-objects, these sculptural volumes and low-relief paintings are combined with neon tubes (whose appearance is like a brushstroke of watercolour), oil paint, traces of spray cans and varnish, the destroyed raw materials from past concerts (resonance chambers, steel, glass, aluminium, Plexiglas, fabric, polyurethane, plastic, mirrors, chains, rope), leather and clothes, mouldings in resin and bronze, caged canaries, metal grills like frameworks, insulating foam and silicone, electric cables that bind compound objects together, speakers, amplifiers, videos, sockets, televisions, transformers, microphones, digital prints of film negatives, duratrans, photographs, calotypes and silkscreened reproductions on wallpaper, and the binder and rubble to hold everything together. The volumes and paintings become supreme, mediums imbued with meaning and objects, imbued with memories for Joris Van de Moortel.