Axel Vervoordt

03/06/2026

Kimsooja’s “Dimensions of a Needle” is now open at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Toronto.
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Leading conceptual artist (b. 1957, Daegu, South Korea) presents site-specific installations across Floors 1 and 3 that illuminate the philosophical and material foundations of her practice. Working across diverse mediums, the exhibition unfolds through the metaphor of the needle —an axis, threshold, and point of encounter—through which Kimsooja has long explored handcraft traditions, female labour, nomadism, co-existence, memory, and transformation. Rooted in a philosophy of “non-doing” and “non-making,” her work uncovers rather than imposes. The needle becomes a model of consciousness—piercing yet binding, dividing yet connecting—while stillness emerges as a resistance to the acceleration of contemporary life.

On Floor 1, suspended traditional textiles—collected from Amsterdam’s diverse immigrant communities—hover as portable architectures of memory and as canvases released from their stretchers. Positioned underneath are the Bottari produced on-site in Oude Kerk Church, filled with clothing from the city’s multiple communities. These bundles embody themes of migration, belonging, and identity by resonating with Amsterdam’s history as a city of arrival and departure. Nearby, the video A Needle Woman – Paris (2009) anchors the space in stillness: the artist stands motionless within the city’s flow, a living point threading disparate lives and drawing attention to the urban fabric.

On Floor 3, the Meta Painting works return to painting’s material origin in linen cultivated and hand-processed by the artist, while ceramic vessels and plates from the Deductive Object–Bottari series translates wrapping into weight and void, each pierced or patterned with constellations of needle holes that open form to air and light. Together, these works propose wrapping and piercing as acts that shape not only objects, but consciousness itself—where the simplest fold or incision holds the depth of the unknown.
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Until August 16, 2026

30/05/2026

Now open: Bosco Sodi, “Scroll Paintings”
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Axel Vervoordt Gallery is pleased to present “Scroll Paintings”, a solo exhibition of works by Mexican artist

This marks Sodi’s sixth solo presentation with the gallery and his second in Hong Kong. Known for his richly textured, vividly coloured paintings, Sodi’s practice focusses on material exploration, the creative gesture, and the spiritual connection between the artist and his work.

« Scroll Paintings” debuts a new body of work that emerged from the extended time the artist spent in his Kyoto studio over the past few years. There, immersed in a form of silence, Sodi turned his attention away from building mass, towards something more elusive: holding a moment. The resulting paintings are quiet yet profound contemplations of time, expressed through languages of materiality and form.

Sodi’s longstanding affinity with Asian culture began more than two decades ago, when he was invited to an artist residency in Tokyo. Since then, the philosophical concept of wabi-sabi has been a vital thread running throughout his practice.

27/05/2026

Now on view at Kanaal
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Axel Vervoordt Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Belgium by Sopheap Pich (b. 1971, Battambang, Cambodia). The exhibition brings together a new body of work that continues Pich’s engagement with material, process, and the relationship between form and experience.

Pich is widely recognised for sculptures and wall-based works made from locally sourced bamboo and rattan, as well as works constructed from hand-forged copper and recycled aluminium. Rather than imposing form onto matter, Pich allows structures to emerge through repetition, tension, and accumulation. A latent grid informs both his woven and constructed works. “I work with materials that carry life within them,” he has noted. “They already have a history. My role is to listen and respond.”

27/05/2026

Now on view at Kanaal
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Axel Vervoordt Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Belgium by Sopheap Pich (b. 1971, Battambang, Cambodia). The exhibition brings together a new body of work that continues ‘s engagement with material, process, and the relationship between form and experience.

Pich is widely recognised for sculptures and wall-based works made from locally sourced bamboo and rattan, as well as works constructed from hand-forged copper and recycled aluminium. Rather than imposing form onto matter, Pich allows structures to emerge through repetition, tension, and accumulation. A latent grid informs both his woven and constructed works. “I work with materials that carry life within them,” he has noted. “They already have a history. My role is to listen and respond.”

18/05/2026

Closing Tuesday
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New York 2026
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Axel Vervoordt is pleased to participate in the 2026 edition of TEFAF New York with a solo presentation of works by Ida Barbarigo from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.

The selection highlights the pioneering artist’s unique approach to abstraction. Barbarigo’s paintings, especially her Chairs series, recast ordinary objects as evocative symbols of presence and absence. Through repetition, distortion, and atmospheric space, she creates psychological tension, transforming literal objects into profound energetic ideas. This curated selection places the chair within abstraction as both motif and metaphor, blurring the line between object and emotion.

We look forward to welcoming you at Stand 206, one of the historic rooms on the venue’s second floor.

TEFAF New York takes place at the Park Avenue Armory and the final day is Tuesday, May 19th, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

16/05/2026

Closing Soon in Hong Kong
Jaffa Lam, “Asteroid J-734”
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Jaffa Lam’s solo exhibition Asteroid J-734 is entering its final week.

In this deeply personal exploration of life paths, identity, and belonging, Lam transforms scenes captured in local communities and hidden corners of the city — along with found objects — into works that reflect her unique memories of Hong Kong and a quiet nostalgia for her hometown in Fuding. Searching and (re)discovering the meaning of home and self, the exhibition presents new materials, such as umbrella ribs and ceramics, that embody the journey Lam has been on over the past few years.

The exhibition closes on Saturday, 23 May.
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Finissage and Book Launch with the artist in presence Saturday, May 23rd, 2-6 p.m.

On the occasion of the closing of Lam’s solo exhibition, Axel Vervoordt Gallery invites you to a special afternoon gathering and the launch of the artist’s new publication, Beyond the Blue. Beyond the Blue is the exhibition catalogue accompanying Lam’s largest institutional show to date, held at the Shenzhen Sea World Culture and Arts Center early last year. 

Guided tours of Asteroid J-734 led by the artist will take place at 3p.m. and 5 p.m.

Each tour is limited to 15 participants. All attendees will receive a signed copy of the book.

RSVP is essential.

Please email mailto:[email protected] to register your interest.

16/05/2026

Closing Soon | Jaffa Lam: Asteroid J-734
Jaffa Lam’s solo exhibition Asteroid J-734 is entering its final week.

In this deeply personal exploration of life paths, identity, and belonging, Lam transforms scenes captured in local communities and hidden corners of the city — along with found objects — into works that reflect her unique memories of Hong Kong and a quiet nostalgia for her hometown in Fuding. Searching and (re)discovering the meaning of home and self, the exhibition presents the new materials, such as the umbrella ribs and ceramics, that embody the journey Lam has been on over the past few years.

The exhibition closes on Saturday, 23 May.
--
Finissage and Book Launch with the artist in presence Saturday, May 23rd, 2 - 6 pm

On the occasion of the closing of Lam’s solo exhibition, Axel Vervoordt Gallery invites you to a special afternoon gathering and the launch of the artist’s new publication, Beyond the Blue. Beyond the Blue is the exhibition catalogue accompanying Lam’s largest institutional show to date, held at the Shenzhen Sea World Culture and Arts Center early last year.
Guided tours of Asteroid J-734 led by the artist will take place at 3pm and 5pm.
Each tour is limited to 15 participants. All attendees will receive a signed copy of the book.

RSVP is essential.
Please email [email protected] to register your interest.

15/05/2026

TEFAF New York is now open at The Park Avenue Armory and we are pleased to present a solo exhibition with works by Ida Barbarigo.

At the Park Avenue Armory, home to the art fair with the deepest roots in Europe, five names wooed our critic, cutting through the star system.

12/05/2026

Now on view at Kanaal
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“Threads of Being: Textiles, Time and Transformation” brings together the work of eight artists whose practices unfold through sustained and attentive modes of making. Across painting, sculpture, film and installation, each engages with repetition, accumulation and material sensitivity as a way of thinking through form. Rather than approaching textiles as a medium alone, the exhibition considers textile-related logics such as threading, layering, stitching and interlacing as conceptual frameworks through which time, memory and presence are articulated.

Within this framework, surfaces are not passive. They hold duration, register gesture and carry the trace of labour. Materials are approached as active agents, embedded with histories and cultural memory. What emerges is a shared commitment to slowness and continuity, where meaning is not immediate but gradually disclosed through sustained engagement.

Artists include Barbara Levittoux-Świderska, Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, Jaffa Lam, Junko Oki, Chiyu Uemae, Waqas Khan, Varda Caivano, and Kimsooja.

Taken together, the artists in “Threads of Being” articulate a shared understanding of making as a sustained, embodied practice. Whether through thread, mark, image, or light, each engages with processes that unfold over time, holding memory and enabling transformation. The exhibition proposes textile and textile-adjacent logics not as ends in themselves, but as ways of thinking, frameworks through which rhythm, labour, and continuity can be experienced, and through which the relationship between material and time is continuously renegotiated.

04/05/2026

Now on view in Venice
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“THE ONLY TRUE BEAUTY IS PROTEST”, the inaugural presentation at Palazzo Pisani Moretta, during the 61st edition of the Venice Biennale.

Inspired by the work of activist Phil Ochs, the title frames beauty not as a passive ideal, but as a potent catalyst for provocation and radical transformation.

The presentation unfolds as a spatial argument across three floors and twenty rooms. Abandoning the classical dictate that beauty must merely please, it embraces philosopher Elaine Scarry’s claim that beauty adrenalizes the senses and renders life more vivid, animated, and worth living. The over two hundred pieces gathered here demonstrate the breadth of this volatile force.

Their artists and makers are earth-bound visionaries and material innovators from across the globe, for whom craftsmanship is a conduit for emotion and beauty is a tangible objet de rigueur for everyday inquiry.

Curated by Dries Van Noten with Geert Bruloot


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Fondazione Dries Van Noten
Palazzo Pisani Moretta
San Polo, 2766, 30125 Venice, Italy
25 April – 4 October 2026
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Peter Buggenhout participates in the exhibition with six key works from his oeuvre. Buggenhout (b. 1963) is a Ghent-based artist whose practice explores the unsettling beauty of material breakdown and the formless. By assembling industrial waste, blood, and household dust into unpolished sculptures, he transforms discarded fragments into a raw architectural language of ruins.