One of these things doesn’t belong here. Or: the difference between a handkerchief and a chunk of wood

One is a work of art, the other isn’t. It was funny to see the confusion, on that Sunday afternoon, with quite a few people visiting M HKA (Antwerp). Nobody seemed to be sure. So everybody carefully avoided to step on that paper handkerchief looking like a tiny mountain. Parents telling their children to pay attention. I guess that’s what happens when artists such as Kati Heck and Vaast Colson take over an entire museum floor. When you can sit on a swing and sip jenever from a work of art. When artists merrily blur the lines. What is art and what isn’t? Later that week I came across a great picture on Facebook, of former art gallery Jan Mot (Brussels). It has now become a hair shop. A couple of years ago Belgian artist Guillaume Bijl turned an art gallery (Etablissement d’En Face) in exactly the same street into… a hair shop. His transformation was so skilfully done that everybody thought it actually was a hair shop. You’ll find both pictures after the jump. And that work of art next to the handkerchief that somebody had dropped accidentally? By Bernd Lohaus, Untitled (1970). One of the works in The Gap, that must-see show by Luc Tuymans with Belgian abstract art.

Former Jan Mot gallery (Dansaertstraat, Brussels), now a hair shop. (Picture: Stijn Maes)

Etablissement d’En Face (Dansaertstraat, Brussels), turned into a hair shop by Guillaume Bijl in 2012.

Guillaume Bijl currently presents four installations at Cultuurcentrum Mechelen (through May 8). Info here.