Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce its first exhibition of works by Belgian artist Patrick Van Caeckenbergh. A voracious reader and collector of knowledge, Van Caeckenbergh coalesces bits of information—from scientific diagrams to fairytales—into unified ideas that are brought to life in his artwork. He is constantly organizing and classifying his research to make sense of it, and often mixing this information with his personal ideas and imagination to create a new narrative. Van Caeckenbergh’s conceptual work represents the visual articulation of complex webs of interconnected information that he is constantly collecting.

The sculptural installation at the center of Van Caeckenbergh’s exhibition at Lehmann Maupin, THE PICTURESQUE HISTORY OF EMPTINESS, Les Oubliettes – The Oblivions – De Vergeetputten, attempts to give form to the vast emptiness of the world—that which we cannot see. Approximately 200 hand-blown glass bell jars of various shapes and sizes will be placed on an industrial shelving unit, with the top and bottom shelves mirrored, giving the illusion of infinity. Drawing parallels to the emptiness of the atom as the building block of all matter, Van Caeckenbergh wants us to consider that emptiness is all around us. The jars were originally used to protect statues of saints from dust. However as Flanders, where Van Caeckenbergh lives, transitioned from a predominantly Catholic region to a more secular one, the saints were discarded and the jars became useless. Van Caeckenbergh purchased the jars from an elderly Belgian man, and they are displayed as Van Caeckenbergh found them at the man’s house—nestled inside one another, covered with dust, fingerprints, and the residue of labels naming the saints that were once protected inside of them.