Although this art is not religious, it shows a glimpse of the otherworldly

When you walk into the hallway with the impressive high ceiling at the Z33 art center in Hasselt, religious chants greet you. The Belgian artist Kris Martin makes the composition from a plaster-stained construction site radio Miserere mei, Deus by the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri. The banal, in the form of the dirty radio, contrasts here with something higher.

Kris Martin’s work goes well with the imposing sculpture by Peter Buggenhout that is attached to the ceiling further down the hallway. It looks like a burned-out building – the atmosphere is post-apocalyptic – that hangs menacingly above your head as you pass it. You just have to trust that the thing won’t fall. It makes you insignificant. The blind leading the blind #97 the work is called, a reference to a biblical painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It is a clever opening image for the exhibition A leap into the unknown.

In procession

In this exhibition, curator Tim Roerig examines the relationship between art and faith, a bond that was severed long ago, you would think. But this exhibition proves the opposite. Art no longer has a religious function, but it often remains influenced by it. For example, Z33 features work that nods to religious paintings: Cathy Wilkes’ beautiful canvases in pastel colors that are reminiscent of half-decayed frescoes in churches. Religious symbolism can be seen in Antonio Obá’s paintings: a priest’s hand with a candle, a halo, a white dove. And the nice video The modern procession by Francis Alÿs refers to processions: the artist has replicas of works by Giacometti, Duchamp and Picasso carried in a procession from Manhattan to Queens in New York. In this way he makes a connection between the veneration of art and religious objects, because for some atheists modern art has become a kind of alternative faith, and the museum a place of pilgrimage.

And then there is work that itself radiates something sacred, such as sculpture Shemkel I by Berlinde De Bruyckere, for which she was inspired by a Venetian Renaissance painting of an angel comforting the suffering Christ. Her work resembles a down blanket or a coat, but if you look closely, you can also see an angel’s wing in it. Edith Dekyndt’s beautiful textile triptych also seems sacred. She buried the middle cloth, causing it to half-decay due to the impact of minerals, insects and bacteria in the earth. The cloths next to it are covered with gold and silver – also material that comes from the earth, but noble. In this work you feel the vulnerability of life, but at the same time it is of an otherworldly beauty. This triptych in many shades of pink will make you pause for a moment.

With this exhibition, Z33 seems to have taken a new direction. After a whole series of exhibitions that had a pronounced political or social charge, with work that initially had to be approached cerebrally, the focus is now back on the visual. Art can be beautiful again.

At the end of A leap into the unknown a star-shaped neon work by Daan Gielis can be seen. Upon entering you could already see that work hanging, if you looked closely, at the very top of the hallway. On the first floor you can see the star at eye level, beautifully framed by a recess in the wall. It is also soft again Miserere mei, Deus to hear. And so the circle is complete.