Part of this year's OFF program is SECONDroom, an independent platform that has been organizing single-day exhibitions since 2006. The initiative was founded by Christophe Floré in his private house in Brussels. A room on the first floor was transformed into an exhibition space where a different artist was given carte blanche to show work during a public exhibition every Saturday. This constant renewal of exhibitions gave SECONDroom an intimate and event-like character. Since then, they have organized over 300 exhibitions. SECONDroom is currently located in Berchem.
For Antwerp Art Weekend, SECONDroom joins forces with artist Guillaume Clermont. Together with curator Christophe Floré, they present a participatory in-situ installation made of cardboard boxes entitled 'Attempt of Rescue (Warehouse III)'.
Through an open call, artists and visitors are invited to immerse and leave objects in boxes of the installation. Those prepared cardboard boxes — known as 'Fountains' — serve as containers for objects of selected participants. At the start of the Antwerp Art Weekend, each box will be filled with water. As a result, the installation will continuously transform during the four day festival. Tamara Beheydt, art historian and SECONDroom collaborator, will write a text for the project and there will be a public talk with the artist on Saturday 18 May. Each immersed object will be documented for an edition to be published later in 2024. In addition, Guillaume Clermont will carry out a viral project in Antwerp. The unveiling of this project will take place in October 2024, based on a series of postcards documenting the project.
Guillaume Clermont (1983, Montréal, Canada) is an artist whose practice relates to notions such as repetition, abandonment, self-sabotage and the improbable. For several years, he has developed different art initiatives with aim of distributing art which can be as autonomous and original, as it is collective. He is a member of la Guilde des artistes and of the collective E IL TOPO.