For the series of exhibitions ‘De keuze van’ (The choice of), Kunsthal Extra City has invited some of Antwerp’s most renowned artists to nominate a promising artist who in their view is absolutely deserving of (inter)national recognition. This artist is then given a solo exhibition and the necessary support to take the next important step in their artistic career.

For the first edition, Guillaume Bijl has selected the artists Vedran Kopljar and Evelin Brosi & Elvis Bonier:
"Both artists caught my attention over the last few years due to their consistent individual language and form, in which humour is never far away. Regarding their work, I would say: don’t expect anything from it ... because it’s like nothing else in the art world. This fills me with confidence and makes me very curious about what the future holds for them.”
(Guillaume Bijl)

“A residency is a place where someone or something resides temporarily. In this case it possibly refers to the space where the minority resides, or the place that is called minority. The primary minority – i.e. the I and the state of being an indi- vidual – comes into being when the other is defined as such.
The ‘inner space’ is a space within. The place where things are placed that are found within. The interior of the residency – a person or another vessel in which something can be accommodated. The place where thoughts, emotions and mem- ories usually dwell.”
(Vedran Kopljar)

“For the duration of the exhibition, Evelin Brosi & Elvis Bonier is working a part-time job in the cultural field: in Kunsthal Extra City, he is spending 60% of his official working hours in the capacity of open-air attendant. In addition to this, the artist can be found between 2 pm and 6 pm ‘en plein air’, in the landscape of 21st century Antwerp. On the balcony he becomes a fragment of a little piece of world and the eyes of the viewer are led past his presence and into the dreary urban distance.
This painterly scene is supplemented with a collection of obvious, self-explanatory works – things that speak ‘for their stupid selves’ or ‘mindlessly about themselves’ – works that attest to the persistent efforts of Evelin Brosi & Elvis Bonier to get in (a) thoughtless shape.
However plausible it is that in these works repetition is turned against itself, there remains the chance that what is here to be felt are nothing more than indifferent procedures.”
(Evelin Brosi & Elvis Bonier)

With the support of the City of Antwerp.