Ryo Kinoshita at Fons Welters

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So why does labor reappear? Why does "stitching" make a comeback? Impressionism's strokes showcasing its painterly labor. It had been that eventually genius embedded itself into the canvas, itself signifying "art," and blankness was fine. Does canvas no longer back painting's monetary value a priori? Do we need proof of work? Like the ornately etched lines of paper currency, making the labor of reproduction more expensive than the bill itself - proof of scarcity, value. Time equates to money. But now we have copy machines, CNC routers, childlabor and interns. Perhaps proof of work is just nostalgia for when there was infinite time, for when there was time. 

See too: Diedrick Brackens at Various Small Fires

“The Classics” at Fons Welters

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The lumpy that resembles us. The play dough, artists like the lumpy form since it embodies all the potential of their creative act, the embryonic, the material from. Rodin's lumpy men resisted the representation for leaving the remains of its sculpting. Erwin Wurm inflating his cars to make the sculpture apparent, otherwise they'd just be cars. The lumpy is an excess which proves the artist was there, showcases their hand. Things droop, we bloat.

Renzo Martens and The Institute for Human Activities at Fons Welters

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The fathomless villainy and flippancy with which Marten's conjured evil out of hats of kindness in Enjoy Poverty - in the end making us almost delight in the ability to manifest evil with ease and invert altruism to encompass its antithesis in a way even Ayn Rand never could - made him a nefarious star so dark that he himself, the handsomest bad boy on the block, competing with Wolfson for a mire of intentionality, couldn't handle it. And so in another reversal - not quite as spectacular as those that made Enjoy Poverty - Martens attempts a "gentrification" of the plantation wound he once salted. Like Tim Rollins and KOS the power of art as therapy expressive as well the as the monetary redirection it produces is used as a moral sword brandished, and good for everyone. But after Marten's toppling the altruism of everyone else he sets himself up here for the same, and you could use Marten's own premises, you could, say, recall the segment explaining horror sells better than happiness, and present the grimaces here, and raise your eyebrows high, you could and but who really wants to be that bad of a guy.