The Ideal Form is the latest manifestation of an ongoing body of work by Antwerp-based artist Paul Hendrikse. As with its related installations, performances and printed works, the book considers the complex legacy of Lode Craeybeckx, Antwerp’s mayor from 1946 to 1976 and one of the main instigators of the city’s renowned Middelheim sculpture park. By sampling the Middelheim’s collection, Hendrikse charts the intricate relations between modernist form, the politics of postwar reconstruction and the performances involved in collecting, displaying and looking at public sculpture.

Published with Objectif Exhibitions and the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp

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