Solo Exhibition
Edith Dekyndt Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens
A meeting between James Ensor and Albert Einstein on the Belgian coast serves as the starting point for this solo exhibition by Edith Dekyndt, curated by Martin Germann.
Only a few fragile photographs remain from that encounter—images that would later inspire Robert Wilson and Philip Glass in their opera Einstein on the Beach.
At the center of the exhibition is Ensor’s “Still Life with Chinoiseries,” from the museum’s own collection. This work depicts imported objects—fabrics, ceramics, decorative elements—and embodies a Western perspective on distant lands. Around this work, Dekyndt has created a series of new works, including a locally woven curtain inspired by Japanese kimono patterns that, at the moment of the atomic explosion, were burned into the skin of Hiroshima’s victims.
The exhibition evokes a subtle transition: from a world shaped by colonial perspectives to a modern era in which science brings both understanding and destruction. Dekyndt does not depict this shift through narrative, but through silence, slowness, and the physical presence of materials.
Only a few fragile photographs remain from that encounter—images that would later inspire Robert Wilson and Philip Glass in their opera Einstein on the Beach.
At the center of the exhibition is Ensor’s “Still Life with Chinoiseries,” from the museum’s own collection. This work depicts imported objects—fabrics, ceramics, decorative elements—and embodies a Western perspective on distant lands. Around this work, Dekyndt has created a series of new works, including a locally woven curtain inspired by Japanese kimono patterns that, at the moment of the atomic explosion, were burned into the skin of Hiroshima’s victims.
The exhibition evokes a subtle transition: from a world shaped by colonial perspectives to a modern era in which science brings both understanding and destruction. Dekyndt does not depict this shift through narrative, but through silence, slowness, and the physical presence of materials.
1 February - 17 May 2026