Digital Mourning, conversation with Neïl Beloufa & Pierre-Yv

Neïl Beloufa (1985, Paris) lives and works in Paris. The multi-layered practice of French-Algerian artist, Neïl Beloufa occupies the space between various dichotomies. Reality and fiction, cause and effect, presence and absence are the polarities between which the artist’s work begins to take form. Developing his reflection on these by combining various media, including sculpture, video and painting into single installations, Beloufa masterly manages to deconstruct our contemporary systems of belief by moving between the real and the imaginative. Situating himself between these polarities, Beloufa’s practice is deeply reflective. Examining established structures of power, incidentally, those within the “creative economy”, whilst dwelling on the authority that is afforded by artists in today’s society, Beloufa eliminates his dominant role by awarding agency to actors or materials, informing one another and coexisting in installations as though they are actors and props on a set. Rejecting the alias of sculptor, or any alignment to a particular set of practices or creative processes, Beloufa works primarily as an editor, constructing scenarios to facilitate intersections between different meanings that viewers might build independently. Beloufa has exhibited at Venice Biennale, MoMA, Palais de Tokyo, Hangar Bicocca and K11 among many other renowned institutions.

Pierre-Yves Desaive is an art historian (University of Liège) and curator for contemporary art at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels. Exhibition curator, teacher at the National School of Visual Arts (La Cambre, Brussels), he acquired the Belgian Association of Art Critics (ABCA) and regularly contributes to publications on contemporary art (correspondent in Belgium for Flash Art). Member of the Digital Arts Commission of the Ministry of Culture, he is interested in the relationship between art and technology, in particular the use of digital media for artistic purposes. President of the Belgian section of AICA from 2009 to 2012, member of ICOM, he regularly publishes on contemporary art and media art in various publications, print media or catalogs.