Berserk Art Agency is a connector platform for visual arts. We produce, connect and curate.

Invisible Cities, exhibition cycle

The exhibition cycle Invisible Cities takes inspiration from Italo Calvino’s Le Città Invisibili, weaving the book’s imaginative essence into a series of 11 exhibitions. Each exhibition loosely dialogues with one of the book’s 11 themes, adopting its title while unfolding in a different city across the globe.
This ambitious cycle is both an ode to imagination and a celebration of ‘artistic generosity’—two important elements that we found to lie at the heart of Calvino’s book.

As the cycle travels from one city to the next, it seeks to engage with local artistic landscapes, inviting them to take part in a new chapter of the exhibition cycle, fostering dialogue between the hosting community and the broader international network it gradually builds. By connecting past, present, and future iterations, Invisible Cities grows into an ecosystem of exchange—one where people, knowledge, and resources circulate freely, enriching each iteration with new perceptions and connections.
The inaugural exhibition in the cycle, titled Cities and Eyes, will be hosted by Fridman Gallery in New York City from February 28 to March 30, 2025.



CITIES and EYES, February 28 to March 30, 2025, Fridman Gallery, NYC (USA)

Cities and Eyes is an exploration of the intricate relationship between urban life and the human “critters”—as Donna Haraway aptly calls human beings—who design, inhabit, and are shaped by the sprawling concrete labyrinths of modern cities. At its core, the exhibition examines how our position in space and time influences our perception, offering multiple vantage points from which to observe the city, its inhabitants, and the spaces that lie beyond.
The title Cities and Eyes evokes our ability to view the world from a kaleidoscopic perspective. Borrowing from the cinematic approach often present in Italo Calvino’s writing, the exhibition begins with the idea of perspective—the position of the “camera,” so to speak, and the way it frames what we observe. Calvino’s depiction of Despina in Le Città Invisibili captures this idea concisely:
“Despina can be reached in two ways: by ship or by camel. The city displays one face to the traveler arriving overland and a different one to him who arrives by sea.”
This multiplicity of perspectives underpins the curatorial approach of Cities and Eyes. The exhibition brings together works that each adopt a unique vantage point—whether from the perspective of the city’s architecture, the “critters” who inhabit it, or the interstitial spaces where city and Nature collide.

Cities And Eyes brings together and presents the works of Nicky Assmann + Rotor (NL), Younes Baba-Ali (MA/BE), Li Binyuan (CN), Seth Cluett (USA), Pierre Coric (BE) & Alice Brunnquell (FR), Laurie-Anne Jaubert (FR), Sky Hopinka (USA), Diego Lama (PE) and Jonas Vansteenkiste (BE).



PROGRAM

The opening reception of Cities and Eyes takes place on February 28th at Flanders House, The Flemish Representation in New York. This event premieres Alice Brunnquell’s and Pierre Coric’s short film The Ways We Are It (2024). The film takes Governors Island as a vantage point, an uninhabited island in the Upper Bay, juxtaposed with the towering skyline of Lower Manhattan. The Flanders House offices, located on the 38th floor of the New York Times Building, offer a breathtaking view of the Upper Bay and the Hudson River. With this setting, the premiere seamlessly intertwines the film with its subject in reality.

During the transfer from Flanders House to the official opening of Cities and Eyes at Fridman Gallery, Younes Baba-Ali performs his sound performance in public space ‘Carroussa Sonore’ (2012). This mobile sound installation, a curated collection of sound pieces produced by various artists, embodies the spirit of artistic generosity, inviting random passer-by to listen, enter into dialogue or join us to the opening.

On March 2nd, 2025, a morning guided visit to the exhibition provides a contemplative start to the day. The tour is enriched by Seth Cluett’s hybrid audiovisual performance Paradiegesis (2024), which excavates the often-invisible boundaries between urban green spaces and the concrete expanses surrounding them.

During the afternoon a panel discussion, titled ‘Inviting Imagination: Artistic Generosity as Resistance to Exclusivity’, is held at the Lenfest Center for the Arts, generously supported by Columbia University.
The panel discussion zooms in on the topic of artistic generosity and how it can be a tool to connect with a diverse audience and to open the artistic landscape to invisible practices. It offers the participating artists to present their body of work to the present audience and a selection of invited local and international curators. To introduce the topic of the panel discussion, Laurie-Anne Jaubert’s animated video ‘Tabula Rasa’ (2025) is screened in the Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room. Laurie-Anne’s 3D animated video explores the boundaries between the tangible and the virtual, the absence and the presence based upon the Navier-Stokes equations, fundamental formulas in computer-generated imagery and virtual simulations.



images:
Younes Baba-Ali, Carroussa Sonore (2012)
Li Binyuan, Amphiteather (2012)
Sky Hopinka, Mnemonics for Shape and Reason (2021)

Das Minimale Maximum*, Belgium, 2023-onwards

Inspired by George Steiner’s essay “The Idea of Europe,” Anouk Focquier currently develops a research project examining the role of contemporary art institutions within society. She explores their current relationships—or lack thereof—with their communities and consideres how they might assume a more vital role in the social fabric.
To think of a future where contemporary art institutions are more deeply integrated into their communities, Anouk Focquier draws on the model of the traditional European café. This serves as an analogy for how these institutions could foster greater connection and engagement, creating spaces where art and society can intersect meaningfully.
Anouk Focquier envisions a reorganization of the inner workings of contemporary art institutions, advocating for horizontal organizational structures, a shift from the white cube to white spaces, and closer collaborations with social clubs and cultural centers to create openess, exchange and ownership.
Through literature studies, conversations with art professionals, researchers, and audiences, Anouk is developing an open-source toolbox filled with suggestions and inspirations accessible to all.

With the kind support of Z33 (Hasselt) & De Studio (Antwerp).
Thanks to Ed Watts (The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester), Danny Bracken (The Mattress Factory, Pittsburg) and Yinka Danmole (AND festival, Manchester).

*a tittle inspired by German visual artist Wiebke Siem (Kiel, °1954)

Quasi Museum
Haren Prison Brussels, Belgium, 2021 – 2023

Based upon a concept of artist Ief Spincemaille, Anouk Focquier co-curated the project ‘Quasi Museum’. Quasi Museum is conceived as an activated art integration project in the prison of Haren, the second largest construction site in Belgian history, inviting both detainees, visitors and the larger neighborhood of Haren to enter into dialogue with this specific space and with one another.
For this large art integration project, Spincemaille and Focquier co-curated the permanent exhibition and invited a selection of artists to create site specific new works.

with Adrien Tirtiaux (B), Bart Lodewijks (NL), Maëlle Dufour (B), Daems Van Remoortere (B), Elnino76 (B), Ousama Tabti (ALG), Karina Beumer (NL), Katrien Oosterlink (B), Kristof Van Gestel (B), Sep Verboom (B) & Ief Spincemaille (B).

© photo: Adrien Tirtiaux, Daems Van Remoortere, Sep Verboom, Bart Lodewijks, ELNINO76















Art On Paper
Brussels, Belgium, 2022

with Daems Van Remoortere (B) + Ief Spincemaille (B)



Mirror, Mirror
V2Vingt, Brussels, 2021

Invited to make a duo-exhibition, Anouk Focquier brought together two artists researching the topic of the condition humaine, both from a different cultural and art historical background, expressed in – on first sight – two opposing art fields: painting and audiovisual art.

with Younes Baba-Ali (MA) + Kristof Van Heeschvelde (B)



Art On Paper
Brussels, Belgium, 2021

with Bilal Bahir (IQ) + Elke Andreas Boon (B) + Kristof Van Heeschvelde (B)



Belgium Art & Design Fair
Ghent, Belgium, 2021

with Kristof Van Heeschvelde + Ief Spincemaille



Anouk Focquier, founder of Berserk Art Agency, navigates the intersections of politics, imagination, and public space through her curatorial practice. Drawing from the philosophies of Hannah Arendt and Chantal Mouffe, she explores how artistic ecosystems foster dialogue, pluralism, and dissent within the public realm.
Guided by Mouffe’s concept of agonistic democracy, Anouk emphasizes art as a critical tool for creating the necessary friction that sustains a democratic society.
Building on Arendt’s idea of the public sphere, Anouk sees artistic practice as a vital element of a pluralistic democracy — a necessary “white space” where true freedom of being and imagination can flourish. Focquier’s work recognizes imagination as a communal domain where individuals can co-create new possibilities and engage in meaningful debate.
Anouk adopts a kaleidoscopic view of art disciplines. Her practice is characterized by an openness to collaboration with independent artists who operate beyond rigid frameworks, translating their ideas into forms that resist categorization.

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