KRISTIEN DAEM

PICTURES THAT LINE THE WALLS — portrait series IV
Book launch and exhibition opening
Saturday 21 June 2025 from 5 to 8 pm

PICTURES THAT LINE THE WALLS is the fourth stage of Kristien Daem's portrait series. On the occasion of this new publication, the eponymous exhibition will take place at Saint-Martin Bookshop from 21 June until August 2025.

Kristien Daem has been photographing artworks and art installations for decades, in museums, galleries and other public and private spaces. Recently, she began training her lens on those behind the installations – the art's makers, exhibitors and promoters. While other portraits focus on female protagonists, this latest series brings together portraits of male artists, curators and gallerists. To accompany each image, Daem asks the sitter to select one or more artworks made by a woman. The intimate conversations Daem sets up between herself, the sitter and his choice of artwork are in turn surprising, moving and instructive. They probe what connects us to each other and to what we admire.

Throughout her career Kristien Daem’s work gradually evolved into a critical investigation of the medium of photography in the representation of art. By means of case studies she is focusing on unrealized, unfinished or unfulfilled artworks from the conceptual sixties and questions the originality and ownership of images and concepts by other artists. In addition, she questions her own authorship. Until recently, Kristien Daem’s photographs mostly did without people. It took the beginning of the pandemic and social distancing obligations for her to feel the urge to photograph artists and people from the art world. Kristien Daem (°1963) lives in Brussels, Belgium.