curated by Lorraine de Thibault, Dragos Olea & Erika Olea

The Loft, Servais Family Collection, Brussels — April 2025 to March 2026

Vulnerable Objectivities in a Garden of Delights and Horrors invites us into a landscape of contradictions, where materials speak, gestures accumulate, and knowledge is neither fixed nor neutral, but shifting, embodied, and exposed. A paradoxical ode to today’s algorithmic cacophony and sensual multiplicity, this exhibition proposes indeed a space of slowed perception—a speculative garden where truths germinate, tangle, contradict, and breathe. It unfolds as a series of vulnerable spaces of reflexion, writhing the common sense of objectivity.

At its core, the exhibition questions the very idea of objectivity—so often invoked as an argument of authority that shuts down conversations deemed too emotional in the face of an alleged, intangible truth. But what if objectivity were not an absolute, but merely an attempt—one viewpoint among many? What if every truth, every opinion, was the result of a choice—cultural, emotional, social—and that striving for a single, unified truth only obscured the rich multiplicity of voices that deserve to coexist?

Instead of chasing consensus at all costs, the exhibition invites us to embrace plurality and ask: how does an idea become a personal truth, and when does it start to feel essential for others too? Could it be that truth lives less in fixed facts than in shared emotions, in empathy and hope, amidst today’s fragmented world? Perhaps what we need is not an impossible, neutral objectivity—but a vulnerable objectivity, one that acknowledges our interdependence, our fragility, and the intricate entanglements that bind us.

This exhibition is a plea for slowness, for care, for radical entanglement. The garden, in this context, is not an Eden. It is a contested site, cultivated and wild, brutal and lush. It invites us to reconsider what it means to observe, to feel, to know—when the very tools of knowing are under pressure. It asks: What happens when objectivity, long thought to be cold and distant, becomes tender and trembling?

Featuring works by Adriana Martinez, Alan Hernandez, Angel Delgado, Antoni Muntadas, Artan Hajrullahu, Avantgardo, Daniel Garcia Andújar, David L Johnson, Denilson Baniwa, Edward and Nancy Kienholz, Edward Lipski, Elmgreen & Dragset, Erin M Riley, Eugenia H Ávila, Gillian Wearing, Goldin + Senneby, Grayson Perry, Ileana Pascalau, Jasleen Kaur, João Motta Guedes, Jonathan Vásquez, Kris Lemsalu, Lizzie Fitch and Ryan Trecartin, Nalini Malini, Martha Rosler, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Nikki S Lee, Nil Yalter, Patricia Kaersenhout, Pepón Osorio,  Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Radha May, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sandra Gamarra, Shuvinai Ashoona, Slavs and Tatars, Sophie Al-Maria, Titouan Makeeff, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, and Zak Ové.

Around the exhibition this year, with a desire to slow down and create space for shared reflection and knowledge exchange, while also giving room to quieter or emerging voices, two accompanying programs have been developed: Collective reading sessions (Arpentage) curated by Marie de Ganay and a curators support program (Forgotten Projects Lab) led by Cathy Crochemar. They are free of charge and taking place at the Loft. More infos and registration via our Instagram @collectionservais.

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