David Claerbout

Feel the heartbeat of history

Exhibition / David Claerbout

In June 2025, we will be welcoming an exceptional solo exhibition by the internationally celebrated artist David Claerbout (born 1969). His latest creation The Woodcarver and the Forest will premiere at Gaasbeek Castle. A work of art – not just to look at, but to live with.

The Woodcarver and the Forest presents itself as an intimate portrait of a reclusive young man and the attentive depiction of his only, seemingly banal occupation – woodcarving. Crafts, such as woodworking, have become the symbol for a generation looking for a way to relieve screen fatigue and forge a connection with the outside world and, above all, with nature. Simply watching a woodcarver transform a log into a spoon has an almost meditative effect. The repetitive, slow movements and gentle sounds of cutting and scraping form part of the phenomenon of ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response), in which auditory or visual stimuli can generate a deep calm.

The Woodcarver and the Forest is a processual film that masquerades as an ever-repeating short film. Only when you - as a viewer - spend enough time with the work does the film reveal its ‘Janus-like character’: its natural beauty and repetitive nature actually conceal a destructive act of deforestation. The vivid forest landscape and the whisper-quiet room in which the woodcarver is at work alternate. As the back room of the villa slowly fills with countless wooden objects, the bird population disappears along with its surrounding forest - invisible to the naked eye and only perceptible over time. The message that Claerbout seems to be conveying is that overconsumption and precorporation are everywhere, even in the mindful consumer.

In addition to this new film, an ensemble of works by David Claerbout will be integrated into the historic rooms of the castle. The works themselves offer a new look at the collection and architecture of Gaasbeek Castle as a palimpsest or hub of time. But also at the crafts deeply intertwined with it, because coincidence or not: Gaasbeek Castle is surrounded by a vast forest and contains ‘acres’ of woodwork in a nineteenth-century neo-Renaissance style.

This exhibition invites you to slow down and reflect.

Practical info
»  From 27 June to 16 November 2025
» In Gaasbeek Castle, the exhibition is part of the museum itinerary
»  Tickets will be available from 1 March

Production still uit The Woodcarver and the Forest waarin een houthakken hout zit te snijden met uitzicht op een bos

David Claerbout, The Woodcarver and the Forest, production still, 2024-2025, Courtesy Studio David Claerbout

Foto van David Claerbout in het Paipei Fine Arts Museum
David Claerbout © Espace Louis Vuitton München 2018, photo Christian Kain

David Claerbout © Taipei Fine Arts Museum 2023

Bio David Claerbout

David Claerbout (born 1969, Kortrijk, Belgium) is one of the most innovative and acclaimed artists working in the realm of moving images today, his oeuvre exists at the intersection of photography, video, 3D and new media.

He trained as a painter, but became more and more interested in time through investigations in the nature of photography and film. Fusing together the past, present and future into stunning moments of temporal elasticity, his works present profound and moving philosophical contemplations on our perception of time and reality, memory and experience, truth and fiction.

Using pixel constellations, image sequences, light, duration, ambient sound, installation environment, and the technologies used to convey these, his strikingly sensual compositions elicit new modes of perceptual absorption, expectations, comprehension and memory.

Since the first videos in the mid-1990s, his work rapidly gained complexity, and with the introduction of digital media in early 2000 it evolved into a practically completely synthetic image practice, which put him at the forefront of new media art. In relation to that "synthetic image", David Claerbout coined in 2018 the term dark optics, defining the changes within our image culture and the future of lens-based media. His thesis is that with the switch from analogue to digital lens-based media has increasingly become a product of AI, big data, etc. putting increasing pressure on the trust system promoted by the photographic image. David Claerbout is particularly interested in the effects of digital images on our "metabolism": i.e. how our physical and sensory reflexes change in response to stimuli in an increasingly digital environment.

He has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions internationally, including: Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2023); Milwaukee Art Museum (2022); Kunstmuseum Basel (2020); Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague (2020); Kunst Museum Winterthur (2020); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2018); Schaulager, Basel; MNAC, Barcelona (2017); Städel Museum, Frankfurt; KINDL, Berlin (2016), Marabouparken Konsthall, Sundbybert, Sweden (2015); Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (2014); Secession, Vienna, Austria; Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel; Parasol unit, London (2012); SFMOMA, San Francisco; WIELS, Brussels, Belgium (2011); De Pont museum of contemporary art, Tilburg, The Netherlands (2009) and (2016); Pompidou Center, Paris, France (2007); Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen, Switzerland (2008); and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (2005).

His work is represented in major public collections worldwide.