2020-MMXX by Max Pinckers at Gallery Sofie Van de Velde

Inspired by a heightened experience of time and space with a society in limbo during the pandemic, the scenes in 2020-MMXX depict moments of boredom, introspection and delicate human interaction.

Overview

Multiple-angle photography is used as a tool to accentuate the sense of elongated time and deconstruct the illusion of space in pictures. Through subtle gestures, the images reveal that they are photographed at precisely the same instant by multiple analog cameras operated simultaneously.

 A single moment in time perceived from different perspectives calls into question the myth of the “decisive moment” and the credibility of a singular, authoritative way of seeing. These meta-images refer to their own processes of perception and relationship to their observers. Dancing around the fragility of a moment suspended in time, every point of view is unique, revealing something its counterpart cannot, reminding us that there is always something the photograph hides—that there are other angles to every story and different stories to every angle.

2020-MMXX was produced during a commission by the Capital of Rome for the Collezione Roma, curated by Francesco Zizola. Max Pinckers and his team were invited to Rome for one month during the COVID-19 lockdown in November 2020 and were given carte blanche to create work in the city that would contribute to the permanent collection of the Photo Archive Collection of the Capital of Rome. Research and production by Victoria Gonzalez-Figueras, production assistance by Zoe Zizola and Dario Bosio (10b Photography), and technical assistance by Quinten De Bruyn.

EUR42 (2022)
Gauthier Oushoorn & Ingel Vaikla

EUR42 echoes the final scene in Fellini’s Roma (1972), which depicts a group of motorcyclists driving through the streets of the city at night. Their headlights light up monuments and statues, which cast dancing shadows on the facades of buildings behind them. EUR42 relocates the scene to EUR (Esposizione Universale di Roma), a residential and business district in Rome, Italy. The area was originally chosen in the 1930s as the site for the 1942 World’s Fair that Benito Mussolini planned to open to celebrate twenty years of Fascism. EUR42 was made in residency at Academia Belgica in Rome during the same period as Pinckers’ commission; they influenced each other and worked on similar themes, departing from Italian Neorealism, among others.

Waltz (2025)
Felix De Clercq & Max Pinckers

On the occasion of their coinciding exhibitions at Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Max Pinckers and Felix De Clercq collaborated for a new work. Departing from conversations about each other’s visual language and practice, they made photographs together of a painting in process, which was in turn based on a photograph. The result is a series of five black-and-white prints in which wet paint, canvas, and camera join in a waltz. Photography eyes painting’s abstraction with envy but stumbles over its own shutter release cable as painting leans toward photography’s claim to truth with quiet longing.