The Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country, Artium Museoa, presents the exhibition El caso de l(a casa) museo(a) [A1, Z and A2 galleries, until 27 April 2025] by the Belgian artist Joëlle Tuerlinckx. This exhibition is a disconcerting retrospective that brings together historical works alongside recent proposals and pieces specifically produced in the room, which in turn are traces and records of previous pieces and exhibitions. On the occasion of the exhibition, Artium Museoa has edited a publication of the Hitzak Collection with texts by the artist and an introduction by Beatriz Herráez and Catalina Lozano, curators of the exhibition. El caso de l(a casa) museo(a), the first Tuerlinckx retrospective in Spain, is a project produced by Artium Museoa and developed in collaboration with Kanal Centre Pompidou, Brussels.

The oeuvre of Joëlle Tuerlinckx (Brussels, Belgium, 1958) results from systems of work in which different temporalities and spatialities are summoned and reanimated in given spaces, including her studio. In this regard, her production is both absolutely site-specific and radically abstract by challenging us on notions such as time and space. By assuming and transforming the legacy of conceptual art, performance, practices stemming from institutional critique and sound installations, the artist displaces and transforms museum protocols and devices and engages work teams of the places she intervenes, turning their roles, words and everyday gestures in raw material of her production.

After several visits to the museum and extensive conversations with its teams, Tuerlinckx, in collaboration with the artist Christoph Fink (Ghent, Belgium, 1963), constructed a symphony that acts as a network of echoes and resonances where the different subjects/actors interact or overlap; a multilingual sonic palimpsest triggered by several voices reading the texts and statements suggested by the artist, as we hear them spontaneously respond to questions she asked them about their work and the functioning of the institution.

The title of the exhibition refers to domestic (la casa/the house) and institutional (museo(a)/museum) spaces as two dimensions between which the show oscillates. They reveal the ways in which Tuerlinckx tackles her work – as case studies – while acting as stages where a daily theatre takes place with subtle appearances: shadows, reflections, sounds that also makeup the material reality of this ever-changing, off-centre space. Between the house and the museum, these games of doubles and temporal unfoldings that now inhabit this museum happen too.

Joëlle Tuerlinckx's work has been shown in international exhibitions and venues such as Skulptur Projekte, Münster or documenta X, Kassel, and in museums and institutions like Kunstmuseum, Basel, Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brusselles, Haus der Kunst, Münich, Drawing Art Center, New York, Witte de With, Roterdam, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, or The South London Gallery. This is the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to the artist in the state. The exhibition is produced in collaboration with Kanal Centre Pompidou, Brussels.