I invited Gianluca Cosci to contribute to [re]model. On the morning of Friday February 19 (2021) he left a white square on the wall in one of Institute’s rooms.

For [re]model I painted a 70×70 cm white square on the main wall in a grand lecture hall, inside the Institute of Philosophy and in close proximity to a prominent 19th century wooden crucifix. Although I was invited by Bart Geerts to make an artistic contribution in this academic context, this intervention was totally unannounced beforehand, and therefore done without any prior specific permissions granted by anyone from the academic members of staff. This semi-authorized action remains on the border between a legitimate artistic intervention and an act of “soft vandalism” against a university building. The fact that a faculty’s wall has been “defaced” only minimally does not change the fact that this is an intervention that questions the balance between artistic freedom versus the respect normally owed to the physical integrity – and the symbolic authority – of academic institutions.

Gianluca Cosci – February 2021