Visitors encounter Ana Torfs’s cinematic installation before they see it. Entering the gallery, they hear breathing—a gently rhythmic invitation to an embodied experience. This soundtrack—a recording of the artist’s breath—sustains the visual pace of When You Whistle, It Makes Air Come Out and inflects nearby works.
Short uppercased statements take turns on a tripod-borne monitor: “From inside the skin,” “From the meat inside,” “When you open your mouth too wide, it comes inside,” “When you open your mouth the wind comes out,” “When you breathe, it comes into the mouth.” These are some of the answers gathered by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in his effort to grasp children’s precausal understanding of the origins of wind and breath, and published in The Child’s Conception of Physical Causality (1927). Now sequenced on a vintage lightbox, the children’s innocent and surprisingly rich answers foreground the body’s worldly relationality and reconfigure corporeal hospitality. “It goes in by the nose, and then it goes out.”
Ana Torfs is a Brussels-based artist. Her work has been presented in major solo exhibitions at MUAC, Mexico City (2021); Bozar, Brussels (2020 and 2000); Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland (2017); Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon (2016); WIELS, Brussels (2014); Generali Foundation, Vienna (2010), K21, Düsseldorf (2010); and in group exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Australian Center for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Museum de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museion, Bolzano, Italy; Fotomuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland; and Mucsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, and other institutions. Her work has also been featured in international art events including Bruges Triennial, Bruges, Belgium (2021); Contour Biennial 8, Mechelen, Belgium (2017); Parasophia, Kyoto (2015); 1st International Biennial of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia (2014); Sharjah Biennial 11, UAE (2013); Manifesta 9, Genk, Belgium (2012), and several others. Her work can be found in the collections of major international institutions including Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; Kanal Foundation, Brussels; FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France; Museum der Moderne/Generali Foundation, Salzburg, Austria; M HKA and S.M.A.K., Antwerp, Belgium; K21, Düsseldorf; and several others.
Visitors encounter Ana Torfs’s cinematic installation before they see it. Entering the gallery, they hear breathing—a gently rhythmic invitation to an embodied experience. This soundtrack—a recording of the artist’s breath—sustains the visual pace of When You Whistle, It Makes Air Come Out and inflects nearby works.
Short uppercased statements take turns on a tripod-borne monitor: “From inside the skin,” “From the meat inside,” “When you open your mouth too wide, it comes inside,” “When you open your mouth the wind comes out,” “When you breathe, it comes into the mouth.” These are some of the answers gathered by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in his effort to grasp children’s precausal understanding of the origins of wind and breath, and published in The Child’s Conception of Physical Causality (1927). Now sequenced on a vintage lightbox, the children’s innocent and surprisingly rich answers foreground the body’s worldly relationality and reconfigure corporeal hospitality. “It goes in by the nose, and then it goes out.”
Ana Torfs is a Brussels-based artist. Her work has been presented in major solo exhibitions at MUAC, Mexico City (2021); Bozar, Brussels (2020 and 2000); Pori Art Museum, Pori, Finland (2017); Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon (2016); WIELS, Brussels (2014); Generali Foundation, Vienna (2010), K21, Düsseldorf (2010); and in group exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Australian Center for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; Museum de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro; National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Museion, Bolzano, Italy; Fotomuseum, Winterthur, Switzerland; and Mucsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, and other institutions. Her work has also been featured in international art events including Bruges Triennial, Bruges, Belgium (2021); Contour Biennial 8, Mechelen, Belgium (2017); Parasophia, Kyoto (2015); 1st International Biennial of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia (2014); Sharjah Biennial 11, UAE (2013); Manifesta 9, Genk, Belgium (2012), and several others. Her work can be found in the collections of major international institutions including Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid; Kanal Foundation, Brussels; FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France; Museum der Moderne/Generali Foundation, Salzburg, Austria; M HKA and S.M.A.K., Antwerp, Belgium; K21, Düsseldorf; and several others.