Act I — What We Make · a DeNode Foundation project under the artistic direction of Kristof Vander Cruyssen
Open call: 18 September – 18 November 2026, 11:59 pm (CET)
Exhibition opening: Friday 29 January 2027 at the DeNode Foundation, Ghent
The selected artists will take part in Humain, trop humain – Act I, the first exhibition in DeNode's new cycle.
Humain, trop humain is conceived as a cycle of two autonomous but interconnected exhibitions. Act I, What We Make, looks at how an artwork is made and at the operations that disappear behind its finished form. Act II, What Makes Us, will examine what happens once the work leaves the studio: how curators, collectors, institutions, exhibition conditions, narratives and audiences take part in producing its value.
The cycle takes its method from Friedrich Nietzsche's Human, All Too Human (1878): tracing what appears elevated, new or inevitable back to its all-too-human origins – work, habit, error, fear, vanity and choice. The title is therefore not decoration; it names the method.
This exhibition asks artists one thing: to investigate the 'all-too-human origin' of their own making. The repair that became a composition. The vanity that chose a format. The failure that proved to be the key. The habit of the hand that became the style. The mistake that became form.
In studio conversations, artists often talk about the process: what arose by accident, what failed and what stayed. In the exhibition space, precisely that tends to remain invisible. This is not the artist's doing but a property of the space itself: the finished work conceals its origins. Humain, trop humain invites artists to bring the language of the studio into the exhibition space.
We are not asking for autobiography or confession: not who the artist is, but what happened during the making. What interests us is how the form came into being. Which repetition, selection, preparation, automatism, error, correction, constraint, repair or abandonment became constitutive of the final work? Artists may also consider the other hands involved in the making – assistants, foundry workers, printers, framers, translators or collaborators – and what those hands contributed or decided.
Nor are we looking for a watertight story. Honesty about what happened is worth more than a perfect explanation, and remaining silent about part of the work is also a valid answer.
The question of authorship and of the status of the artwork runs from Duchamp through conceptual art to today's debates about artificial intelligence. AI is not the subject of this exhibition; it is the occasion that makes the question visible and urgent. The call does not ask artists to take sides in the cold war between the enthusiasts and the opponents of the artificial. Instead, it turns towards the making itself, and towards what does not average out: the repair, the error, the habit and the decision.
This is not a cynical unmasking of art as mere vanity. For Nietzsche, disenchantment is a liberation: what loses its elevation becomes something one can work with. Repair, failure and habit are not an indictment; they become material.
We welcome precise proposals for works that investigate their own making rather than illustrate Nietzsche, AI or a general theme. The call is open to professional artists, emerging or established, working individually or as a collective.
Selection is based on two criteria, set out here in advance:
All artistic practices are welcome, including painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, photography, sound, performance, publishing, textile, video and digital forms. Artists may propose existing works, adaptations or new productions, with a maximum of three works per artist or collective.
DeNode has several screens and projectors that can be made available where the work requires them. Please state your technical requirements clearly, particularly for image and sound playback and file formats.
Please send a single PDF containing:
Please do not put your name in this PDF. Send your contact details and a short biography (maximum 100 words) as a separate file. No full portfolio is required, and there is no application fee.
We know that preparing a submission takes time that is not paid for. That is why the first round is kept as light as possible, and why every applicant receives a personal reply.
Proposals reach us along two tracks: this public call and a direct invitation to artists who have exhibited at DeNode since it opened in 2023. Invited artists have no separate status in the selection; the same criteria apply to every proposal.
The first round is read blind: we see the work before we see the name, so that the work comes before the sender. A second round follows, with a conversation or a studio visit (late November – December 2026). The selection is made by Kristof Vander Cruyssen (artistic director); Paul De Cannière and Hanna Ouaziz read along as a sounding board. The decision and the accountability lie with the artistic direction. The exhibition will show fifteen to twenty-five works.
Every applicant receives a personal reply in December 2026 at the latest.
Your submission is kept until the end of the exhibition, together with the notes made during the assessment. Submitted work is not shown or published without your explicit consent, and never without an agreement and a fee. Your data are not passed on to third parties, and your submission is not used to train AI systems. After the selection, we will speak publicly about the choices made, without naming names: a house that asks artists about their choices must be able to account for its own.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits (1878).
Each selected artist receives a presentation fee of € 150 per work per month of exhibition. DeNode provides no production budget, including for adaptations or new works. The conditions regarding transport and insurance will be communicated once confirmed by DeNode.
Deadline: Wednesday 18 November 2026, 11:59 pm (CET)
Send to: info@denode.be · Email subject: Humain, trop humain – Act I