Spell at Etablissement d’en face, Brussels: Simian's Exhibition on Language and Law
Currently on display at Etablissement d’en face in Brussels is Spell, an exhibition curated by Simian. This showcase will precede Painting-as-prop in 2024 and includes a diverse array of sculptures, installations, photographs, and paintings from both invited artists and the founders of Simian. The exhibition delves into themes such as interiority, monstrosity, and prescription, and is located near the Palais de Justice, a 19th-century courthouse that Hitler admired and Albert Speer studied. It investigates the influence of power on language and desires while referencing Oscar Wilde and anonymous aphorisms. The estimated total number of written characters on Earth by 2026 is projected to be around 10¹³–10¹⁴ characters. An exhibition booklet can be found at etablissementdenface.com.
Key facts
- Spell is an exhibition organized by Simian in Copenhagen, following Painting-as-prop presented by Etablissement d’en face at Simian in 2024.
- The exhibition is on view at Etablissement d’en face in Brussels.
- It features sculpture, installation, photography, and painting by invited artists and Simian’s founders.
- The venue is opposite the Palais de Justice, a nineteenth-century courthouse often described as the largest in the world, admired by Hitler and studied by Albert Speer.
- The exhibition explores themes of language, law, power, and interiority.
- It poses a question about the total number of written characters in normative and prescriptive texts on Earth as of 2026.
- The estimate is around 30 trillion characters (10¹³–10¹⁴), based on Google’s earlier estimate of 129.9 million books by 2010 and Google Books containing roughly 2 trillion words.
- If set in 11-point type, the characters would form a line 60 million kilometers long, circling the Equator about 1500 times or extending 60 million kilometers into space.
Entities
Artists
- Oscar Wilde
- Albert Speer
- Adolf Hitler
Institutions
- Simian
- Etablissement d’en face
- Google Books
Locations
- Copenhagen
- Denmark
- Brussels
- Belgium
- Palais de Justice