Pélagie Gbaguidi presents Iteration, her first solo exhibition at Tim Van Laere Gallery
From 26 November 2026, Tim Van Laere Gallery presents Iteration, the first solo exhibition by Brussels-based artist Pélagie Gbaguidi (from Benin, born in Dakar in 1965) at the gallery. Bringing together an important recent series of drawings, new paintings and a large-scale installation, the exhibition offers an insight into Gbaguidi’s artistic practice, which explores individual and collective memory, colonial and post-colonial history, and the enduring traces of the past.
Pélagie Gbaguidi lives and works in Brussels. Her paintings, writings, drawings, and installations are reflections on individual and collective memory. Her work adds a new line to colonial and post-colonial history, where traces of trauma, symbols, associations, and new composite archetypes run counter to the official version and circumvent the oppression, abomination, and legacy of this past. Drawing on archives, visual and written sources, she recontextualizes what happened in the past in order to break the chain of injustice that has continued ever since.
The exhibition Iteration will bring together an important recent series of drawings as well as new paintings and a large installation, The Architecture of Courage (2026), which was commissioned by and shown at HKW – Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin earlier this year. Together, these works reflect Gbaguidi's ongoing engagement with history, memory and the ways in which narratives of the past continue to shape the present.
The exhibition at Tim Van Laere Gallery marks a new chapter in the artist's international career. In the summer of 2027, Gbaguidi will have a major solo exhibition at TEA museum in Tenerife. Among her most recent solo exhibitions are Antre, La Verrière – Fondation Hermès, Brussels, Belgium (2025), and Murmurations, Musée d’art contemporain de la Haute-Vienne – Château de Rochechouart, France (2024).
The artist has also taken part in group shows at HKW in Berlin, SESC Pompeia in São Paulo, Kunstmuseum Basel, S.M.A.K. in Ghent, Centre Pompidou-Metz and WIELS in Brussels, as well as the São Paulo and Istanbul Biennials of 2025, the Berlin Biennial (2020), the Lubumbashi Biennial (2019), Dakar Biennial (2004, 2006, 2008, 2014 and 2018) and documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens (2017).
Practical information
Pélagie Gbaguidi – Iteration
26 November 2026 – 23 January 2027
Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp
Jos Smolderenstraat 50, 2000 Antwerp
