Talk: Luc Deleu in dialogue with Kathleen Weyts

On the occasion of Luc Deleu’s 80th birthday, Art Antwerp presents a special conversation between the artist, who is represented by KETELEER Gallery, and Kathleen Weyts, editor-in-chief of Glean. This event celebrates Deleu’s career and the publication of a comprehensive book on his oeuvre. Known for his work with T.O.P. Office, Deleu has consistently challenged urban and architectural norms. Kathleen Weyts will delve into his artistic career and the process behind the new publication. 

In 1970 Luc Deleu (1944. Duffel, Belgium) and his wife Laurette Gillemot founded T.O.P. office, an independent studio for urbanism and architecture, in their house Les Nénuphars in the Cogels Osylei in Antwerp. The very conceptually minded T.O.P. office surprisingly introduced their architectural projects to the art circuit, a world which was significantly more receptive to the office’s ethos of freedom and experimentation than the execution-driven world of architecture. Their main goal was and still is, to intellectually expand the ways of approaching architecture and urban design by considering new – more creative – ways of joining architecture, human life and the planet in order to improve the balance between them, aiming at a more sustainable future. 

Kathleen Weyts is the editor-in-chief of GLEAN. From 2019 to 2023 she was the director of HART magazine, the Belgian magazine for contemporary art (and predecessor of GLEAN). She is a writer, lecturer and consultant in art management. She was the director of CAHF, Contemporary Art Heritage Flanders, and co-curated ‘Somewhere in Between. Contemporary Art Scenes in Europe’, ‘Imagine Europe, In Search of New Narratives’ and the symposium Variations on Vulnerability, all at Bozar, Brussels.  

Talk in Dutch