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Club Moral

Club Moral is simultaneously the name for a performance band and for a venue in Borgerhout, a small district of Antwerp. Both were founded in 1981 by Danny Devos (DDV) and Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven (AMVK). Until 1993, they organized numerous exhibitions, performances, concerts, lectures and film screenings with international artists in an empty factory building there. Club Moral performed as a band for the first time on September 19, 1981. Since 1983 they published the magazine Force Mental, of which 15 issues were published and a sixteenth issue in 2004 on the Internet. In 2010, a facsimile edition of all issues was published under the title Force Mental RVSTD. In 2005, Club Moral was declared dead by its founders.

In 2010, a new concert series started with Danny Devos (vocals), Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (electronics, synthesizer), Mauro Pawlowski (drums) and Aldo Struyf (bass). In 2015, Club Moral performed twice with Danny Devos (vocals and electronics) and Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (electronics) on the occasion of AMVK exhibitions.

Antwerp-based artist Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven aka AMVK (b. 1951) studied graphic design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in the 1970s, while also studying philosophical and scientific theories. Historically, her artistic roots lie in the counterculture of punk, feminism, and a generation-typical anti-academism that gave rise not only to a pop and trash aesthetic, but also to new artistic structures. Her artistic medium was initially drawing, with which she associated communicability, multipliability, and dissemination. Her work changed over the years towards multimedia, spatial and cinematic representations of thoughts, emotions, inner worlds. In the early 1980s, she began to collaborate intensively with the neuroscientist Luc Steels and his Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Brussels, now Paris), developing a visual language characterized by scientific image processes: diagram, graphic animation, text-image scheme. With her drawings, environments and experimental films, AMVK is one of the most internationally renowned Belgian artists.

Belgian artist Danny Devos aka DDV (*1959) is known for his performances, body art and sculptural installations on violence, crime and murder. He has performed more than 160 performances since 1979. DDV is considered one of the most influential representatives of body and performance art since 1979 with his existential performances. From 1998 to 2004 he was successively commissioner and chairman of the NICC, the first interest group for visual artists in Belgium.

Music plays an important role in their artistic work. Parallel to their visual art, they have produced over 22 sound recordings, including the record To All Who Are Interested (1989).

ATJ

Works for listening