Vernissage : Hors les murs : Hoshi Go Club

© Marc Buchy, Hoshi Go Club, 2024 (Based on a photograph by Arturo Schwarz, Galerie Thorigny, Paris, 1991). All rights reserved.

In co-production with KOMPLOT

Curators : Pauline Salinas, Grégory Thirion

Would contemporary art be any different if Marcel Duchamp had played Go instead of chess?  

Marc Buchy’s Hoshi Go Club is founded on this counterfactual question. Pursuing his interrogations on our knowledge-based society, the artist has chosen to take over a Brussels bar, Le Viaduc (Rue du Viaduc 43, Ixelles), for two months to present his new project. 

In keeping with his protean, conceptual approach, Marc Buchy has invented a go club. Its specificity lies in the fact that the artist has made Marcel Duchamp its leading figure, an avid go player if ever there was one... as supported by the archive images displayed in the space! The club’s identity, which extends from an illuminated sign to coasters and a specially created cocktail (among other things), combines references to the Asian strategic game with those of the progenitor of contemporary art. 

Whilst some games will be available to play for free, visitors will also have the opportunity to become members of the famous Hoshi Go Club and will receive a membership card. A teacher will be on site to teach the game every Wednesday evening, by appointment only. Other special activities featured will embark the project on a series of literary and musical interludes. The exhibition will culminate in a one-day tournament, during which beginners and skilled players will have a chance to play together.

This ambitious project stems from a partnership between two Brussels-based art institutions – Le Botanique and Komplot – and a partnership with the Fédération Belge de Go and Éditions Extensibles (Fr). Here, Marc Buchy takes an unorthodox and unexpected detour into history and narrativity, deploying the field of speculation to investigate the conceptual underpinnings of contemporary art. Encouraging the creation of links between individuals, collective intelligence, the long-term and the unpredictable, the Hoshi Go Club invites everyone to a journey of exploration and immersion to a world where life and art, reality and fiction, the playful and the serious, all combined to build bridges between different fields. 

Practical information :  

Venue: Bar Le Viaduc, rue du viaduc 43, 1050 Ixelles   

Opening hours : Tuesday to Saturday from 5pm to midnight

Exhibition programme :   

Opening on 19 September from 6pm  

Lecture night on 26 September   

Night of experimental music on 14 November  

Go tournament (finissage) on 16 November  

Free go lessons every Wednesday at 7pm and by appointment