A newly commissioned organ piece was performed as a preamble to MONDO CANE, a project by artist duo Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys selected to represent Belgium at the 58th edition of the Venice Biennale, and curated by La Loge director Anne-Claire Schmitz.

Composed by Erik Thys, the concert adopted the form of an international anthem.

La Loge and BOZAR are institutional partners of the Belgian Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale.

MONDO CANE is commissioned by Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.

About the contributors

Jos de Gruyter (b. 1965) and Harald Thys (b. 1966) live in Brussels and have been working together since the late 1980s. The artist duo creates films, drawings, paintings, photographs and sculptures in which simultaneously hyper-recognizable and nonauthoritarian characters, objects and spaces exist. De Gruyter and Thys have had numerous solo exhibitions at institutions including Konkurs Eksperten at Kunsthal Aarhus (2018); White Suprematism at Portikus Frankfurt and CAC Vilnius (2016); Im Reich der Sonnenfinsternis at MCA Chicago; Fine Arts at MOMA PS1, New York; Die schmutzige Puppen von Pommern at The Power Station Dallas and Tram 3 ay CCA Wattis, San Francisco (2015); Das Wunder des Lebens at at Kunsthalle Wien (2014); Optimundus at M HKA, Antwerp (2013); Projekt 13 at Kunsthalle Basel (2010). The artists were included in the Venice Biennale (2013) and the Berlin Bienniale (2008).

Erik Thys (b. 1961) is a Belgian author, composer, artist and psychiatrist. As a psychiatrist, Erik Thys is affiliated with the Sint Alexius Psychosocial Centre in Brussels and the University Psychiatric Centre at the KU Leuven. He wrote the book “Psychogenocide” about the nazi mass murder of psychiatric patients and is president of KAOS, an organization at the intersection between art and psychiatry. Erik Thys also works regularly with Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys. He composed music for several of their films in which he also appears as actor and composed and performed organ concerts in churches in San Fancisco, Berlin, Vienna and Basel. Erik Thys also collaborated with Dora Garcia and Richard Venlet with whom he conceived the play ‘Games People Play’ (Playground Festival STUK Leuven, 2007). He also shares a passion for cars with his brother Harald. Together, they hold lectures on the psychoanalysis of the car.