David Claerbout participated in The Eye of The Storm – Blitz’s first online exhibition, part of the new online initiative OPEN – with Oil workers (from the Shell company of Nigeria) returning home from work, caught in torrential rain (2013). In this artwork, Claerbout deployed 3D and new media technology in order to turn a photographic instant into endless repetition and confront visual perceptions, yearning for change and hope. As the act of waiting unfolds into an existential, cyclical condition rather than a one-time event, the artwork becomes the perspective from which to examine productivity and capitalism in relation to the workers and ourselves, even more now that the Covid-19 pandemic has altered our sense of the passage of time.David Claerbout focuses primarily on photography, video, sound, drawing, and digital arts, as well as large-scale video installation. In his works, the reconfiguration of images bestows a socio-political weight while questioning at the same time sensory authenticity and the now-disappearing system of trust between reality and its representation. The conversation will focus on Oil workers (from the Shell company of Nigeria) returning home from work, caught in torrential rain (2013), the evolution of Claerbout’s practice since, and his seminal text The Silence of the Lens (e-flux journal, 2016).******David Claerbout (Belgium, 1969) studied at the Nationaal Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp from 1992 to 1995 and participated in the DAAD: Berlin Artists-in-Residence program from 2002 to 2003. Claerbout’s work is included in major public collections worldwide, including: Centre Georges Pompidou Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, France; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C, USA; S.M.A.K, Ghent, Belgium; The Margulies Collection, Miami, Florida, USA; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Collection François Pinault, Italy; FRAC Nord Pas de Calais, France; Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden, Germany; GAM Galleria D’Arte Moderna et Contemporanea, Turin, Italy and many others. He has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally, including: MAST Foundation, Palazzo Zambeccari, Bologna, Italy (2019); Les Abattoirs, Toulouse, France (2018); Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, Scotland (2018); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2018); Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes, France (2017); Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain (2017); Schaulager, Basel, Switzerland (2017); BOZAR, Brussels, Belgium (2017); Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, Florida, USA (2016); De Pont Museum of Art, Tilburg, Netherlands (2016); Städelmuseum, Frankfurt, Germany (2016); MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland (2015); Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany (2015); 19th Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2014); 8th Busan Biennale, South Korea (2014); Kunsthalle Mainz, Mainz, Germany (2013); Secession, Vienna, Austria (2012); Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel (2012); SFMOMA, San Francisco (2011); WIELS, Brussels, Belgium (2011); De Pont museum of contemporary art, Tilburg, The Netherlands (2009); Pompidou Center, Paris, France (2007); Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen, Switzerland (2008); and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (2005).