Liquid Intelligence: Ellen Gallagher with Edgar Cleijne

This book was published on the occasion of Liquid Intelligence: Ellen Gallagher with Edgar Cleijne at Wiels, Brussels. The exhibition presented Osedax (2010) and Highway Gothic (2019), two film installations by the artists, alongside paintings, drawings, and collages made by Gallagher over two decades. Reflecting on the transformation of landscapes and worlds, these works link ecology and myths of the African diaspora.

Fully illustrated with photographs of the exhibited works, the trilingual (English/Dutch/French) book includes an essay by Elvan Zabunyan that explores Gallagher’s Black Paintings in connection to historic representation of Black figures, eighteenth-century poet Phillis Wheatley, and marine biology, as well as “Blues Prints,” an essay by Robin D. G. Kelley on Highway Gothic, considering the installation in relation to ecology, development, and the blues. It also includes a foreword by Dirk Snauwaert and a poem by Wheatley.