Created in connection with "American Greetings", TR Ericsson’s "Chantal Akerman (My Mother Laughs)" pays tribute to one of the most significant figures in Belgian and international contemporary art. Born in Brussels, Akerman transformed cinema through her radical approach to time, domestic life, memory and women’s experiences, from the three-day interior world of "Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" (1975), set in Molenbeek, a short distance from this gallery, to "News from Home" (1976), her documentary portrait of New York built from her mother’s letters, read in her own voice. Her influence extends well beyond film, making her an essential reference point for Brussels’ wider cultural history and for the questions of intimacy, duration and truth that also run through Ericsson’s own practice.

Akerman was not originally part of Ericsson’s plan for this exhibition. Reading around the premise of "Wet Conceptualism", Ericsson came to feel her work belonged in it, and the portrait was made specifically to bring her into the show. The portrait is accompanied on its reverse by a passage drawn from Akerman’s "My Mother Laughs", in which she describes the rare sensation of encountering a truth that has stayed obscure for a long time, until, she writes, “suddenly you find yourself light and calm.” Together, portrait and text offer an intimate encounter with an artist whose work continues to reveal itself long after the initial experience.