Since the death of On Kawara in July 2014, I have made one drawing each day, always linked to a news event of that same day. Working on reproductions from art books, I add small naked or dehumanized figures that evoke the tension between the individual and the collective. This ongoing series of thousands of drawings unfolds as a daily practice of witnessing — where time, image, and world events converge.
Art as Care. Care as Resistance
Pierre Mertens has developed a body of work in which art, care and social reality remain inseparably connected. Working both in the studio and in public space, he focuses on the vulnerable individual within a world where there appears to be less and less space for them.
The works presented in the exhibition Covers at the SHARE Knowledge Centre in Moshi, Tanzania (2025–2026) are placed within the broader trajectory of his oeuvre.
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