Slice cut from the floor.
Cutting a slice of the round floor of the Academie’s entrance — as if it were a piece of cheese — creates a membrane between the visible and invisible structures of the Jan van Eyck Academie. Through its holes, we glimpse at the original stairs of the building overlaying past (Peutz, 1961) and present (Maurer&Maurer, 2013). The accompanying guardrail, part of the work, pushes the cut further inside.
The title X-Slice comes from Brazilian diner menus, where the letter X — pronounced shees — is commonly written as a substitute for cheese, since they sound so alike in Portuguese. Cheese slice becomes X-Slice.