Astrup Fearnley Museet and WIELS are pleased to present Lutz Bacher, Burning the Days: An Exhibition, a new publication accompanying the first posthumous survey exhibition dedicated to the work of Lutz Bacher.

 Published by Astrup Fearnley Museet, WIELS, and Roma Publications, the catalogue brings together three newly commissioned essays approaching Bacher's art from distinct yet intersecting perspectives. Kate Nesin takes The Betty Center — Bacher's archive of nearly 300 black binders, later realised as an artwork — as a point of departure to examine her engagement with archives, containers, and readymade forms. Juliane Rebentisch reads Bacher's work as a sustained practice of opacity that stages accumulation, self-exposure, humour, and citation to unsettle fixed identities and disrupt the clichés through which meaning is usually secured. Finally, Emily LaBarge reads Bacher through the logic of the pun, showing how her works hinge on double meanings and perceptual slippages that make uncertainty the condition of viewing.

Burning the Days: An Exhibition occupies a distinct place within the lineage of Bacher’s artist books. It is the first major publication on Bacher produced entirely after her death and without her direct involvement or design input. 

Available for purchase at the WIELS bookshop from June 10 2026. 

Reservations and international shipping are available upon request via email: bookshop@wiels.org

With the special support of:  
Terra Foundation for American Art 

With the generous support of Publication Circle:  
Susanna Hegewisch-Becker, Marc Vandecandelaere & Jacques Verhaegen.