Nathanaëlle Herbelin and Edith Devaney

Nathanaëlle Herbelin in conversation with curator Edith Devaney, on the occasion of the exhibition And there is a place you will not be able to return to at Xavier Hufkens (23 April —21 June 2025).

“I love giving this to someone who wants to say something, and I am just a tool for that. Being able to help someone express themselves is a beautiful power to have.” – Nathanaëlle Herbelin

Herbelin (b. 1989, Tel Aviv, Israel) obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2016, during which time she was invited to participate in an exchange programme at The Cooper Union, New York. Herbelin’s first solo exhibition in Asia, Feel the pulse, is currently on view at the He Art Museum in Shunde, China (8 March to 8 June 2025). It showcases the works made during her residency at the museum in 2024. Recent solo exhibitions include Être ici est une splendeur, Musée d’Orsay, Paris (2024); À la surface, le fond de l’oeil, French Institute of Tel Aviv (2022); Et peut-être que ces choses n’ont jamais eu lieu, Umm Al Fahem Palestinian Art Center (2021), Devenire Peinture, Yishu 8 prize, George V Art Centre, Beijing (2021); and group exhibitions such as the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne (2021); Passerelle Art Center, Brest (2020); the museums of the Abbaye Sainte-Croix (Sables d’Olonnes, 2019); Bétonsalon, Paris (2019); the Beaux-Arts Museum of Rennes (2018), Collection Lambert, Avignon (2017) and Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, Paris (2017).

Edith Devaney is the artist director of Malta International Contemporary Art Space (MICAS). She was senior curator at the Royal Academy of Arts in London for over twenty years, where she was responsible for originating and curating many ambitious and groundbreaking exhibitions. Devaney left the Royal Academy in 2021 to manage the David Hockney Foundation and David Hockney Inc. in Los Angeles for two years. Independent curatorial projects include Milton Avery at the Royal Academy (2022), the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Fine Art in Connecticut (2022) and the Modern Museum of Art of Fort Worth in Texas (2021); Afro: 1950-1970: From Italy to America and Back (2022) and Arshile Gorky: 1904 – 1948 (2019), both at the Ca’ Pesaro International Gallery of Modern Art in Venice. She continues to write and lecture widely on art, and to work on independent curatorial projects. She is a board member of the International Catalogue Raisonné Association (ICRA).