2017-03-09

FIC123 NEW WEBSITE

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We are currently migrating from our old site to the new site.
 
We will stop posting on the old blogs for a few days, so be sure to update your bookmarks and join us on this new site. One central stop for all your cultural info in Belgium, Europe and the USA.
 
Best regards
 

2017-03-08

4773 - 20170604 - Belgium - Brussels - Pol Bury - Time in motion - 23.02.2017-04.06.2017

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Pol Bury - Time in motion

The Belgian artist Pol Bury (1922-2005) is one of the founders of kinetic art. After his beginnings in painting, marked by the influence of Magritte, and time spent with other members of Jeune Peinture belge and CoBrA, he decided to follow a new path. His fascination for the art of Alexander Calder resulted in him turning towards sculpture and incorporating motion in his work. Thanks to his deeply personal work, which is both a successor of surrealism and bursting with innovation, he made a name for himself in the Paris and New York art scenes, thus obtaining international recognition.

This retrospective is an opportunity to discover Bury’s vast and diverse oeuvre. Paintings, sculptures, mobile works, fountains, jewellery, graphic and written creations are all on display in the biggest exhibition Belgium has dedicated to this major artist in twenty years.

Artistic advisor: Gilles Marquenie


BOZAR - Pol Bury - Time in motion - 23.02.2017-04.06.2017
 
 
 

2017-03-01

4772 - 20170630 - Belgium - Tongeren - Timeless Beauty - 17.12.2016-30.06.2017

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This exhibition signals a departure from what you usually expect from the Gallo-Roman Museum. An evocative interplay of authentic objects, intriguing texts by Roman authors and sensual images by the art photographer Marc Lagrange, leading you deeper into the mysteries of feminine beauty.

How did women use make-up two thousand years ago? What kind of jewellery did they wear? What kind of items would a Roman beauty case contain? Practical implements and educational films provide an insight into how women in ancient Rome made themselves beautiful and pampered themselves.
Contemporary women also talk about their perceptions of their bodies.

Timeless Beauty: prepare yourself for a timelessly beautiful exhibition.

 
Gallo-Romeins Museum - Timeless Beauty - 17.12.2016-30.06.2017
 
 

2017-02-22

4770 - 20170604 - Belgium - Antwerpen - Alec Soth - Gathered Leaves -17.02.2017-04.06.2017

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Alec Soth - Gathered Leaves

FOMU is bringing the work of renowned Magnum photographer Alec Soth (US, °1969) to Belgium for the first time with the exhibition Gathered Leaves. This retrospective draws from four critical series from his oeuvre: Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004), Niagara (2006), Broken Manual (2010) and Songbook (2014).

Alec Soth is known for his lyrical approach to documentary photography. His work is based on a fascination with the vastness of America, recalling Robert Frank, Stephen Shore and Jack Kerouac.
“Our vision of America is so shaped by television and movies. All we see are Hollywood starlets and New York cops. We sometimes forget that there are whole other lives being lived in the middle of America. And some of these lives are really inspiring.”
(Alec Soth, email interview with Aaron Schuman, 2 August 2004)

Alec Soth lives in Minnesota and is an artist, photo journalist, blogger, publisher, Instagrammer and teacher. His boundless energy and distinguished position in the international art world makes him a major influence on the younger generation of visual artists. FOMU’s presentation of his work depicts the evolution of his career and shows how important the role of the photobook was to his success.
Gathered Leaves is an exhibition by Media Space / Science Museum, London.
Curator: Kate Bush



FOMU - Alec Soth - Gathered Leaves -17.02.2017 - 04.06.2017
 
 
 

2017-02-15

4768 - 20170430 - Belgium - Liège - Noirs dessins du communisme - 03.02.2017-30.04.2017

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La caricature vise à faire rire ou du moins à ironiser.
Le Parti communiste de Belgique (PCB) attaque le trône, l'Église, les États-Unis, le militarisme, la droite, le patronat et les socialistes, mais jamais les dirigeants syndicaux. Le dessin politique, de son côté, revêt parfois un aspect lyrique, voire tragique, quand il exprime par son esthétique, la solidarité avec les opprimés. La presse communiste, au sens large, n'a pas recouru systématiquement à l'illustration graphique. Dans certains cas (ou à certaines périodes), la présence de dessins, n'est liée qu'à la rencontre très éphémère, d'artistes ou d'amateurs, avec le communisme. Parmi bien d'autres, Lumor illustre "Le Drapeau rouge" dans années '20. Didier Geluck (alias Diluck, grand-père du Chat) produit une caricature quotidienne au début des années '50.
L'équipe de Walter Burniat, Jo Dustin, Marcelle Lavachery, Philippe Moins, Willy Wolsztajn, anime "Le Drapeau rouge", quotidien des années '70 et '80. Gaucho quant à lui dessine dans "La Gauche" et Sam dans la presse de TPO-AMADA, ancêtre du PTB.

Au travers de ces dessins politiques et caricatures, c'est tout un regard sur l'histoire politique et sociale du XXe siècle en Belgique - sur les enjeux internationaux, l'élan de solidarité avec les peuples opprimés et les victimes du fascisme - qui s'offre au visiteur. L'exposition affiche plus de cent reproductions commentées et présente des originaux dont des tracts clandestins de la Résistance.
Une exposition du Centre d'Histoire et de Sociologie des Gauches (CHSG) de l'ULB, du Centre des Archives du Communisme en Belgique (CArCoB), de l'Institut d'histoire ouvrière, économique et sociale (IHOES) et du Mundaneum.



Musée du Grand Curtius  - Noirs dessins du communisme - 03.02.2017 - 30.04.2017
  
 
 
 

2017-02-08

4766 - 20170514 - Belgium - Drogenbos - Luc Peire - 05.02.2017-14.05.2017

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Luc Peire (Brugge, 1916 - Parijs, 1994) is internationaal bekend als meester van het abstract verticalisme. In zijn toenemend streven naar onbegrensde ruimtelijkheid evolueert hij al snel naar de abstractie. Hij brengt de menselijke figuur als spiritueel wezen terug tot een verticale lijn in een uitgebalanceerde ruimte. In de zwart-wit-‘graphie’ herleidt de kunstenaar de lineariteit tot de essentie. Deze persoonlijke kunstvorm zal de hoeksteen vormen van de driedimensionale spiegel-environments: hoogtepunten van Peires zoektocht naar de ultieme oneindige ruimte. Later integreert Peire het doorgedreven verticalisme van de schilderijen, ‘graphies’ en tekeningen in (inter)nationale projecten met architecten en urbanisten.
De tentoonstelling illustreert dit buitentreden van het schilderdoek met zelden getoonde werken. Naast een uitzonderlijke bundeling van Lumino-Tours (1970/1980), maquettes en foto’s van integratiewerken is ook het iconische Environnement I (1967) te bezichtigen

Stilering naar de absolute abstractie
Nadat Luc Peire in 1947 uit La Jeune Peinture Belge stapt, onderneemt hij reizen naar Italië, Marokko, de Balearen, de Canarische Eilanden en Congo. De bijhorende indrukken en kennismakingen beïnvloeden de ontwikkeling van een steeds abstracter wordende beeldtaal  en een toenemend streven naar onbegrensde ruimtelijkheid. Ze inspireren hem tot de creatie van krachtige, verticale composities. De sculpturale volumes en het spel met vollen en leegtes worden geleidelijk aan gestileerd tot lineaire, geometrische vormen. Wanneer de kunstenaar aan het eind van de jaren 50 naar Parijs vertrekt, groeit zijn ruimteconcept van aan het begin van de jaren 50 uit tot een volgroeide en persoonlijke abstractie.
Aan het eind van de jaren 50 brengt hij de menselijke figuur uiteindelijk terug tot een verticale lijn in de ruimte. Het lineaire, symbool voor activiteit en voor het leven, wordt tegenover een rustig uitgewogen ruimtelijke constructie geplaatst. De toenemende  reductie van geometrische vormen brengt hem tot een karakteristiek lineair verticalisme. Een bezoek aan New York (1965–1966) spoort hem aan om de referentie naar de mens in een gecomponeerde ruimtelijke constructie verder te abstraheren. Het ritmisch spel van verticalen en kleurstroken- en banen en de serene positionering tegenover monochrome kleurvelden suggereren de puur abstracte ruimte. Peires schilderkunst evolueert uiteindelijk in de richting van een mildere lineariteit en een rustgevende symmetrie..

Integraties en Lumino-Tours
De zuiver abstracte schilderijen getuigen van Peires streven naar een oneindige ruimtelijkheid. Het is pas bij de creatie van een in de menselijke omgeving geïntegreerde totaalkunst dat hij dit ultiem verwezenlijkt ziet. Hij doet zijn schilderkunst daarom versmelten met andere kunstvormen, die hij op  hun beurt integreert in driedimensionale interieur- en architectuurconcepten en verstedelijkte landschappen. De veelzijdige, internationale samenwerkingen met architecten en  stedenbouwkundigen buigen van bij aanvang terug op Peires betrokkenheid. De abstracte  ruimtelijkheid van de integraties wordt opgeroepen door het geritmeerde spel met reliëf, kleur, leegtes en vollen, spiegeling en licht in diverse bouwkundige materialen. Tot zijn belangrijkste integratiewerken behoren de Place Carrée (Marne-la-Vallée, 1975–1982), het Brusselse metrostation Roodebeek (Brussel, 1976–1982) en Het Teken U.Z. Gasthuisberg (Leuven, 1992) aan de  oegangsweg van campus Gasthuisberg. Tijdens een bezoek aan New York (1965– 1966) rijpt het idee voor de Lumino-Tours (1970–1980). Dit vierledig sculpturaal kunstwerk refereert met zijn verticale constructie, lineariteit en lichtspel naar de New Yorkse woontorens. De plaatsing van de zwarte ritmische lijnen tegenover het doorschijnend plexiglas, de spiegels en het witte licht zijn gericht op de ruimtewerking. De zwarte, verticale lijn staat symbool voor de spirituele menselijke figuur. De Lumino-Tours illustreren de groeiende belangstelling van de kunstenaar om zijn werk als volwaardig autonoom ruimtelijk object uit te bouwen en te integreren in een environment.

Een multidisciplinair kunstenaar
Vooraleer Peire het lineair verticalisme in zijn schilderkunst tot de pure abstractie herleidt, voert hij deze stilering reeds vanaf 1955 in de ‘graphie’ door. In deze persoonlijke kunstvorm worden kleuren
en visuele aanknopingspunten uitgepuurd tot een abstract, ritmisch spel van witte en zwarte verticalen en contrasterende, horizontale accenten. De graphie zal later een belangrijke rol spelen bij de ruimtelijke environments. Op het moment dat Peire in zijn graphies en schilderijen intens experimenteert met het verder abstraheren van zijn beeldtaal, tekent hij weinig. In de loop van de jaren 70 zet hij zijn ruimtelijk onderzoek uiteindelijk ook intensief voort in tekeningen. De karakteristieke matte en grijze eigenschap van het Contépotlood verleent de geometrische tekeningen vanaf de jaren 80 hun specifieke uitstraling. Ook in de graphies en tekeningen leidt de zoektocht naar de oneindige ruimte uiteindelijk naar een mildere lineariteit en een rustgevende  symmetrie; in het geval van de graphie naar de introductie van ultramarijnblauw.

Environment
Tijdens een bezoek aan New York in1965–1966 ontwikkelt hij het idee van het environment. In de lijn van dit concept realiseert hij na terugkomst Environnement I (1967). Het kunstwerk symboliseert de wens van de kunstenaar om zijn schilderijen en graphies te integreren in andere kunstvormen, in de tijd en in de ruimte. De driedimensionale opstelling, de gespiegelde graphiewanden, de elektronische klanken van het Opus 297 Environment van componist Louis De Meester en de lichtwerking scheppen binnenin Environnement I een gevoel van eindeloze ruimte en gewichtloosheid. Bij het betreden van het kunstwerk wordt de opgeroepen ruimtewerkelijkheid niet ‘slechts’ aanschouwd, maar ook lichamelijk gewaargeworden. Dit streven naar oneindigheid is volgens Peire de zoektocht van elke mens. Met zijn werk poogt hij deze boodschap in een universele taal te brengen.
Later creëert Peire ter gelegenheid van de tentoonstelling De Verovering van de Ruimte (1968, Mexico) en de tentoonstelling Paintings Graphics Environment III (1973, Auckland) een tweede en derde environment: Ambiente Mexico 68 (1968) en Environment III (1973).




FeliXart Museum - Luc Peire - 05.02.2017-14.05.2017
 
 
 

2017-01-31

4764 - 20170416 - Belgium - Gent - James Welling: Metamorphosis - 28.01.2017-16.04.2017

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James Welling: Metamorphosis

With an extensive selection of work from the early 1970s to today, Welling’s exhibition at S.M.A.K. reflects the fundamental changes in photography in recent decades. In sounding out the medium’s aesthetic and conceptual foundations, the artist’s series spring continually from image to matter, from process to result, from representation to abstraction, and back again.

James Welling’s oeuvre refers strongly to the history of American painting and at the same time connects with the critical, post-modern debates that were current in the Pictures Generation scene in the early 1980s, where concepts of authorship, originality and representation were prominent. In addition to this conceptual basis, emotional states such as melancholy and nostalgia are distinctly present in the work of this artist, who often interweaves biographical elements with the history of photography. Welling’s photographic practice is comparable with that of a “ventriloquist”, as he himself once described it, meaning that he embraces many artistic languages through the filter of photography.

The exhibition is a cooperation of S.M.A.K., Ghent with Kunstforum Vienna, Austria.
Idea and concept: Martin Germann and Heike Eipeldauer.


S.M.A.K. - James Welling: Metamorphosis - 28.01.2017-16.04.2017
 
 
 
 

2017-01-25

4762 - 20170305 - BELGIË - OOSTENDE - Jules Schmalzigaug and the Futurist Cookbook - 29.10.2016-05.03.2017

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Jules Schmalzigaug and the Futurist Cookbook pays homage to the brief but intense life of this Belgian Futurist. 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of Schmalzigaug's death in The Hague. He was the very first Belgian painter to feature at the heart of an international avant-garde movement: Italian Futurism. In fact, he reached the peak of his artistic career in 1914!

This retrospective looks back at the short but extremely powerful Futurist period which Schmalzigaug experienced in Italy and later as a refugee in The Hague.

Artistically inspired by the Italian Futurists Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà and Gino Severini, who regarded him as a talented kindred spirit and friend, his authentic style earned a great deal of respect.

This exhibition establishes a dialogue between Schmalzigaug's Futurism, that of his Italian associates and the work of other Belgian avant-garde artists such as Paul Joostens, Pierre-Louis Flouquet, Prosper De Troyer, Edmond Van Dooren and others who felt the influence of Futurism for a brief period after 1917.



Mu.Zee - Jules Schmalzigaug and the Futurist Cookbook  - 29.10.2016-05.03.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 

2017-01-18

4760 - 20170122 - BELGIË - BRUSSEL - 'Modernity à la belge' - 14.10.2016-22.01.2017

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The exhibition "Modernity à la belge" retraces Belgian Art over more than a century through paintings, drawings and sculptures from the Modern Art collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, as well as some invited major art works.

The term Modernity reaches far beyond a certain period in our history of Fine Arts, it stands above all for the enthusiasm of that period. Being initiated at the end of the 19th century by Baudelaire, it embodies an ideal combining technological and intellectual development. Yet it has never stopped causing a stir, generating concepts such as anti-modernity or postmodernity. First, Modernity was rejected for not respecting the legacy of the past; later on, it was said to have led to Nazi barbarism and the technology of death. The question is: which place does Art take in this debate? The artists to be seen in the first part of “Modernity à la belge”, all wanted to influence society: Wiertz,  Rops, Ensor, Wouters, Vantongerloo, Servranckx, Magritte, Delvaux, Permeke, Van den Bergh, Alechinsky, Dotremont, Broodthaers and also Tuymans. Being gathered in a blueprint of a Modern Art Museum, they all translate this preeminent modern spirit, while challenging the often authoritarian Avant-garde.

The second part of the exhibition adds the specific Belgian dimension to this cultural Modernity. Does a Belgian Modernity really exist? How did it arise and under which forms does it continue to live? What is the idea of Avant-garde in Belgium? What can be concluded from the confrontation with major international artists such as Chagall, Rouault, Jorn or Segal? What does “Belgian” Art and “Belgian” Modernity mean? Many questions to be answered by each visitor individually. It is all open for discussion!




Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium - 'Modernity à la belge' - 14.10.2016-22.01.2017 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2017-01-11

4758 - 20170305 - BELGIË - GENT - Hands on Design - 19.11.2016-05.03.2017

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8th Triennial for Design
The chemistry between the maker, the designer and the company
‘Hands on Design’ showcases design that is inspired and produced thanks to the innovative power of traditional methods and craftsmanship. Discover that chemistry this autumn in Design museum Gent.

From 19 November 2016 until 5 March 2017, ‘Hands on Design’ will show a superb selection of contemporary and historic design products, which are perfect examples of outstanding craftsmanship and the master’s touch. As a user, you can feel the difference between a store-bought kitchen knife or chair and a hand-made knife or chair, but sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint that difference. ‘Hands on Design’ reveals this invisible added value, the influence of the master’s touch and craftsmanship. Stroll through the maker’s house, his workshop and design studio. Take a closer look at his drawings and computer models. Learn about prototypes, materials and tools. Discover the human touch in familiar and brand-new utensils. Learn how designers, makers and companies push back boundaries and find new applications for centuries-old techniques. By processing familiar materials such as stone, wood, glass, leather, bronze in new and different ways.

Curator Johan Valcke spent two years searching for brand-new utensils by emerging young designers, established design studios and local businesses. He also brought together designers and companies, which led to some novel design products that will be shown for the first time during ‘Hands on Design’. Design museum Gent has juxtaposed these designs with surprising masterpieces from its own collection. MaisonCaro designed the exhibition’s scenography.

 
 
 
Designmuseum Gent - Hands on Design - 19.11.2016-05.03.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 



 

2017-01-04

4756 - 20170205 - BELGIË - ANTWERPEN - From Broodthaers to Braeckman. Photography in the Visual Arts in Belgium - 06.10.2016-05.02.2017

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Through representative examples From Broodthaers to Braeckman. Photography in the Visual Arts in Belgium shows how the medium of photography entered the field of visual arts in Belgium and how it evolved into an independent artistic medium between 1960 and 1990.
 
Its location between major artistic centres such as London, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf and Paris, and the presence of important collectors and visionary gallery owners, turn Belgium into an important meeting place for the international art world in the 1960s and 1970s. A rising  generation of Belgian artists comes into direct contact with international artistic trends like conceptual art, Fluxus and the Situationist International. Local artistic traditions too influenced their practice. Especially striking is the legacy of the Brussels surrealists, in particular the work of René Magritte and Paul Nougé. Moreover, the strong pictorial tradition of the Low Countries, and by extension Europe, turns out to have had a decisive influence on the work of the artists selected for this exhibition, which is characterised by a constant attention to their surrounding reality.
 
The exhibition opens with the photographic work of three pioneers of conceptual art in Belgium: Marcel Broodthaers, Jacques Charlier and Jef Geys. Subsequently, the breakthrough of photoconceptualism in Belgium can be seen in the work of Jacques Lennep, Jacques Louis Nyst, Jacques Lizène, Philippe Van Snick and Danny Matthys. Finally, the transition of photoconceptual work to the photographic tableau – the ever growing mixture of photography and painting – is shown by means of the work of Lili Dujourie, Jan Vercruysse, Ria Pacquée, Liliane Vertessen and Dirk Braeckman.
 
The exhibition From Broodthaers to Braeckman. Photography in the visual arts in Belgium is based on the doctoral research of Liesbeth Decan: Conceptual, Surrealist, Pictorial: Photo-based Art in Belgium (1960s-early 1990s), which appears as a book concurrently with the exhibition as part of the Lieven Gevaert Series (Leuven University Press). 
 
 
 
MUHKA - From Broodthaers to Braeckman. Photography in the Visual Arts in Belgium 06.10.2016-05.02.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2016-12-28

4754 - 20170507 - Belgium - Charleroi - Jeanloup Sieff - 10.12.2016-07.05.2017

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Jeanloup Sieff.
Serge Gainsbourg et Jane Birkin.
Paris, 1970
© Estate Jeanloup Sieff
 
«Les gens qui ne me connaissent pas se font de fausses idées à mon sujet. Ils s’imaginent que je suis un peu orgueilleux, un peu dilettante, un peu distant… mais ils se trompent, je le suis totalement.»

Elégance et légèreté, classicisme et sensualité sont quelques qualificatifs pour évoquer les photographies de Jeanloup Sieff (1933-2000).
Reporter indépendant, un temps membre de l’agence Magnum – il reçoit en 1959 le Prix Niépce pour son reportage sur le Borinage – c’est cependant dans la photographie de mode qu’il va s’illustrer.
Réalisées principalement pour de prestigieuses revues de mode telles Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Vogue ou British Mode, ses photographies s’émancipent pourtant de la commande par l’originalité des cadrages, la densité des impressions et le choix du grand angle qui les rend immédiatement reconnaissables. Car il y a bien un style Sieff avec ses femmes-icônes portant les créations de prestigieux couturiers, ses nus féminins saisis dans leur troublante intimité, ses paysages déserts qui sont le visage solitaire de ce photographe pratiquant l’amitié avec les vedettes de l’écran ou de la politique qu’il rend si proches, s’effaçant derrière le modèle. Sieff épure sa photographie, en conservant les lignes maîtresses, les coulant dans des noirs profonds, rejoignant l’esthétique d’une époque, les «Trente Glorieuses» qu’il incarne à la perfection.
 
Depuis les années cinquante, en une étroite connivence avec le cinéma, au travers des thèmes abordés, c’est tout le parfum d’une époque qu’a su traduire Jeanloup Sieff en ses images.
 
L’œuvre de Sieff n’a jamais connu une exposition d’importance en Belgique. Le Musée de la Photographie à Charleroi proposera une sélection des photographies les plus emblématiques de Jeanloup Sieff, mélange des collections du Musée et des archives du photographe pour rendre hommage à celui qui, à l’égal d’ Irving Penn ou de Richard Avedon, a marqué plus d’une génération. Un choix de photographies de la série Borinage 1959 sera présenté dans la Galerie du Cloître.
 
 
 
Musée de la Photographie - Jeanloup Sieff - LES ANNEES LUMIERE - 10.12.2016-07.05.2017
  
 
 

2016-12-21

4752 - 20170226 - BELGIË - MACHELEN-ZULTE - Actuele prenten: James Ensor, Francisco Goya, William Kentridge, Roger Raveel en Rembrandt van Rijn - 27.11.2016-26.02.2017

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Gedrukte prenten vormen een belangrijk maar niettemin miskend aspect binnen het oeuvre van de meeste toonaangevende kunstenaars. De tentoonstelling Actuele Prenten brengt grafisch werk bijeen van kunstenaars uit diverse periodes die inhoudelijk en vormelijk verwantschap vertonen. In een tijdsegment van meer dan vier eeuwen blijkt dat techniek en thematiek een grote eenheid vormen die steeds actueel is gebleven.
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Grafiek biedt naast de ruimere verspreiding van het kunstwerk ook de mogelijkheid om in reeksen te werken, al dan niet met een epische of poëtische verhaallijn.
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Veeleer dan een historisch overzicht te brengen gaat deze tentoonstelling dieper in op de grafische kunst van enkele markante kunstenaars die het medium telkens weer vernieuwden en betekenis gaven. Met werk van James Ensor, Francisco Goya, William Kentridge, Roger Raveel en Rembrandt van Rijn...



Roger Raveelmuseum - Actuele prenten: James Ensor, Francisco Goya, William Kentridge, Roger Raveel en Rembrandt van Rijn - 27.11.2016-26.02.2017


 
 
 
 
 

2016-12-14

4750 - 20170108 - BELGIË - GENT - These Strangers... Painting and People - 01.10.2016-08.01.2017

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Victor Man, Grafting or lemontov dansant comme Saint Sebastien 2014-2015 - courtesy the Artist and Galerie Neu, Berlin

The exhibition is not a survey, but explores the individual oeuvres of a number of painters who, on the basis of the portrait tradition, confront us with both the act of looking at the subject and the look we get back from the subject. Their paintings represent the (intimate) other against the background of their personal, social and cultural circumstances as both artists and humans.

In the course of art history, painting has evolved from the subjective act of applying paint to a support to a complex practice that lies in an in-between zone. The medium has become a domain where the personal meets mass production, where manual actions are combined with industrial techniques and pure imagination is accompanied by the appropriation of images from the media and the arts.

Portrait painting operates under these same new circumstances. Whereas the painted portrait initially symbolised the pursuit of trueness to life, it later played a crucial part in the rise of individualism. In our network culture, where the image of the self is moulded and shaped by the views of those around it, portrait painting raises pertinent questions about such notions as originality, identity, gender, subjectivity, awareness (and self-awareness).

With work by Nicole Eisenman, Victor Man, Alice Neel, Paulina Olowska, Nicolas Party, Elizabeth Peyton, Avery Singer, Henry Taylor and Katharina Wulff.


 
S.M.A.K. - These Strangers... Painting and People - 01.10.2016-08.01.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2016-12-07

4748 - 20170205 - BELGIË - BRUGGE - The Art of Law. Three Centuries of Justice Depicted - 28.10.2016-05.02.2017

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In the fifteenth century, it was customary to decorate courtrooms with works of art that were intended to 'encourage’ the aldermen and judges to perform their duties in an honest and conscientious manner. These works often depicted the supreme moment of divine justice: the Last Judgement. But other scenes from the Bible were also used, as were images from more profane sources. Together, these are known as the ‘exempla iustitiae’ (meaning ‘examples of fair justice’). In 1498, Gerard David was commissioned by the city council of Bruges to paint just such a work: ‘The Judgement of Cambyses’. This remarkably gruesome painting once hung in the courtroom of Bruges town hall and is now one of the finest masterpieces in the Groeningemuseum.
Subjects relating to justice were also depicted outside the courtroom in paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture and stained glass windows. ‘The Art of Law’ exhibition has brought together some twenty works of art from the collections of Musea Brugge, supplemented by about hundred other pieces on loan from galleries and museums both at home and abroad. They paint a fascinating picture of the way in which justice and the law were represented in art during the Ancien Régime.




Groeningemuseum - The Art of Law. Three Centuries of Justice Depicted - 28.10.2016 - 05.02.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2016-11-30

4746 - 20170402 - Belgium - Antwerpen - Middelheim Museum - Roman Signer - 29.10.2016-02.04.2017

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Roman Signer, Projet pour un jardin, 2016. Permanent work Middelheim Museum. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Simon Vogel.

Between 29 October 2016 and 2 April 2017 you will get the chance to acquaint yourself with the idiosyncratic work of the Swiss artist Roman Signer, the sculptor who combines poetry, science and action in his work in his own unique manner.
‘Projet pour un jardin’ links together past and contemporary creations that Roman Signer has worked on in collaboration with the Middelheim Museum. In the past these collaborations were part of a group event, this time he’s exhibiting alone. The artist is putting on two actions in and around the Braem Pavilion. In addition, he creates a new permanent work specially for the Middelheim Museum.

Signer & Middelheim, a powerful combination
In the Middelheim Museum time and surroundings play a more intense role than they would in a classical museum. Changing light, the passing of the seasons, the dialogue with later works, the relationship of the landscape versus the art which can be found in it. These are elements with which all the artists in the Middelheim Museum are confronted, but not all of them incorporate this theme in their work. Time and surroundings are at the very heart of Roman Signer’s oeuvre. In that respect his work is perfect for the Middelheim Museum.

Understanding Roman Signer’s work might seem like a difficult task for the uninitiated. And even those who are familiar with Signer’s oeuvre consider ‘Bidon Bleu’, that has been part of the permanent collection since 2012 as atypical work. The monumental character of this work means it is not often identified with the better-known elements from Signer’s body of work. This solo exhibition is an opportunity to see this piece within the context of his other work. It takes him ever further - one action leads to the next - in a seemingly endlessly meandering journey through impressive natural landscapes and recognisable urban situations.

Risk and danger are part of Signer’s actions, but are never a goal in themselves. They have determined the artist’s reputation, but usually stand in the way of a poetic interpretation of his work. The spectator is often confronted with his own expectations of what he finds meaningful or not.

‘Projet pour un jardin’ links Roman Signer’s international career with his love of Sankt Gallen in Switzerland, where he has lived and worked since 1971. ‘Jardin’ is about something homely, something personal, something familiar. For Signer that is Sankt Gallen and the natural surroundings which are so omnipresent in his work and life. The open air museum is a garden for many urbanites whilst at the same time a public domain. This Antwerp story links the local with the international and, by way of ‘his’ Sankt Gallen, makes a link with all the other locations where Signer’s work can be found worldwide.

Fourth dimension, two traces
‘Stop motion: time as a succession of moments in contrast with the exceptional experience of always one moment’. No art is better suited to the theme of the temporary projects that the Middelheim Museum is putting on in 2016 than the work of Roman Signer. In particular, Signer is the sculptor who has added the dimension of ‘time’ to sculpture.

Signer always works according to the same structure, in three phases. First of all there is the basic form, which already contains the potential to change. Every project contains a moment of tension, a moment in which time seems to stand still, before the action takes place. This action, often steered by the artist himself, is the impetus to the change which comes about in the course of the action. The trace, the residue of the action, is the material artwork.

Dynamic and static moments, both past and future: Signer doesn’t see them as incompatible, but as aspects of one and the same work. Because the phases are clearly defined and their order is fixed, the process can also be mentally repeated and thus also captured in our imagination. So his work encourages the spectator to follow him from the physical to the conceptual.

The permanent work of art ‘Bidon Bleu’, the monumental installation which Roman Signer created for the Middelheim Museum in 2012, is a great example of this. During the action (on 26 May 2012) the artist threw a blue canister, filled with water, from a fifteen metre high slope in space. The container splashed open against the rear wall of a concrete construction. The action comes to a standstill, the water evaporates. The only thing left is the trace: the result of the action, frozen in time. The time interval is constantly supplemented with ‘memories of the action, the suggestion of what has happened’. A second trace is the cinematic report that Signer’s wife Aleksandra makes of every action.

“A change in being fascinates me, from beginning to end. This is how a time sculpture is created” ---Roman Signer

As part of ‘Projet pour un jardin’ Roman Signer has been working on two new actions. One of which ‘Haben Sie Angst für rot, gelb und blau? Ja, ich habe Angst!’, were debuted on the first day of the exhibition.

This action consists of red, yellow and blue paintballs, remote-controlled miniature helicopters and a table. With Signer on the remote, the paintballs are dropped onto the table by the helicopter, where the paint leaves behind a permanent trace.

The time sculpture, which is reminiscent of earlier experiments such as ‘Kugel mit blauer Farbe’ (Shangai Biennial 2012), is on show in the Braem Pavilion during the exhibition. The same venue is also screening a cinematic representation of ‘Haben Sie Angst für rot, gelb und blau? Ja, ich habe Angst!’ and a film with previous actions by the artist.

Also in the Braem Pavilion we get to see the result of the action ‘Spuren’ as a temporary installation. This work again contains all the elements which are characteristic of the artist’s work. In a sand carpet we see the traces which Signer has left behind as he zigzagged across it on skis. The journey ends at a ski cabin. There is no trace left of Signer, only his skis in the ski cabin. And the film of the action.

In the video Pendulum (2016), set up in a separate room in the Braem Pavilion, we see the artist's hands rhythmically avoiding a bucket as it swings back and forth like a pendulum. Eventually, the movement ceases, and bucket and hands meet.

Meandering
‘Projet pour un jardin’ is not just the name of the exhibition and the book about it; it is also the title of a new, permanent work that Roman Signer has made especially for the Middelheim museum. The steel work has a surface area of four by eight metres and is 130 cm high. It looks like a detail of a maze and, when looked down on from above, is reminiscent of the zigzag silhouette of ‘Spuren’ (2016).

In ‘Projet pour un jardin’ it is not Signer, but the visitor who is the central figure in the experiment, who can decide on the journey he embarks upon – in which from above it looks like the head has been separated from the torso. Taller people might have to walk through here with their knees bent. Not as a lesson in humility – in Signer's work there is no room for power or domination – but possibly a symbolic reference to ‘separating the head from the body’, the separation of the emotional from the rational.

In this new project time starts whenever someone begins the journey. That results in another form of experience of time: the personal, physical experience. In that respect the two works from the collection, ‘Bidon Bleu’ and ‘Projet pour un jardin’, complement each other well with ‘Projet pour un jardin’ as a binding element between ‘Bidon Bleu’, the park and the solo exhibition.

Sculpture according to Signer
In the beginning of his career, in the 1970s, Roman Signer carried out research into the visualisation of natural phenomena with almost scientific precision. The basic properties of water, sand and stone, executed in 3-D. He also transformed fire, rockets and explosions into ephemeral actions, or used their power to transform tables, chairs, beds, wooden balls or blue barrels. Other things on his list of favourite props include plastic lint, paint, clay, paper, wooden poles, skis, a kayak, a scooter and a ventilator. The objects, which are each time used in different combinations, have undergone a meticulous selection over the years.

With this limited number of elements Signer sculpts a world which never fails to amaze the spectator. His work makes an important contribution to the tradition of ‘Process Art’ and he single-handedly rewrites the definition of sculpture. With the concepts of ‘action’, ‘distribution in space’ and ‘time’ he has added three new dimensions to it.

Through his work he tackles time in diverse manners: ‘Action with a Fuse’ (1989) lasts 35 days, the closing event of Documenta 8 (1987) lasts just a few seconds. ‘Vitesse: 2000 metres/ second’ (1992) is literally about an enormous acceleration. Sequence, simultaneity, duration, the immediate, continuity, perseverance and rhythm are all ways of giving shape to his images.

Modus Operandi
Roman Signer combines natural elements such as water, wind, earth and fire with simple props such as rockets and balloons. The result is often surprising, absurd and poetic. Water is perhaps the most common element in Signer’s work. The fascination with water has never left this man who grew up on the banks of a river. The ‘meander’ pattern of a natural stream can also be seen in his new work ‘Spuren’ and ‘Projet pour un jardin’. His frugal choice of materials is in sharp contrast with the highly imaginative way he develops his projects. The result is a contrary oeuvre that makes no concessions to trends or aesthetic expectations.

Even though his actions are not functional, his oeuvre expresses a great interest in reality outside the art world. In addition, his actions - without a role but also not without danger - can be seen as symbols or metaphors for an existential questioning: “I need to enter into confrontation with the ephemeral. Perhaps that’s because I’m sensitive to tragedy, the absurd, futility and meaninglessness which we as human beings are responsible for.” (R.S., Venice Biennale, p. 37). Signer uses small things to set something in motion which you can reflect upon in a broader context and which everyone can relate to.
Source: Art Daily
  
Middelheim Museum - Roman Signer - 29.10.2016-02.04.2017    
  
 
 

  
         

2016-11-23

4744 - 20170305 - BELGIË - BRUSSEL - Picasso. Sculptures - 26.10.2016-05.03.2017

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Picasso. Sculptures


“Large, ambitious and unavoidably, dizzyingly peripatetic”, wrote The New York Times about the Picasso Sculpture exhibition at the MoMA. The Musée Picasso in Paris, in collaboration with BOZAR, builds on the theme. Over 80 sculptures represent the staggering creative power of an artist who really went to town experimenting with a range of materials and techniques. The sculptures conduct a dialogue with paintings, ceramics, photographs and objets d’art from Picasso’s private collection. The exhibition takes a fresh look at a less familiar but very personal aspect of the artist’s oeuvre.

Curators: Cécile Godefroy and Virginie Perdrisot




BOZAR  - Picasso. Sculptures - 26.10.2016-05.03.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2016-11-16

4742 - 20170115 - BELGIË - DROGENBOS - FeliXart Museum - Drogenbos - Victor Delhez - 16.10.2016-15.01.2017

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Victor Delhez (Antwerpen, 1902 - Argentinië, 1985) is één van de belangrijkste houtsnijders uit het abstract modernisme in België. Als grote vriend van Michel Seuphor begint hij met expressionistische gravures die in de eerste nummers van Het Overzicht gepubliceerd worden. Omstreeks 1923 evolueert Delhez naar abstract werk. In 1925 sterven zijn ouders in een auto-ongeval en vertrekt hij naar Argentinië, waar hij als technisch tekenaar en architect aan de slag gaat. Hij verhuist naar Bolivië om in 1940 terug te keren naar Argentinië, waar hij professor wordt aan de universiteit van Cuyo en waar hij de rest van zijn oeuvre verder zet in een magisch realistische stijl.

Toch kent hij doorheen zijn lange carrière in totaal drie abstracte periodes. In 1952 komt hij een tweede maal tot de abstracte kunst met de schertsende Bagatellino-reeks, als persiflage op de abstracte kunst. Vanaf de jaren 60 profileert hij zich als pionier van de tweede abstracte golf en richt zich met zijn kleurenversies van eerdere composities een derde keer tot de abstractie.

In Vlaanderen is vooral het symbolisch fantaisistisch werk van Delhez bekend en gewaardeerd. Het FeliXart Museum wil in een selectief overzicht het licht werpen op zijn pionierswerk en de worsteling met abstracte kunst.


Victor Delhez (Anvers 1902 - Argentine 1985) est l'un des principaux graveurs sur bois du modernisme abstrait belge. Grand ami de Michel Seuphor, il débute par des gravures expressionnistes qui sont publiées dans les premiers numéros de Het Overzicht. Autour de 1923 son oeuvre évolue vers l'abstraction. Après le décès de ses parents dans un accident de voiture en 1925, il part vivre en Argentine, où il commence à travailler comme dessinateur technique et architecte. Il déménage en Bolivie, mais reviendra en Argentine en 1940, étant devenu professeur à l'université de Cuyo. Il y poursuivra son oeuvre dans un style magico-réaliste.
Sa longue carrière est toutefois ponctuée de trois périodes abstraites. En 1952 il s'oriente une deuxième fois vers l'abstraction avec la série humoristique Bagatellino, un persiflage de l'art abstrait. A partir des années 60 il se profile comme pionnier de la seconde vague d'abstraction en réalisant des versions en couleur de ses compositions antérieures.
La Flandre connaît et apprécie surtout l'oeuvre d'orientation symbolique et fantaisiste de cet artiste. A travers un aperçu sélectif, le


 
FeliXart Museum - Victor Delhez - 16.10.2016-15.01.2016
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2016-11-09

4740 - 20170129 - BELGIË - ANTWERPEN - Saul Leiter - Retrospective - 28.10.2016-29.01.2017

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Saul Leiter - Retrospective

This autumn, FOMU presents a retrospective of the work of Saul Leiter (US, 1923 - 2013), a pioneer of colour photography. Leiter was already using colour film in 1946 at a time when only black and white photography was accepted as an artistic medium. This fact negates the commonly-held assumption that colour images were only used from the 1970s onwards, with the advent of the New Color Photography movement led by Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. Saul Leiter only gained recognition for his pioneering role late in his life; since then, his permanent place in the history of photography has been secure.

Saul Leiter considered himself to be a painter as well as a photographer. His work in both disciplines is linked by a common visual style: abstraction and flatness. He mainly photographed the streets of New York, where he lived for over sixty years. The compositions depict mirrors, windows, road signs, buildings and passers-by. The urban elements blur into amorphous colours that form an important feature of each image.

This exhibition is displaying both Leiter’s colour and his black-and-white photographs, as well as a selection of his paintings and work that has never been shown before.
The exhibition is a partnership between Haus der Photographie, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Gallery FIFTY ONE Antwerp, Saul Leiter Foundation, Howard Greenberg Gallery and FOMU Antwerp.

Curators: Rein Deslé, Roger



 
FOMU - Saul Leiter - Retrospective - 28.10.2016 - 29.01.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2016-11-02

4738 - 20170122 - BELGIË-BRUSSEL-ELSENE - Constant Lambrecht - 27.10.2016-22.01.2017

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A native of Roelers (1915-1993), Constant Lambrecht was an active member of the lyrical abstraction movement of the second half of the century in Belgium. Nourished by the spirit of Flemish expressionism, he primarily claimed the work of Zadkine and was not averse to Picasso’s Cubism. His paintings were permeated with rhythm and colour. Generous and perceptive work to rediscover at the Museum of Ixelles.




Museum van Elsene - Constant Lambrecht - 27.10.2016-22.01.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2016-10-26

4736 - 20170402 - Belgium - Gent - War in short pants - 14.10.2016-02.04.2017

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War in short pants looks at the first world war through the eyes of children. from october 14th 2016 seven children from seven countries will be telling their story in the st peter’s abbey in ghent. each of them lived their own personal war, close to the front perhaps, on the other side of the world or fleeing the enemy.
In their own language the children recount how a world war invades their playground, living-room, classroom or village. with pen and pencil they describe in diaries, letters and drawings how the great war affects their loved ones and their dreams, and touches their hearts. it is as if the young people we hear on the audio-guide are experiencing their impressions of the day for the first time.
Visitors to the exhibition literally step into the time and space of the young protagonists, surrounded by original ego-documents and historical toys.  each child’s microcosm is crystallized in enlarged toy frames which reflect the child’s environment and testimony. looking at their toy aeroplanes and soldiers, childhood turns to adulthood, playtime to the ‘real’ world.

The summer of 1914 saw the outbreak of a war that changed the world. Soldiers were not its only victims; whole communities were affected. Children as well as adults suddenly found themselves in the eye of the storm. 
Those confounding and tragic experiences have been widely commemorated since 2014. Following on from there, Historische Huizen Gent looked at those events from a new viewpoint: that of children. How did children experience that dramatic period which turned the world upside down? How did the war impact on their little world?
War in short pants juxtaposes the child’s world with the world of grown-ups, childish fantasy with adult reality. Photographs and moving images show children’s belongings in a wider context and bring to life the world in which children grew up during the First World War. In this way, the exhibition sketches an extraordinary picture of what was for everyone an extraordinary time. And it does this in the stimulating, poetical and novel way that is the trademark of Historische Huizen Gent’s exhibition-makers.

Original exhibition design
The exhibition underlines in an original and very tangible way the stark contrast between the children’s world and the harsh reality. The world of the protagonists is recreated in large steel constructions representing parts of toys. Visitors step into them and become part of the child’s world, part of the child’s story. On the accompanying audio-guide they hear excerpts from the children’s diaries and letters, which bring that world to life and make it more poignant.  
Step out of that environment and visitors find themselves face to face with the adult reality of the day. A theme is linked to each child and developed on the basis of his or her life story. Those themes range from ‘the absent father’, ‘the mobilization of the child’ and ‘life under occupation’ to ‘child soldiers’, ‘globalization’, etc.

International loans   
War in short pants prides itself on numerous loans and visual material from Belgium and abroad, including L’Archive de La Province dominicaine de France, das Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the Imperial War Museum, the Royal Bank of Scotland Archives, le Musée de la Grande Guerre du pays de Meaux, la Collection Société française de photographie, Stiftung Ruhr Museum, In Flanders Fields and the Royal Museums of Art and History.
A number of private collectors at home and abroad also made their collections available. And, last but not least, we are indebted to the Toy Museum in Mechelen for their cooperation.

Cooperation with Cegesoma and the institute for public history  Like Coloured Past, Family at War in 2010 and Unknown Images, Powerful Stories in 2012, War in short pants is a cooperation project between Historische Huizen Gent, Bruno De Wever of the Instituut voor Publieksgeschiedenis/UGent and the CegeSoma in the person of Rudi Van Doorslaer and Bruno Benvindo

 
Sint-Pietersabdij - War in short pants - 14.10.2016-02.04.2017
 
 
 

2016-10-20

4734 - 20170122 - BELGIQUE - HORNU - REBEL REBEL art + rock - 22.10.2016-22.01.2017

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Le MAC’s présente REBEL REBEL art + rock, une exposition inédite consacrée à la culture rock et ses liens avec l’art contemporain. Les utopies, contestations, marginalités, looks et autres attitudes singulières qui caractérisent la musique rock ont inspiré en effet nombre d’artistes plasticiens depuis les sixties. Denis Gielen, directeur du MAC’s, invite le public à redécouvrir la culture rock à travers le prisme d’œuvres (vidéos, photos, installations, dessins, peintures, etc.) qui en détournent les codes, les modes et les références. Réunissant les œuvres de près de 30 artistes belges ou étrangers, l’exposition propose un regard sur le rock, tantôt immersif (installation vidéo) tantôt distancié (documents d’archives), qui oscille entre énergie destroy et humour désinvolte. À épingler, la présence d’une installation rare du grand artiste américain Dennis Oppenheim, qui n’a plus été montrée depuis sa création en 1974 et que le MAC’s, en collaboration avec la Fondation basée à New York, a exhumée des oubliettes. Pour les amateurs de distorsions et de bidouillages électriques, un concert-performance noise de Joris Van de Moortel, jeune artiste anversois, aura lieu au MAC’s le soir du vernissage. Publié aux Éditions Fonds Mercator, un livre abondamment illustré et organisé suivant trois modes importantes de l’histoire du rock (le folk, le glam et le punk) est également édité à cette occasion.

On pourra y découvrir des œuvres de : Jean-Michel Alberola, Dave Allen, Jacques André, David Askevold, Charlotte Beaudry, Quentin de Briey, David Claerbout, Gilles Élie Cohen, Damien De Lepeleire, Douglas Gordon, Dan Graham, Patrick Guns, Daniel Johnston, Corita Kent, David Lamelas, Gauthier Leroy, Jacques Lizène, Christian Marclay, Dieter Meier, Angelica Mesiti, Jonathan Monk, Johan Muyle, Dennis Oppenheim, Tony Oursler, Steven Parrino, Raymond Pettibon, Allen Ruppersberg, Catherine Sullivan, Dennis Tyfus, Joris Van de Moortel, Alan Vega.

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Since the '60s, rock has, alongside other so-called popular cultures such as S.F., been one of the new areas explored by visual artists who find it a wonderful source of inspiration and energy. Derived from blues and country, country American music, rock is a typically teenage culture whose history moves between industrial fun and suburban revolt. Celebrated with nostalgia or parodied with virulence, its ‘religion’ haunts, from Pop Art, a complete side to modern art, with its electric and devilish distortions. From political revolt to identity crisis, not to mention artistic nihilism.





MAC’s - REBEL REBEL art + rock - 22.10.2016-22.01.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2016-10-12

4732 - 20170212 - BELGIË - HASSELT - Label it. Trademarks in Fashion - 01.10.2016-12.02.2017

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From 1 October 2016 until 12 February 2017, Fashion Museum Hasselt will be presenting ‘Label it. Trademarks in Fashion’, as part of Stadstriënnale Hasselt/Genk, a multidisciplinary art festival combining art, design, and fashion. Using three sections and specific case studies, this exhibition explores identity, the system of trademarks, and the copy and counterfeit fashion industry. Instead of limiting itself to a simplistic narrative of real versus fake, this exhibition presents an insightful exploration of trademarks as a legal and social construct. What makes a brand? What goes into constructing a fashion house’s identity? ‘Label it.’ tries to answer these questions using masterpieces from designers’ own collections, as well as collections from Belgian and international museums and fashion houses.

‘Label it. Trademarks in Fashion’ brings together extraordinary works by designers and fashion houses, including Alexander McQueen, Olivier Theyskens, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Dries Van Noten, Maison Margiela, Balenciaga, Vetements, Chanel, Moschino, Christian Wijnants, Missoni, Ann Salens, and many more.

Curator: Eve Demoen
Curator Artistic reflection course: Pieter Jan Valgaeren
Scenography: Base Design
Coordinator/ Director: Kenneth Ramaekers
Production: Ann Daemen
Graphic design: Base Design




Modemuseum Hasselt - Label it. Trademarks in Fashion - 01.10.2016-12.02.2017
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


 

2016-10-05

4730 - 20170122 - BELGIË-ANTWERPEN - Robert Filliou – The Secret of Permanent Creation - 13.10.2016-22.01.2017

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‘Art is what makes life more interesting than art.’
 
In the autumn of 2016 Muhka, the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, will dedicate its main exhibition floor (around 1,300 m2) to an artist, poet and playwright who was one of the most conceptually radical – but also one of the most radically intuitive – presences on the European and Transatlantic scene of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Today he might have called himself an activist, working to turn the political economy into a poetic economy, but he was also an entrepreneur of sorts (who made almost no money), an educator (in both practice and theory) and a mystic (whose last ‘project’ was to retreat into a Buddhist monastery for three years, three months and three days).
 
Robert Filliou was born into a protestant family in the south of France in 1926. At the age of seventeen he was active in the French resistance. Later he would apply the principles of non- violence very strictly to all aspects of his life and work and thinking. In 1945 he went to the US to find his father, an itinerant tailor. They eventually met in Los Angeles, where Filliou worked in a Coca Cola plant and took a degree in political economy. He joined the team of United Nations economists and co-authored A Five-Year Plan for the Reconstruction and Development of South Korea in 1953. The year after he abandoned this career and began his own itinerant, often precarious existence as a man of what he called ‘joint works’: ideas created and visualised in close collaboration with words (both French and English ones), physical materials (including all kinds of found objects) and – most importantly – other people.
 
Filliou was in many ways the quintessential artists’ artist, collaborative and convivial but also a strong influence on his peers. Indeed he is still an active reference for artists of younger generations, some of them not even born when he passed away almost thirty years ago. Among Filliou’s many close companions and collaborators were the artists Daniel Spoerri, Dieter Roth and Marcel Broodthaers, the artist and composer George Brecht, the artist and poet Emmett Williams and the architect and artist Joachim Pfeufer. But the most important person in his life and work was his wife Marianne Filliou, whom he first met in Copenhagen when she was just seventeen.
 
‘I use objects for their own sake, or as springboards for the concept.’
Filliou’s visual oeuvre began in 1960 with L’Immortelle Mort du Monde (‘The Immortal Death of the World’), a graphic representation of an aleatory theatre play, and ended in 1987 with Time in a Nutshell, short pieces of writing on small pieces of paper sealed inside cracked walnuts. Writing is almost always on display in Filliou’s work, as part of the image or image- object.
 
The work from the 1960s, when he maintained an on–off relationship with the Fluxus movement, could be described as poetic, not least because he often used his preferred materials (paper, cardboard, wood, canvas) as support for words. The ‘suspense poems’, sold by mail order, are good examples of this. The various ‘boxes’ also incorporate written messages, nodding to Fluxus but also, inevitably, to Duchamp. It can be argued that Filliou went further than Duchamp, whom he critiqued mostly for not taking the non-white-males of the world into account. In the performance Gong Show (1977) Filliou says:
 
You know, Duchamp used to say in his later years, ‘What do you mean I’m famous – my greengrocer doesn’t know who I am.’ I used to say that I’m quite the opposite of Duchamp – only my greengrocer knows who I am. Duchamp added, ‘We must abolish the idea of judgment.’ I have worked it out further. I think we must abolish the idea of admiration.
Filliou was ready to live experimentally, with or without the support of the art world. In 1961 he had his first solo exhibition, at the artist Addi Köpcke’s gallery in Copenhagen, and in 1962 he operated a very small art gallery on the streets of Paris, Galerie Légitime, out of the cap on his head. Later in the decade he ran the non-gallery La Cédille qui sourit with George Brecht at Villefranche-sur-Mer near Nice. It was during those years that he developed his constitutive practice – collaboration and conviviality across space and time – into the concept of La Fête Permanente, which he consistently ‘mistranslated’ as The Eternal Network.
 
It was Marianne Filliou who once remarked: ‘You’re artists when you create. But when you stop, you’re not artists anymore.’ This alerted Filliou to the necessity of Permanent Creation, which would become his overriding concern: ‘First and foremost I’m interested in permanent creation, of which the universe is only a consequence.’ In Irmeline Lebeer’s Le Petit Robert Filliou (1971) he offered these explanations:
The Secret of Permanent Creation: Whatever you’re thinking; think something else. Whatever you’re doing; do something else.
The Absolute Secret of Permanent Creation: Desire nothing, decide nothing, choose nothing, be aware of yourself, stay awake, calmly seated, do nothing.
 
Filliou first became acquainted with Zen Buddhist practice while working as an economist in Korea. He sometimes signed off as ‘taoïste de gauche’, which is ironical not least because the distinction between location and direction, so crucial to the Western mind, is often suspended in Chinese and Far Eastern culture.
 
Such fluidity and constant movement is also at the core of Filliou’s work and thinking. He identified three kinds of art practice: art as creativity; anti-art, consisting of disseminating the works resulting from such creativity; and non-art, meaning ‘to create without worrying about the dissemination or non-dissemination of works’.
 
An even more famous triad is his Principle of Equivalence. It directly attacks the concept and practice of judgment, a fundament of Western culture: ‘That an artwork is well made, badly made or not made at all I find, from the point of view of permanent creation, to be of no importance.’ From the late 60s onwards, Filliou explicitly visualised this principle in several key works, classifiable as sculptures or installations or videos. In his work the interaction between ‘concept’ and ‘object’ (and between ‘art’ and its ‘audience’) goes far beyond the cerebral. This should already be clear from the quotes used as chapter headings here!
 
Already in 1963 Filliou and Pfeufer started constructing their joint work Poïpoïdrome, ‘a functional relation between reflection, action and communication’ planned as a building measuring 24 by 24 metres, centred on the ‘poïpoï egg’ and ready to accommodate all audiences.
You don’t have to ‘learn’ anything to participate in the actions and reflections of the Poïpoïdrome. What the users know is enough. Accepting that you know what you know, but also ‘knowing what knowing is’, that is the spirit of permanent creation. Homage (and thanks) to the Dogons! When two Dogons meet, they ask each other, for instance: ‘And how is your field? And how is your family? And how are your cattle? And how are your chickens? And how is your house? etc.’ To which they answer a simple ‘Poïpoï’ before parting or, sometimes, starting all over.
Prototypes ‘in real space-time’ were shown in Brussels 1975 and outside (not inside!) the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1978 – while the co-authors were in Mali to meet the actual Dogons… Poïpoïdrome embodies many of Filliou’s key concepts. Apart from Permanent Creation and the Principle of Equivalence, there is La République Géniale (which might be rendered as The Republic of Genius), which starts from the insight that everyone has genius of a particular kind. This is Filliou’s way of ‘de-hiearchising’ another core feature of Western culture. He called himself ‘a genius without talent’. Each Republic of Genius has its own territory, which can very well be mobile (just like the Poïpoïdrome).
 
To describe his activities from the early 70s onwards Filliou often used the term Research, stressing the organic nature of knowledge and thinking – knowing what knowing is – and that genius is ‘built in’ rather than ‘built out’ or ‘built upon’. (He used these English words also in French texts.) Among the key works in this genre are the very large work on canvas Recherche sur l’origine (Research on the Origins, 1974) and works of more manageable size such as the installation Nine Works of Research on Futurology (1971).
 
The ‘multi-book’ Teaching and Learning as Performing Arts/Lehren und Lernen als Aufführungskünste (1970, published in English and German by Walther König) was conceived as a joint work between Filliou and the reader, exploring problems of Teaching and Learning in fields such as action poetry, games and street theatre. In the late 70s Filliou also launched a ‘Video Universecity’ planned to span a period of five billion years.
 
Towards the mid-80s Filliou focused more and more interest on meditation, but also revisited some topics from earlier stages of his ‘non-career’ as a visual artist, among them violence/innocence. The idea to launch an international Biennial of the Art of Peace evokes works such as Seven Childlike uses of Warlike Material (1970, installation of found objects and series of prints) or COMMEMOR (1970, proposal to exchange war monuments between European countries who were once enemies).
Subversive gaming was part of Filliou’s repertoire of topics from the very beginning. One of his last large-scale works, the installation Eins, Un, One… (1984), consists of a multitude of wooden dice in various sizes and colours, but always only showing ‘one’, as if abolishing chance one and for all.
‘We are at the same time perfect and perfectible.’
 
This quote, from the last year of Filliou’s life, may be the ultimate celebration of Permanent Creation. Approaching his oeuvre through this concept, we wish to bring his ideas to new audiences and make it clear why and how they are crucial for the world today – and in the future.
Our goal for ‘Robert Filliou: The Secret of Permanent Creation’ is to acknowledge Filliou as one of the most relevant and radical references for twentieth and twenty-first century art.
We see him as a precursor for some of the recent and ongoing ‘turns’ in contemporary art that involve both politics and poetry, both education and spirituality. Another important reason for showing Filliou’s work next year is the growing impact of Filliou’s work and thinking on younger artists today.
 
The exhibition is thought and planned within a sequence of Filliou surveys that began when he was awarded the first Kurt Schwitters Prize by the city of Hanover in 1982. It will focus on making Filliou’s thinking visible and accessible to audiences today. It will rely on the mental and visual power of individual works but also organise them in areas of interest that transcend chronology (such as ‘Joint Works’, ‘Centres of Permanent Creation’, ‘Research’, ‘Teaching and Learning’ or ‘Contributions to the Art of Peace’) and simultaneously as indications of the directions Filliou suggested for his own thinking – and for ours.
 
One point of anchorage for the display would be the Poïpoïdrome, which articulates the tension between art as Permanent Creation and the ‘anti-art’ of dissemination and mediation that art institutions can – and must – cultivate. We have started preliminary discussions with Joachim Pfeufer. Some principles of construction for the display could also be borrowed from the Chinese garden. In its classical form it actively challenges the visitor’s visual and spatial orientation at every step on his path through a confined space ingeniously constructed to replicate the scale and complexity of both nature and society.
 
The most notable Filliou surveys to date were the touring exhibitions ‘The Eternal Network Presents Robert Filliou’ (July 1984 – February 1985: Sprengel-Museum Hanover; Musée
d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Kunsthalle Berne), ‘Robert Filliou’ (October 1990 – September 1991: Carré d’Art, Nîmes; Kunsthalle Basel; Hamburger Kunstverein; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris) and ‘Robert Filliou: Genius Without Talent’ (April 2003 – March 2004: MACBA, Barcelona; museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf; Musée d’Art Moderne de Lille Metropole).
 
Muhka is looking for partners – ideally two museums or public galleries in Europe and one in America – willing and able to develop and realise this exhibition in collaboration with us.
The previous tours all included venues in France, where much of Filliou’s work is kept, but since Antwerp is just two hours by train from Paris (and three hours from Düsseldorf, another city where Filliou spent several years) we are contacting colleagues further afield, in Berlin, Copenhagen and New York. Just like Antwerp (where Filliou exhibited at the Wide White Space gallery in 1971 and 1972), these are cities to which he had an active and meaningful relation, but which have not yet hosted any survey exhibition of his work. Filliou was quite often in Belgium, and he lived in Germany, Denmark and the US.
 
The process of securing important loans begins this summer, but of course we hope to be able to make the final selection of works for the exhibition in dialogue with the prospective partner institutions. A certain number of Filliou’s best known works will have to be included in any case, but we also hope to showcase some perhaps lesser-known works that help us illustrate (in the positive sense of illuminating or ‘casting light upon’) his thinking.
 
The Muhka collection already comprises some important Filliou prints and multiples such as Handshow (1967) or Seven Childlike Uses of Warlike Materials (1970) and we are now acquiring the recently recovered ‘telegram works’ from Exposition Intuitive (1966), Filliou’s first solo exhibition in Paris. Muhka also has a realisation of Filliou’s Project for Toilets at the Mönchengladbach Museum (1969), based on a sketch in the part of the Muhka collection that derives from the Gordon Matta Clark Foundation set up in Antwerp after that artist’s untimely death in 1978.
Another aspect of this project, apart from the tour, that prompts us to look for partners now is the catalogue. Ideally we would want to produce one version in English (with a supplement containing translations of the texts into Dutch, and perhaps also in Danish) and one in German.
 
Muhka is conducting the preliminary research for this project in collaboration with the art historian Cécile Barrault in Paris. Until recently, she was managing the Filliou estate for Galerie Nelson (previously Galerie Bama) and is therefore very well acquainted with the oeuvre. Through her we are in touch with Marianne Filliou in Eyzies, who has, in turn, put us in contact with the artist Valentine Verhaege in Besançon. The latter is entrusted with digitising the hitherto unpublished archive that Marianne Filliou is keeping.
 
Another research moment will be organised, in collaboration with Muhka, the Flanders Art Institute and Pro Helvetia, during the last weekend of this year’s Salon Suisse at the Swiss consulate in Venice in late November. We are inviting people who knew Filliou and worked closely with him for one day of internal discussions rounded off with a public event in the evening. Among those approached are Daniel Spoerri (who once wrote, ‘Filliou was my brother, but I was his mother’), Jean-Hubert Martin (who was the curator for the Poïpoïdrome at Centre Pompidou in 1978 and for the Filliou retrospective in Paris and Berne in 1984), Joachim Pfeufer (the co-architect of the Poïpoïdrome) and Irmeline Lebeer (the publisher of Le Petit Robert Filliou in 1971). We would also like our prospective partner museums to be part of this gathering!
 
 
 
 
Muhka - Robert Filliou – The Secret of Permanent Creation - 13.10.2016-22.01.2017