Museum in Motion
As the Flemish fine arts collection finally regains its place in the extensively renovated KMSKA (Royal Museum of Fine Arts), the Flemish Community is also getting ready for the next infrastructural leap further raising the Flemish museum landscape to an international level. The coalition agreement of the government provides a new building for M HKA, that will enhance the visibility of the international collection of contemporary art and its location within a consistent narrative.
An infrastructure trajectory of this nature has to be accompanied by the preparation of the leap in terms of content. With this in mind, M HKA is complementing the grand reopening of its sister institution with a preview of what is to come, thus symbolically starting up this trajectory. The opening of this conversation consists of M HKA’s artistic and collection teams collectively making a concise selection of two dozen artists, which they believe should become part of our frame of reference. Some of them are already strongholds within the collection, others are artists the museum is seeking to include in the years to come. Most of the usual suspects are absent precisely because they are already an acknowledged part of the reference frame. This major presentation thus offers 24 pieces of a future puzzle — 24 key international artistic figures — that may be presented later in the new Flemish contemporary art museum. Focusing on an expanded image of the museum’s collection, the exhibition seeks to reflect its longer-term aspirations.
In this way, the presentation, titled Museum in Motion, signals the beginning of a new trajectory. It is named Museum in Motion after a key book on the particular praxis of contemporary art museums, as this is the specific reflection that will have to be undertaken. The museum will develop its historiography alongside this building process. Presented across both main floors of the museum, this first indicative prefiguration opens up a reflection that will continue as the new building takes shape.
With: Etel Adnan, Marcel Broodthaers, Lili Dujourie, Marlene Dumas, Jimmie Durham, Andrea Fraser, Yang Fudong, Shilpa Gupta, Dorothy Iannone, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Nikita Kadan, Yayoi Kusama, Taus Makhacheva, Gordon Matta-Clark, Hana Miletić, Laure Prouvost, Walter Swennen, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Otobong Nkanga, Nicola L, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Allan Sekula, Nicolás Uriburu, Haegue Yang.
Click here to screen the exhibition in 3D.
Items
7000 eiken (Beuys & Uriburu), 1982
Postcard, Produktion der FREE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY - FIU, Nr. 13 Magdalena Broska (Foto)
An artist from Latin America, Uriburu was always sensitive to the exploitation of natural resources in underdeveloped countries for the sake of favourable economic relations with rich countries. With his "colourings" he wants to open people's eyes, he uses mass meetings of the art world for visibility and does not shy away from collaborating with environmental organisations such as Greenpeace or with the first "Green" political parties. In 1981, he coloured the waters of the Rhine with Joseph Beuys. The action was part of a national day of protest against pollution, organised by the Green Party. The following year, Beuys invited the artist to join him in planting 7,000 oaks in Kassel on the occasion of Documenta 7.
Bad Brains at CBGB: My Picture in your Movie Baby, 1980
Bad Brains at CBGB: My Picture in your Movie Baby is a documentary about the Washington DC punk band Bad Brains. Nicola recorded her own street actions from the beginning on super 8 film, on which we see mostly the Pénétrables (canvases in which you can stick your head, arms and legs) walking down the street, going through a museum or enjoying a meal in the Brussels metro. Le manteau pour our personnes or The Red Coat For 11 People or Same Skin For Everybody was performed and recorded at various locations throughout the 1970s. In 1980, Nicola makes her first documentary film about the punk band Bad Brains. Later, she makes a docu on the anarchist anti-war activist Abbie Hoffman, recording his first interview after seven years in hiding. In 2014 she releases Doors Ajar at the Chelsea Hotel about New York's most famous bohemian/ rock/ punk den where Nicola L herself lived from 1979 until it closed in 2011.
Basta de contaminar (Stop Polluting), 1999
Nicolas Uriburu is the only artist who has collaborated with Greenpeace. They share the concern of making ecological injustice visible and also share the method of carrying out their actions in public spaces without authorization. Rather than researching and lobbying, they are strongly image-oriented. Where Greenpeace began in 1971, the artist decided to colour the Grand Canal in Venice as early as 1968.
Destruktief Intellekt met te Flauw Verleden, 1976
Destructief intellekt met te flauw verleden (Destructive Intellect with Too Questionable Past)
Anthropomorphic sofa consisting of a seat and nine elements: one cushion in the shape of a head, two arms, two hands, two legs and two feet. Polyutheran foam (PUR) covered with a vinyl cover (PVC); the hairs of the head cushion are made of artificial fur.
Improvised Explosive Device, 2021
Handmade edition of 20
The film Le Corbeau et le Renard was made for EXPRMNTL 4, Knokke (1967). However, the jury did not allow Broodthaers' film in the competition because the work did not meet the definition of film. Namely, projection of images onto white canvas. The canvas provided by Broodthaers was printed with text. Isi Fiszman arranged for the film to be shown in a café and in hotel rooms, december 1967.
Le Corbeau et le Renard, 1967-68 (numbers 1/40-7/40)
- a wooden box covered with photographic canvas, 6 × 78.5 × 56.5 cm;
- typography on cardboard "Le Corbeau et le Renard...", 54.3 × 76 cm;
- typography on cardboard and collage "le D est plus grand que le T," 54.3 × 76 cm;
- a double-sided photographic canvas, recto: "L'homme de Lettres...", verso: "Bouteille de lait", 75.5 × 54.2 cm;
- photographic canvas (image of "Casserole de Moules") on green felt, 75.5 × 43 cm;
- two cardboard rods covered with photographic cloth, 27 × Ø 2 cm;
- a tin film box whose bottom is covered with green felt 3 × Ø 19 cm;
- 2 projection screens: a wooden screen covered with photographic canvas, 61 × 80 × 4.5 cm, and a roll-up screen in photographic canvas, 97 × 129.5 cm
Published Wide White Space Gallery (7 ex.)
Le Corbeau et le Renard, 1972 (issues 8/40-40/40)
- a cardboard folder with a portrait of Jean de La Fontaine on the front, 80 × 60 × 1.2 cm;
- typography on cardboard 'Le Corbeau et le Renard...', 54.3 × 76 cm;
- typography on cardboard and collage 'le D est plus grand que le T', 54.3 × 76 cm;
- a photographic canvas with Marcel Broodthaers writing 'Le Corbeau et le Renard', 75.5 × 54.2 cm;
- a photographic canvas with 'Bouteille de lait,' 54.2 × 75.5 cm;
- a photographic canvas with 'L'homme de Lettres', 75.5 × 54.2 cm;
- 2 projection screens: a wooden screen covered with photographic cloth, 61 × 80 × 4.5 cm, and a roll-up screen in photographic cloth, 97 × 129.5 × 2 cm;
- projection of 16 mm color film, 7', 3 × ø 19 cm
Edition Wide White Space Gallery (33 ex.)
In 1972 wordt onder minister van Cultuur Frans Van Mechelen, het Masereelcentrum opgericht. Iets later is Jef Geys medeoprichter en artistiek coördinator van de Vrienden. Hij beslist om voor één van de eerste premies aan Broodthaers te vragen een prent te ontwerpen en vertrekt naar Kassel (waar Broodthaers op dat moment verblijft voor Documenta). Broodthaers geeft hem een brief mee met de opdracht er een collage van te maken en hem de proefdrukken te komen tonen in Londen. Daar werden vervolgens een aantal dingen doorstreept. En zo ontstaat de prent.
Van de prent is een doorstreepte en een niet-doorstreepte versie. De brief is gericht aan Marcel afkomstig van een zekere Pierre van Osselaere en bestaat uit een defaitistisch poëtische boodschap en twaalf postzegels waarop een arend staat afgebeeld.
Museum in motion? - Museum in beweging?, 1979
C. Blotkamp (et al., red.), Museum in Motion? The modern art museum at issue/Museum in Beweging? Het museum voor moderne kunst ter diskussie, Government Publishing Office/Staatsuitgeverij Den Haag 1979
After Jean Leering retired as director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (1964-'73), collector Martin Visser took the initiative to document his work. Ultimately it becomes much more than a retrospective of ten years of museum directorship in Eindhoven. Various essays by museum employees, artists, critics and theorists result in a comprehensive mix of institutional criticism, supplemented by historical documents and art-related statements. Museum in Motion documents a burst of energy.
ICC publication.
Editors : F. Bex, J.-P. Coenen & J. Debbaut.
Authors : Alain Macaire, Nicola, Catherine Parisot & Pierre Restany.
When Nicola L. meets the Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers in 1969, he takes her to the manufacturer where he had started producing his thermoformed plastic sheets or poèmes industriels a year earlier. There, Nicola L. will have her first designs made in plastic: a plastic plate with the words "Same skin for everybody" and the two floor lamps The Eye Lamp and The Lips.
Polka dots all over (The Hague), 1967
Harrie Verstappen / Yayoi Kusama
Polka Dots All Over (The Hague),1967
Kleurenfoto op papier/Colour photo on paper/ Photographie en couleurs sur papier
Rhein Water Poluted (sic), 1981
An artist from Latin America, Uriburu was always sensitive to the exploitation of natural resources in underdeveloped countries for the sake of favourable economic relations with rich countries. With his "colourings" he wants to open people's eyes, he uses mass meetings of the art world for visibility and does not shy away from collaborating with environmental organisations such as Greenpeace or with the first "Green" political parties. In 1981, he coloured the waters of the Rhine with Joseph Beuys. The action was part of a national day of protest against pollution, organised by the Green Party. The following year, Beuys invited the artist to join him in planting 7,000 oaks in Kassel on the occasion of Documenta 7.
Tapis gris pour cinq personnes (The Rug For Five People), 1975
Tapis gris pour cinq personnes was first activated during "SaltoArte", the performative opening night of the exhibition "Je/Nous.Wij/Ik" (Museum van Elsene, Brussels, 23 May - 13 July 1975). At this groupexhibition, two works by Nicola were shown; La Chambre and Fourrure, which was first shown in 1970 in the Galleria Apollinaire in Milano, and in the basement Nicola placed four banners on two poles, as if for a demonstration. The banners each contain a sentence: Nous voulons voir [we want to see], Nous voulons sentir [we want to smell], Nous voulons entendre [we want to hear], Nous voulons toucher [we want to touch]. The stylised heads seem to want to get their message across by wriggling with great difficulty through the canvas.
Since the late 1960s, Nicola L. has focused on a series of so-called 'pénétrables': rectangles of stretched canvas into which participants can put their arms, legs and heads in order to literally penetrate the painting and become one with the art. She uses the structural elements of traditional painting to explore the limitations of what she sees as a passive medium. The monochrome canvases are described with natural elements such as earth, cloud, flower, sky, forest.
The Rebelión, Antagonism between Nature and Civilization (Green series), Paris, 1973, 1973
After the then uprising Black Power, Uriburu stands up for Green Power. A common symbol of revolt against oppression, the fist was probably first depicted as such by French artist Honoré Daumier in his 1848 'The Uprising'; at the centre of the painting is a man with his sleeves rolled up and a clenched fist. The iconic red fist was later used internationally for various social tendencies.
The Spectators / Глядачі, 2016
The Spectators is a portrait series of 'public enemies' from the former Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1930s.
Doosje met vijf multiples uitgegeven door Wide White Space Gallery als nieuwjaarsgeschenk; visitekaartje met handgeschreven nieuwjaarswens en op verso getypte namen van kunstenaars en titels van de multiples. Antwerpen, 1967. Multiples van Marcel Broodthaers, Jeroen Henneman, Hugo Heyrman, Bernd Lohaus, Panamarenko