Antwerp’s museums look forward to a festive 2018.
Antwerp’s museums look forward to a festive 2018. The cultural festival Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens inspires celebrates Peter Paul Rubens. In addition, the House of Literature pays tribute to Hugo Claus, the MAS | Museum aan de Stroom literally replaces one of its permanent exhibitions with Celebration! and the Red Star Line Museum marks its fifth anniversary with an exhibition by photographer Carl De Keyzer and a full-on festive weekend.
Caroline Bastiaens, Alderman for Culture: ‘Next year's high point is the city festival Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens inspires, featuring numerous exhibitions and other cultural events in our city, in conjunction with a whole host of cultural partners. We’ll also be putting Hugo Claus in the limelight and celebrating in various ways at the MAS | Museum aan de Stroom and the Red Star Line Museum. Our city museums have packed programmes of events for young and old alike in 2018.’
Overview in chronological order:
Recreated music room at the Snijders & Rockox House
Museum Vleeshuis
From 24.02.2018
At the invitation of the Snijders&Rockox House, currently undergoing renovation, the Museum Vleeshuis has set up a music room entirely dedicated to the Duarte family. As well as some important musical instruments (such as an Antwerp harpsichord from 1644), some paintings will also be on show in the music room that have rarely or never been displayed in public, such as a painted harpsichord lid by Maarten de Vos. In 2018 the Museum Vleeshuis | Sound of the City introduces to the public one of the most musical families of 17th century Antwerp: the Duartes. The museum recreates the musical life of these rear neighbours of Rubens with a CD, a focus exhibition, monthly concerts and a city walk.
Hugo Claus. Behind many masks
House of Literature
17.03.2018 – 1.07.2018
In this exhibition, curator Hilde van Mieghem examines a man and his work: Hugo Claus (Bruges 1929 - Antwerp 2008), a writer and visual artist who loved to cloak himself in a veil of mist and shape reality according to his understanding of it. The visitor discovers the richness and versatility of Claus’ work and experiences his unrelenting inspiration, linguistic virtuosity and precious and impressive manuscripts, many of which he illustrated himself. In this way, the man behind all the masks is revealed with a little more clarity.
The exhibition takes visitors through the life and the oeuvre of Claus, from the earliest verses of sixteen-year-old Hugo C. van Astene to the very last, unfinished writings. They gain an insight into the writing process and discover its different phases by seeing how the novel De verwondering grew out of notes and plans through the different manuscript stages to the final result. Furthermore, the connection is made between reality and fiction through a comparison of diary entries with scenes from, for example, Het jaar van de kreeft. Complete manuscripts of De Oostakkerse gedichten and Schola Nostra can be browsed through and examined in digital versions.
Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens inspires
From 1.06.2018 to January 2019
The cultural festival Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens inspires celebrates Peter Paul Rubens and his baroque cultural legacy. The backbone of the festival is a series of exhibitions in which Rubens and the baroque are put side by side with contemporary art and artists. The festival runs from June 2018 to January 2019.
Rubens’ return
Rubens House
From 01/06/2018
To mark Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens inspires, the collection of the Rubens House is to be added to further. The Rubens House has been running a successful loan policy for some time: recent examples of this include A ‘New’ Van Dyck (A Study for the Head of a Magistrate of Brussels), David Bowie's Tintoretto (St Catherine) and Portrait of a Lady and her Daughter by the Venetian master Titian. In the months ahead, several more masterpieces will join them. The new acquisitions will be announced in the run-up to the festival. Tourism Flanders is working to ensure sustainable tourist access to the new acquisitions during the festival in 2018.
Michaelina
MAS in conjunction with the Rubens House
01/06/2018 – 02/09/2018
The Rubens House presents the first retrospective of the work of Michaelina Wautier (1614-1689), demonstrating the exceptional talent of an artist who grew up in a period when female artists were very rare. Her work is quite simply ground-breaking. The MAS hosts the Rubens House for this exhibition.
Sanguine | Bloedrood. Luc Tuymans on Baroque
M HKA in conjunction with Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA)
01/06/2018 – 16/09/2018
The M HKA contrast the spirit of the Baroque masters with the vision of contemporary artists. Curator Luc Tuymans brings dramatic baroque works into the experimental space of contemporary art and offers visitors a powerful experience by setting up a dialogue between key works and contemporary artists. By means of some unique loans, the exhibition brings together national masterpieces, including a high-profile selection from the KMSKA, and international masterpieces. One conspicuous item in this exhibition is Edward Kienholz’s Five Car Stud.
Experience Traps
Middelheim Museum
01/06/2018 – 23/09/2018
In Experience Traps, the Middelheim Museum examines the contemporary legacy of baroque, focusing in particular on the tension between nature and the artificial. Contemporary international artists, including William Forsythe, Bertrand Lavier and Bruce Nauman, are invited to create new works specifically for the museum and for public spaces in the city. These will be situated at the crossroads between architecture, sculpture and installation, and will scrutinise different stylistic elements characteristic of the baroque cultural juncture: the grotto, the maze, the tableau vivant, the folly, the fountain, the trompe-l’oeil and so on.
Paul Kooiker - Studio
FOMU – Photo Museum Antwerp
28/06/2018 – 07/10/2018
Kooiker has been making images for years which take the nude in art as their starting point. By doing so, he has constructed his own, aberrant art history. His frame of reference mainly focuses on the 20th and 21st centuries, with artists such as Hans Bellmer or Hans-Peter Feldmann. For this project he takes a special, one-off trip to the baroque of the 17th and 18th centuries – the baroque of both Rubens and Rembrandt.
Baroque Book Design
A tale of friendship and cooperation
Plantin-Moretus Museum
28/09/2018 – 06/01/2019
The Plantin-Moretus Museum will be shining the spotlight on book designers, in particular Peter Paul Rubens, during the baroque festival. How did the book evolve in the baroque? Why did a publisher such as Balthasar Moretus work with leading artists? And what is the vision of contemporary innovators in the book trade? The Plantin-Moretus Museum’s exhibition Baroque book design. A tale of friendship and collaboration reveals publishers’ love for their trade, and how they have motivated artists, printers and designers past and present to create top-quality products.
Cokeryen - Photo Film Food. Tony Le Duc / Frans Snijders
Snijders&Rockox House
28/09/2018 – 13/01/2019
The Baroque painter Frans Snijders (Antwerp, 1579 - 1657) is famous for his hunting scenes, impressive market scenes and still lifes. Culinary photographer Tony Le Duc shares with Snijders a sharp eye for attractive compositions. He conjures with colour and elevates basic food to an art form. For the exhibition Cokeryen - Photo Film Food he brings together works by Snijders and his contemporaries and places this selection side by side with his own work. The important element in the experience is the venue, the house and studio of Frans Snijders himself, which opens its doors to the public in 2018.
Monumental Churches of Antwerp
01/06/2018 to 31/10/2018
Antwerp has five monumental churches where baroque and the world of Rubens come to life 'in situ'. These are the majestic Cathedral of Our Lady, St Paul’s Church, St Andrew's Church, St Charles Borromeo's Church and St James' Church. These churches were among the most enthusiastic commissioners of new work from Rubens and his contemporaries. In 2018, these permanent attractions will be made even more accessible. In a new route taking in all five churches, visitors will be able to discover the life story of Rubens.
Baroque Burez
MAS
From 1/6
In 2018, MAS hosts the photographic artist Athos Burez with a photo series about baroque. In 30 images and installations which will be on display on the MAS Boulevard, he offers an idiosyncratic and contemporary look at different genres from this stylistic period: still lifes, portraits, landscapes and interiors. It will be the first time that Athos’ work can be seen in a solo exhibition in Antwerp.
The Antwerp arts sector is also doing its bit for the cultural festival Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens inspires. During this festival the city rediscovers its baroque roots. In addition to a core programme of exhibitions in the museums and churches, Antwerp Baroque 2018. Rubens inspires offers a varied programme in the city with loads of music, theatre, literature, street art, photography, installation art, dance, performances and walks developed by and in collaboration with many well-known names from the Antwerp arts sector.
More details can be found at www.antwerpenbarok2018.be and https://stadantwerpen.prezly.com/
Celebration!
MAS | Museum aan de Stroom
Permanent exhibition from 1.06.2018
It’s celebration time in the museum every day with this exhibition. Celebration! takes visitors on an omnisensory tour of traditions around the world for celebrating the transitional moments in life. The exhibition displays a unique mix of celebratory objects from different museum collections in an original presentation with an exceptional soundtrack. More information: http://www.mas.be
Red Star Line Museum's fifth anniversary
Red Star Line Museum
21.09.2018
During the summer the museum will be closed for renovations. On 21 September, the doors will swing open again to celebrate the museum’s fifth anniversary with a festive weekend and a new temporary exhibition. Antwerpers who came to the city as migrants chart their first five years here and tell visitors their stories both small and large.
More information at www.redstarline.be
Instinct
A bold look at the collection
MAS | Museum aan de Stroom
18.10.2018 – 20.01.2019
The young people of the MAS will be taking over a floor of the museum in the autumn. Visitors will follow their instincts in this unique exhibition that reveals the animal side of the museum collection with creative materials and a wild programme. With this bold take-over of the collection, the young people redefine what a museum is all about, according to their own views.
More information: http://www.mas.be
Higher Ground - Carl De Keyzer
Red Star Line Museum
31.10.2018 – 27.01.2019
In the autumn the museum welcomes photographer Carl De Keyzer with his haunting exhibition Higher Ground. In his project Moments before the Flood he depicted the threat of climate change and rising sea levels; in Higher Ground he pursues his meditation further. De Keyzer imagines the daily lives of people who, driven away by the flood waters, have sought refuge in the mountains. The beauty of his images contrasts starkly with the underlying story of these new refugees.
More information at www.redstarline.be
More information about this press release via the websites of the museums.