M HKA opens four exhibitions: ‘Eurasia’ breaks down borders… (Antwerp)
M HKA’s interest in the East started fifteen years ago. In various group exhibitions, the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp tries to gain insight into Russia, China and India. This interest also aroused itself in the purchasing policy. When the M HKA put together a major Jospeh Beuys exhibition in 2017, it focused on his philosophy of ‘Eurasia’, a plea to combine Western and Eastern forces.
‘Eurasia, a landscape of changeability’ has a long history. With Nav Haq (with Pakistani roots) and the Polish Joanna Zielinska, the M HKA also has in-house curators who are from Eastern Europe and Asia. “The Eurasian supercontinent is home to three-quarters of the world’s population and a huge exercise,” says Nav Haq. “It is a space on which historical, juxtaposed and futuristic visions act and mutate. The contrast between East and West becomes irrelevant.”
“Ideas and objects have always traveled to each other, via the ancient Silk Road, but with the digital connections between Europe and Asia now completely gone,” adds Zielinska.
The opening image makes this clear: a world map from pieces of textile, which the Italian artist Alighiero Boetti had sewn in Pakistan, hangs opposite The main algorithm, a flashy hologram from the Chinese-Australian collective Zheng Mahler. This mix of craft and high-tech, evocations of nature and global communication form the common thread of Eurasia.
Many names of instructions are made real, but with regard to attention. The curators also selected Ria Pacquée and Michèle Mattyn from Antwerp, who showed an interest in oriental actions in their oeuvres.
Of course Joseph Beuys is not missing at the roll call, any more than his Korean friend Nam June Paik. They were in contact with each other and their artistic dialogue was closer Eur-Asia. In 1984, Paris, from New York, Berlin and Seoul the very first satellite art project Good morning Mr Orwell. Beuys took part with a performance in Orwell trousers designed by him, which can now be admired as an edition in the M HKA.
Eurasia also includes an extensive film program in De Cinema and a performance by Needcompany in deSingel.
Sound art from ICC
Next Eurasia the M HKA will open three other exhibitions. What needs to be heard back to the revolutionary canning achievements that took place in the ICC on the Meir in the 1970s and early. Visitors will see photos of a young Laurie Anderson, Ben’s fluxus piano, a video concert Charlemagne Pales and instruments made of styrofoam and car springs made by George Toots Smits, Ferre Grignard’s accompanist.
The M HKA dedicates solo exhibitions to the Brussels sculptors Marianne Berenhaut (87) and Sara Deraedt (37). Rediscovered in recent years, Deraedt with her thoughtful work has just had an important exhibition in Chicago.