Things to do in Belgium this week: An exciting retrospective in Antwerp, celebrating love in Brussels, diving into music in Liège, and more. See you there!
Opening: Shilpa Gupta at M HKA
Opens Friday, 21 May Antwerp
Love is love: Belgian Pride
Until 23 May Brussels
You might have noticed it already: Brussels is currently dressed up in rainbow colors, from its tunnels to facades. On the occasion of the Belgian Pride, it helps spread a message of diversity, inclusion, and solidarity. Due to the pandemic, there obviously won’t be a big parade this year, but you can participate too: everybody’s invited to color the city’s pavement, and if you don’t have any chalk, you can order it here. There are also a number of digital events taking place, such as online parties and panel talks.
Concerts and more: Label Night Luik Music
Saturday, 22 May, 17h30-21h30 Liège
Liège label Luik Music invites music makers and listeners to a night of concerts and industry talks (on Twitch). You can tune in to see and hear homegrown bands Jeremy Walch, Endless Dive and Bothlane live, get advice on your musical project, as well as learn about other jobs in the sector and what it takes to become a booker or sound engineer. Full program here.
Opening: This Must Be The Place at Alice Gallery
Opens 21 May, 14-21h00 Brussels
With “This Must Be The Place”, also the title of a Talking Heads song, Belgian duo Hell’O in a sense processes their experience of lockdown and confinement throughout the pandemic. Like many, the artists rediscovered interiors, turning their eyes and creative inspiration towards the shelves, sculptures, plants and flowers around them. The 30 new drawings exhibited at Alice Gallery, which the duo worked on separately this time, tellingly never exceed the size of the dining table or the desk. Nevertheless, there’s a surprising harmony and common visual language to be discovered, underlining the strong ties between the two-piece’s members Jérôme Meynen and Antoine Detaille.
Exhibition: Ruben Boeren at A-SPACE
From 21 to 23 May Antwerp
Emerging Belgian artist Ruben Boeren studied painting at the renowned Royal Academy in Antwerp, as well as visual research at Sint-Lucas. You can discover his vibrant artistic universe oscillating between the figurative and the abstract this weekend at “Form Follows Flow” at Antwerp’s A-Space, an industrial building on the edge of the Spoor Noord park.
Exhibition: F#%k U & ur DisNey World at Super Dakota
Runs until 6 June Brussels
Introduced by a cryptic press release consisting of a video featuring disoriented penguins, the group show “F#%k U & ur DisNey World” at Super Dakota brings together works by an interesting combination of contemporary artists. American painter Julia Wachtel, often associated with the iconic Pictures Generation, explores pop culture images and their impact on the human psyche while French-born Sarah Derat works on the intersection of sculpture and digital technology with a particular interest in the effect of AI/automation on language, cognition and society at large. Also on view: Paul McCarthy, Math Bass, Baptiste Caccia, Cai Zebin, Aleksandra Domanović, Gareth Long, Isaac Lythgoe, Real Madrid, and Asha Schechter.
Opening: James Welling and Like the Wall Awaiting the Ivy at MACS
Opens Sunday, 23 May Hornu
Not one but two exhibitions are opening at MACS Grand Hornu this week: “Cento”, referring to the ancient practice of assembling fragments of various poetic or musical works, presents a project by American artist James Welling that all started with taking a photograph of a bust displaying Julia Mamaea, a Roman empress of Syrian origin. He printed it in a range of colours based on the ancient photographic collotype technique, reflecting on time, history, memory. Staying on topic, “Like the Wall Awaiting the Ivy” proposes a poetic, critical meditation on the theme of ruins, featuring an installation by Oriol Vilanova, a double projection of films by Fiona Tan and a sculpture by Daniel Turner.