M HKA Ensembles

It’s time to celebrate! M HKA has existed for 25 years. 2012 is a jubilee year which we are celebrating with three presentations of the collection spread over the 2012-2013 season. We are starting with the work of five artists who occupy a special place in the story of the museum’s genesis: Guillaume Bijl, Paul De Vree, Gordon Matta-Clark, Antoni Muntadas and ORLAN. The selected ensembles of works are all rooted in the time before the museum opened in 1987. In this way we are pointing out that the lifespan of the M HKA collection extends back beyond the history of the museum.

The 25th anniversary of the M HKA is a 50-year story of an institution and also incorporates the history of the ICC (International Cultural Centre) out of which the museum was born.

The five ensembles, with all the variety they show, give an impression of the international postwar avant-garde that flourished at the ICC. It is art which even then was already examining the potential of the new media: photography, video, film, and the shaping of words and images as a single entity. All five of these artists wanted art to take place in society and to link it to social questions and experiences. In COLLECTION XXXI we are presenting the museum as a memory machine, in this case the memory of a rich, international story of the avant-garde. The museum is the perfect place for a form of permanence where past and future are intimately related.

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