Antwerp,
World Book Capital 2004
Since 2001 UNESCO – together with an international
selection committee – has named a World Book Capital
each year (Madrid, 2001, Alexandria, 2002 and New Delhi,
2003). The city that is named World Book Capital promises
to implement efforts to promote books and reading for
a whole year. Based on the programme submitted by Antwerp
Book Capital, a professional jury decided unanimously
in January 2003 to confer the title of World Book Capital
2004 on Antwerp for its impressive mix of book fairs,
literary events, libraries, archives and professional
organisations among others. Antwerp was chosen over
Barcelona, Santo Domingo and Seoul.
There are more than a hundred actors in the book trade
in Antwerp. The city has numerous libraries and archives,
small and large publishing houses, book stores, magazines,
various important organisers of literary events such
as Behoud de Begeerte and Villanella, but also umbrella
organisations such as Boek.be, the Vlaams Fonds voor
de Letteren (VFL) or Flemish Literature Fund, the Nationaal
Centrum voor Jeugdliteratuur (NCJ or National Centre
for Children’s Literature) and Stichting Lezen (Foundation
for the Promotion of Reading). Antwerp is also the
home to the most important literary archive at the
AMVC-letterenhuis (Museum and Archive of Flemish Cultural
Life). The City Library is an important heritage library.
The cradle of book publishing is also in Antwerp at
the Plantin-Moretus Museum.
The Boekenbeurs and Het Andere Boek book
fairs, the Saint-Amour literature evenings, the Boekenbal
Literary Ball, the ZuiderZinnen literary festival, “Dichters
in het Elzenveld” and “De Nachten van de
Singel” are but a few of the wonderful literary
highlights of the year. Finally, many authors have
chosen to live and work in Antwerp.
Rubenshuis:
Rubens as Collector
In the days when collecting art was a popular pastime
amongst wealthy burghers, Rubens’s collection grew
into one of the largest and most attractive in Antwerp.
The variety of genres was incomparable and the range
of subjects breathtaking. The painter had a sharp eye
for collectible quality. His stately residence with
its collection worthy of a prince was visited, among
others, by the Infanta Isabella, Maria de Medici, Spinola
and King Sigismund of Poland.
 As an artist he was very interested by the works by
his great models and sources of inspiration, Titian,
Tintoretto and Veronese. But his collection also included
his Flemish predecessors and Germans such as Holbein
and Elsheimer. He admired – and copied – Brueghel
the Elder. Possibly no one owned as many works of the
impoverished Adriaan Brouwer as the wealthy Rubens.
Sculptures of every kind were also on display.
But Rubens was more than just an artist. His collection
also reflected his broad interest in everyday articles
from antiquity, coins, medals and cameos. All this
was stored in the art room that he had built onto his
house, inspired by the Pantheon in ancient Rome, and
intended to provide the necessary status and glory.
Rubens’ rich collection served at the same time to
flaunt his status of wealthy burgher and esteemed public
figure.
But the collection was also an immediately available
catalogue of ideas and motifs for Rubens himself, and
for his employees. It also had an economic purpose,
as Rubens both bought and sold works of art. Fashion
Museum: “Goddess”
Goddess provides us with an overview of how
clothing worn by the Ancient Greeks has influenced fashion
in the 21st century.
It includes silhouettes by Madame Grès, Edward Molyneux,
Halston, Gucci, Versace couture, D&G, Givenchy couture,
Christian Dior couture, Chanel, John Galliano, Vivienne
Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Clements Ribeiro, Giorgio
di Sant’ Angelo, Romeo Gigli, Capucci, Bernhard Willhelm,
Ann Demeulemeester, Patrick Van Ommeslaeghe, Maison Margiela,
Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, Prada, Valentino,
Thierry Mugler, Nicolas Ghesquière, Hussein Chalayan,
YSL Rive Gauche, Azzedine Alaïa, Douglas Ferguson, Roberto
Cavalli and Viktor&Rolf.
There will also be a focus on the summer collections
of 2004, where the inspiration of the Greeks in all their
glory is clearly to be seen once more.
Consequently, rather than being an academic exhibition
on Greek Antiquity, Goddess is a fresh presentation
with an emphasis on contemporary fashion. |
KMSKA
(The Royal Museum of Fine Arts): From Delacroix to
Courbert
During the first half of the 19th century artists
were forced to side with or against Rubens, in a debate
in which he was seen as the model of the pictorial
conception of art, a person who placed colour first
and foremost, and viewed with suspicion by the adherents
of traditional modelling. For artists with a Romantic
bent, like Delacroix, Rubens was the master they sought
to equal. The realists, led by Courbet, preferred Jordaens.
In this exhibition Rubens, Jordaens and others host Delacroix, Ingres and Courbet
in a challenging confrontation of 17th century models with their 19th century
admirers. The French masters are represented at Antwerp with their best works,
which have left the walls and storerooms of the impressive Palais des Beaux-Arts
in Lille for this exhibition. A magnificent encounter.
KMSKA
(The Royal Museum of Fine Arts): The Invention of the
Landscape: From Patinir to Rubens 1520-1650
Landscapes as an independent genre are an “Antwerp” invention
of the early 16th century. But it was in 17th century
Holland and in 19th century Europe that landscapes became
really popular. The Royal Museum has over the years built
up an exquisite collection of landscape artists, including
names like Jan Brueghel, Jan Wildens, Paul Bril, Kerstiaen
de Keuninck, Joos de Momper the Younger, Bonaventura
Peeters and Lucas Van Uden. Alas, insufficient attention
is generally paid to the role of this genre during and
after Rubens’s day, the merits of these landscape painters
having all too frequently been overshadowed by the major
Flemish Baroque painters. The present exhibition changes
all this. The secrets of the birth and the multi-faceted
development of 16th- and 17th-century Flemish landscape
painting will be revealed at last.
Museum
Plantin-Moretus: Rubens and his Library
Danish physician Otto Sperling testified during a visit
to Rubens’s workshop how the painter had Tasso read to
him whilst he was correcting sketches. We know that he
owned a sizeable library, among other things from the
book orders placed with his childhood friend Balthasus
I Moretus. Books were never far from the master’s life.
Just like his art collection, Rubens’s library mirrored
Rubens’s personality. He read artists’ biographies and
studied atlases, books on language and the new science
of archaeology, preferably in Latin. In preparing his
diplomatic missions, he also burrowed into political
and historical literature, as well as court gossip. Nor
were his sons short of schoolbooks. Rubens’s library
was one of the largest in Antwerp, and the selection
displayed here is the first of its kind. The superb Museum
Plantin-Moretus is the place par excellence to discover
this unknown aspect of Rubens’ versatile spirit.
MuHKA:
All under heaven – China now!
MuHKA attempts to renew the way in which the West perceives
Chinese art and to emphasise its universal meaning. The
exhibition will occupy the entire ground-floor of the
museum and will present the most divergent mediums: painting,
video, photography, installations and sculptures. It
will present a selection of those artists who are most
active on the Chinese art scene at this very moment and
expands into new installations created specifically for
this exhibition by Gu Dexin, Xu Zhen and the artists-couple
Peng Yu & Sun Yuan.
The project “All under heaven” is the result
of joint intellectual research. MuHKA (in collaboration
with the KMSKA) and the Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation
- have made a common option: to highlight individuals
in their capacity of creators and to avoid an approach
which would be too sociological or collectivist in their
search for a opening on contemporary Chinese culture
and society. The exhibition emphasises artists who were
representative of the nineties such as Zheng Guogu and
Lin Yilin, but also on the most promising emerging young
artists: Liang Yue, Wang Ningde, A Niu, Xu Zhen… It also
presents the founding artists of contemporary art in
China from the second half of the eighties onwards, such
as Huang Yongping, Cai Guo-Qiang, Gu Dexin, Yang Jiechang
or Chen Zhen, who remain of crucial importance. |