Antwerp’s MAS museum: making waves

Photograph by Jeroen Verrecht

Nothing quite prepared me for the ‘wow’ factor of the new MAS – Museum aan de Stroom (Musuem on the River) – in Antwerp. I’d seen plenty of photos and thought the stacked-tower design with its contrasting blocks of red sandstone and glass looked great, but the pictures didn’t convey any sense of what it would be like to be inside the 10-storey building.

As you go up the escalator from floor to floor, you feel how every level is twisted 90 degrees to form a giant spiral. Each time you go up a storey, you’re treated to one stunning view after another through the ultra-modern, wavy glass. When you get to the top, there’s a real treat in store: an open-air rooftop with a 360-degree panorama of the surrounding port and the city itself (an experience that can, incidentally, be enjoyed for free without an entrance ticket to the museum). There are even portholes in the glass safety barriers so that you can take the perfect photograph.

The museum has been built in Antwerp’s old harbour area and is supposed to herald a new era of development in this part of the city. I have to admit that before I visited the idea of ‘an area under development’ had made me think I’d be heading to a desolate part of town, probably in the middle of nowhere, where one stunning building would stand all on its own. In fact, the area is just a 10-minute walk from the city’s historic centre and the proximity to the water not only ties in with the maritime theme but also looks and feels good.

But what about the actual exhibits in the museum? All the publicity before the opening in May this year had gone on and on about how the museum would tell the story of Antwerp and its place in the world, but I couldn’t quite grasp what that really meant and what would actually be in the museum. My expectations dropped further when I learned that it would bring together former collections of the Ethnographic Museum, National Shipping Museum and Folklore Museum. I had images of a mish-mash of dull pieces that no longer had homes.

Far from it, it turned out. The sculptures from different religions, the scale models of old sailing ships and the oil paintings of Antwerp have instead all been given a new lease of life in this new environment. The curators have grouped the objects by theme (four themes over five floors) and included audio and video to help bring the exhibits to life and put them in context.  Next to old musical instruments there are buttons to press that make the sound of the bells or the flute you’re looking at; old paintings of Antwerp’s port hang from walls made of wooden crate strips to evoke the port atmosphere; the floor dedicated to the ‘World Port’ theme has the history of the maritime world running on a screen the length of the room; and as you leave the port-themed storey, you are encouraged to write a message and pop it in a bottle.

With a total of 460,000 items on display – and that’s not even taking into account the temporary exhibitions – you’re unlikely to get round the whole museum in one visit, but you can certainly pop your head into each floor and then focus on a couple of the themes in more detail. One downside for non-Dutch speakers is that a lot of the information is only in Dutch, but the introductory boards to each floor are in English as well as the national languages of Belgium. To get a taster, you can take an online tour at http://livetour.mas.be/uk/ . But don’t forget that photos and videos just don’t convey the wow factor. For that, you have to pay a visit in person.

'Passage to Asia' sparks trip down memory lane

‘A Passage to Asia’ is one of the summer exhibition offerings at the Center for Fine Arts in Brussels, and one definitely worth seeing. I’ll lay my cards on the table from the start and admit that I have a soft spot for Asian decorative arts. I used to work in Singapore and while I was there travelled around the region as much as possible: the Angkor Wat temples in Cambodia and the Buddhist temple of Borobudur in Central Java count among my favourite trips, the Museum of Islamic Art in Kuala Lumpur and the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore among my favourite museums.

So as you can imagine, my visit to ‘A Passage to Asia’ was a bit of a trip down memory lane as well as a visual treat. There was also plenty new to learn. I fully recommend getting the audioguide (available in English) as it is full of interesting facts and anecdotes: I learnt that the English word ‘chintz’ derives from the Hindi word ‘chint’ meaning a dotted or painted cloth, that the Mongolian artist Zanabazar has been referred to as the ‘Michelangelo of Asia,’ and that Mary, mother of Jesus, was adopted into the pantheon of Hindu gods as Hindus became acquainted with Christianity in the 15th century.

In fact it is this cultural exchange that forms a common thread through the show, which runs until October to coincide with the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) hosted by Belgium that month. With more than 300 objects on loan from museums across Asia, the exhibition aims to highlight 2,500 years of exchanges between Asia and Europe. It is perhaps unsurprising that early on the project was nicknamed “mission impossible.” While acknowledging that such a vast subject matter cannot be dealt with in depth, the curators Jan Van Alphen and Kenson Kwok are happy to say that “mission impossible” has become reality.

The variety of artefacts on display - ranging from ancient maps to religious manuscripts, travelogues to textiles, bronze drums to ceramic vases - means that the visitor’s curiosity is constantly piqued and, if you’re anything like me, you’ll end up spending hours in the exhibition taking just one more look at this or that Korean ceramic, Indian textile or Balinese drum.

One fascinating theme within the exhibition is ‘Hellenism in Asia,’ where the influence of Alexander the Great’s conquests in Asia is highlighted. A second-century standing Buddha from India illustrates this fusion of Greco and Buddhist forms: on the one hand the Buddha has traditional long earlobes and his hair is piled up in a knot on his head, and on the other the figure wears a toga that shows the contours of the human body and is reminiscent of Greek sculptures.

The last section of the show is dedicated to cargoes recovered from shipwrecks, and includes many ceramics still intact centuries later. As the museum explains, the ships’ cargoes acted as ballast, causing the vessels to fall almost directly to the seabed and resulting in minimal damage to the goods. I can’t claim to have ever stumbled upon any archaeological treasures while scuba diving in Asia, but this part of the exhibition did bring to mind many an enjoyable diving trip in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. A wonderful exhibition, wonderful memories.

Chopin and birthdays

I often tire of hearing that it’s one hundred, or however many hundred, years since the birth or death of this or that composer. Inevitably, these anniversaries serve as excuses for series after series of concerts or related events all focussed on that particular composer, which is all well and good, except that my reaction is often to get fed up with all the publicity before I’ve actually made it to a single performance.

This year is the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Chopin and needless to say I haven’t actually been to a concert of Chopin music this year although there have been plenty to choose from in Brussels.  

I simply find myself bombarded with choice and it all sounds so “samey” on paper. Instead I find myself being drawn toward the concert that’s on the bottom of a small leaflet or a footnote in a magazine, relishing the exciting new discovery. Fine, but there’s no reason why a well-publicised concert of a well-known composer who just happens to be having a posthumous birthday celebrated can’t be equally exciting.

And maybe after this weekend I’ll give the anniversary concerts more time of day. Why? Well, a stroke of luck really. Oblivious to my feelings about such anniversaries, a friend chose to take me to the small exhibition on Chopin that is currently showing at the British Library. And I loved it.

Headsets allowed me to listen to historic recordings of Chopin performances from the British Library Sound Archive and display cabinets were filled with original Chopin manuscripts, letters and even his death mask. The walls were full of information about Chopin’s life, from his early days in Poland to exile in France and his stay in Britain.

What did I learn? Well, Chopin didn’t like to perform in front of an audience, and gave only 30 concerts during his lifetime, he had tiny hands (as seen from a plaster cast of his left hand) and he apparently had an affair with the novelist George Sand that ended most dramatically (though we’re not told how) - and of course that I shouldn’t be as dismissive of events related to a composer’s anniversary.

Chinese culture: all fired up

  ©Palace Museum

I don’t know why I waited until the last possible week to see the exhibition 'Son of Heaven,' part of the Europalia China extravaganza that has been happening in Brussels during the last few months, but I did. Then again, I did go and see it twice that week!

My delayed visit may have had something to do with the fact that there were so many cultural offerings during the Europalia China festival that there was almost too much choice. And of course that time-old trap of saying to myself: ‘Oh it’s on for months, I’ll have plenty of time to see it’.

An added impetus to see it in January though was that I had just come back from a two-week orchestral tour to China, my first trip to the country, and was all fired up about everything to do with Chinese culture.

“Son of Heaven,” whose title refers to China’s rulers, didn’t disappoint. The exhibits included portraits of emperors on silk wall hangings, bronze ritual vessels, a jade shroud, and silk dragon robes once worn by the rulers. There were even a couple of terracotta warriors – admittedly not quite as impressive as the (almost) complete terracotta army I had seen in their Chinese home of Xi’an just a few weeks earlier, but you could view the ones in Brussels much closer up and could more easily see traces of their original colours.

The Brussels exhibition covered 5,000 years of Chinese culture and so was just a taster of the country’s imperial wealth during that time. Nonetheless the exhibits, many of which were on display for the first time outside of China, were simply exquisite. I couldn’t resist going back a second time, and if I hadn’t left it so late I may well have gone back again.

How much is this artwork worth to you?

A week’s stay in the south of France, an exhibition space in Berlin, a kiss, a smile, a therapy session – these were just some of the offers scribbled on post-it notes and stuck on the wall around the artworks on show at the Bozar in Brussels this weekend.

The idea behind Truc Troc, as the event is known (in French “truc” means “thing” and “troc” means “exchange, barter”), is that contemporary artists get the opportunity to exhibit their art and the public is invited to offer something in exchange for the work. It really makes you think about how much you’d give to be the owner of a particular piece.

The paintings, installations and photographs were on display Saturday and Sunday. The artists will now be looking at the bids and deciding which, if any, appeals and is a good deal for them.

There were four works that I would love to have in my apartment and for which I made an offer. I’ll let you know if I hear back!

Fairground Attraction

Belgium is renowned for its quirkiness and “Continental Superstar” is a perfect example. Situated in the Cinquantenaire museum (part of the Royal Museums of Art and History), Continental Superstar is a dance hall filled with fairground organs and other mechanical musical instruments.

The space is filled with bright and gaudily coloured instruments and statues, plenty of kitsch and mechanical music. In the far corner of the room there is a bar, but no staff, or potential customers for that matter, to be seen. I was left unsure as to whether I was in a dance hall, an exhibition room or just a temporary storage space.

According to the museum, around 1900 Antwerp developed alongside Paris as an important production centre for mechanical organs used in dance halls, cafes and at fairs. As the industry declined, replaced by jukeboxes, radios and gramophones, a Brussels man called Joseph Ghysels resolved to save and restore many of the organs.

It is his collection of street and fairground organs, barrel pianos and other instruments, bought in 2007 by Flemish minister for Culture Bert Anciaux, that are on show at the Cinquantenaire museum.

The name Continental Superstar was the title of a 1970s recording of what the museum calls the “world-famous star” of the Ghysels collection, a dance organ made by Theophiel Mortier in 1923. As far as the museum is concerned the title could also apply to Ghysels himself for preserving this quirky piece of Belgian patrimony.

Continental Superstar is on show until March 8, 2009.

Photo: Dansorgel Mortier 1905-1911 (Royal Museums of Art and History)

Heat, red bricks and too little music

Well I’m back in Brussels after my whirlwind tour around England. As well as family and friends, port and mince pies, there were also a couple of cultural highlights.

Art:
I saw the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. It was brilliant. I left with a completely different appreciation for colours – some were so warm that heat seemed to actually be emitted from the canvas and others made you realise how individual any one particular colour is. I couldn’t believe how long could be spent looking at such deceptively simple works.

Architecture:
As you probably know, the Eurostar now arrives at St. Pancras station in London. While I’m not a fan of that from the point of view of my personal travel convenience, I am a big fan of the building itself. The Victorian architecture, and in particular the red brickwork, is just great. And I hadn’t realised until I made my first trip into Leeds this time that this northern city centre boasts some of the same Victorian brickwork.

Music:
Unfortunately my trip was somewhat devoid of music, though there was plenty of Radio 4 to be had, which is also very important. I think for this category, I’ll have to cheat and say the original music manuscripts on display in the British Library’s gallery of treasures.

And on that note, here’s to cultural discoveries, however small or large, in 2009.

Following Folon around Belgium

I have to admit to not having heard of Jean-Michel Folon until a few years ago when my employer at the time moved into new Brussels premises and named each of the three conference rooms after “well-known Belgians”. They came up with Rubens, Horta and Folon.

Since then I’ve noticed various Folon artworks around the city, including a 165 m2 oil on canvas at Montgomery metro station, which I saw again recently and prompted me to write this post. On the Grand Sablon in Brussels, a bronze statue of a bird towers more than 4 metres high and at Brussels airport there’s a bronze statue of a person with a propeller on top (the centre of which forms the face).

2008 was in fact the “Year of Folon” in Belgium. That said, there doesn’t appear to be any particular reason for the choice of year (Folon was born in 1934 and died in 2005); the Tourism Office simply seemed to decide to dedicate resources toward promoting the artist and his work.

Whatever the year, I can thoroughly recommend a trip to the Folon Foundation, located in the grounds of the castle of La Hulpe, about a 20-minute drive out of Brussels. You can find there illustrations and magazine covers that Folon created for the likes of The New Yorker and Time, his posters for exhibitions and festivals, watercolours, engravings next to the original copperplates, stained glass, bronze statues, the list goes on.

The foundation was inaugurated in 2000 by Folon himself and its mission is to unite and conserve a heritage: the 500 artworks donated by Jean-Michel Folon.

I’d like the next stop on my Folon discovery trail to be a little church in Wallonia, which has several stained glass windows by the Belgian artist. And you?

Photos: © Thierry Renauld (Fondation Folon)

“London as a modern-day Babylon”

Commenting on a comment piece - and then in turn inviting your comments - is perhaps taking things too far, but Madeleine Bunting’s piece on the Babylon myth in Wednesday’s Guardian caught my attention on several levels.

She tells us that the Babylon myths came about on the one hand from the Old Testament, which led to western cultures’ pessimistic associations with the idea, and on the other hand from Greek historians, who lauded the Babylonians’ engineering achievements. I like this opposition of ideas.

Similarly, she highlights a contrast between the Tower of Babel in the Bible representing a multiplicity of languages as a curse and the Qur’an where a verse says God gave many languages in order for human beings to enrich, not confuse, their understanding of each other.

And the thread running through the commentary is the British Museum’s exhibition, Babylon: Myth and Reality (runs until March 15, 2009) and the political debate about London as a modern-day Babylon, “a place of violence and social fragmentation.”

History, languages, ideas, cultures – and all captured in less than 1,000 words. Here’s the link to the article.

(Credit for image: Cornelisz Anthonisz. (Theunissen), The collapse of the Tower of Babel, 1547, Etching © SMB, Kupferstichkabinett, Photo: Volker-H. Schneider)

Museums by night

Lots of Brussels museums are taking part in Nocturnes 08 and staying open late on Thursday evenings until the end of the year.

There's a choice of well-known museums such as the Museum of Musical Instruments, lesser-known ones including the Toy Museum (children and adults are allowed to play!) and the Schaerbeek Museum of Beer, and places you’ve heard of but weren’t sure if they were open to the public e.g. the Royal Library of Belgium.

If you want to visit a popular one, reserve early. I just tried to join the guided tour at the René Magritte museum in Jette this evening only to be told it was already sold out.

Information and schedules are on: http://nocturnes.brusselsmuseums.be

Oceania-mania: skulls and statues

Oceania is all the rage in Brussels at the moment. The Cinquantenaire museum (part of the Royal Museums of Art and History) has just opened its Mercator gallery, full of objects from Oceania - statues, jewellery, headdresses, weapons, tools, textiles, even skulls! And the ING Cultural Centre’s current exhibition is Oceania - Ritual Signs, Authority Symbols.

The centrepiece of the Mercator gallery is Pou Hakanononga, a 3-meter high stone statue from Easter Island. The statue was brought back on the Mercator, the ship that took the Franco-Belgian expedition of 1934-1935 to the island. A gift from the Chilean government to Belgium, it is one of only two complete Easter Island figures to be kept in Europe, according to the museum.

Other items to catch my attention were: 19th century Fijian textiles, known as tapa and made from tree bark; the tattooed faces of human heads that were “war trophies”; a ceremonial kava bowl from West Polynesia (kava is a plant whose root is used to make a drink known for relaxing muscles and inducing dreams); ivory and whalebone ear ornaments (ear-rings would not be the right term, given their size!) from the Marquesas Islands; and a headdress from the Austral Islands made of coconut fibres, tree bark, human hair, duck and albatross feathers (see photo).

One downside to the exhibition was the difficulty in finding where it started (signposts were few and far between...), but once there it was a fascinating journey through the islands of Polynesia and Micronesia. Oh and I learnt that the word tabu originates from Polynesian culture...