As the Flemish fine arts collection finally regains its place in the extensively renovated KMSKA (Royal Museum of Fine Arts), the Flemish Community is also getting ready for the next infrastructural leap further raising the Flemish museum landscape to an international level. The coalition agreement of the government provides a new building for M HKA, that will enhance the visibility of the international collection of contemporary art and its location within a consistent narrative.
An infrastructure trajectory of this nature has to be accompanied by the preparation of the leap in terms of content. With this in mind, M HKA is complementing the grand reopening of its sister institution with a preview of what is to come, thus symbolically starting up this trajectory. The opening of this conversation consists of M HKA’s artistic and collection teams collectively making a concise selection of two dozen artists, which they believe should become part of our frame of reference. Some of them are already strongholds within the collection, others are artists the museum is seeking to include in the years to come. Most of the usual suspects are absent precisely because they are already an acknowledged part of the reference frame. This major presentation thus offers 24 pieces of a future puzzle — 24 key international artistic figures — that may be presented later in the new Flemish contemporary art museum. Focusing on an expanded image of the museum’s collection, the exhibition seeks to reflect its longer-term aspirations.
In this way, the presentation, titled Museum in Motion, signals the beginning of a new trajectory. It is named Museum in Motion after a key book on the particular praxis of contemporary art museums, as this is the specific reflection that will have to be undertaken. The museum will develop its historiography alongside this building process. Presented across both main floors of the museum, this first indicative prefiguration opens up a reflection that will continue as the new building takes shape.
With: Etel Adnan, Marcel Broodthaers, Lili Dujourie, Marlene Dumas, Jimmie Durham, Andrea Fraser, Yang Fudong, Shilpa Gupta, Dorothy Iannone, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Nikita Kadan, Yayoi Kusama, Taus Makhacheva, Gordon Matta-Clark, Hana Miletić, Laure Prouvost, Walter Swennen, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Otobong Nkanga, Nicola L, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Allan Sekula, Nicolás Uriburu, Haegue Yang.