This is Superhost 2024 – a year’s worth of apples on display
With Superhost, M HKA partners with an artist or collective for a year. We offer our top floor, they provide the interpretation, and thus a beautiful dialogue emerges each time, in which the audience is also part of. This year’s guests are Antje Majewski and Pawel Freisler. Together, they explore the dual nature of apples both as art objects and as points of reference in discussions about biodiversity loss. They have been doing this for ten years now, side by side with other artists, activists, scientists and researchers. At M HKA, this collaboration results in the exhibition Appel. An introduction (over and over and once again) where philosophical questions about the origin of apples and the nature of the object take centre stage.
Three seasons in one year
Up to three times, the space changes and artworks are brought in, taken away and presented in a different form. A constant: the top floor of the museum is an ever-evolving, captivating installation dedicated to apples. Pawel Freisler’s intricately crafted apple sculptures are shown alongside Antje Majewski’s paintings of various apple varieties, inspired by the still-life tradition. The display will be developed during a year-long process, in collaboration with local artists, pomologists, and other scientists. Visitors will have the opportunity to access materials such as books, documents, films, and poems. Together, this creates an interdisciplinary collection of knowledge, shedding new light on the relationships between apples, people, and the broader ecosystem.
Season 2
The second part of the Superhost project, opening on 18th of May 2024 at 15.00, introduces us to a deeper knowledge about apples. Following our project’s objectives, the space on the museum’s top floor will be transformed to accommodate new artworks by Joris de Rycke and Alma Museum, literally ‘Apple Museum’ from Almaty. Pomologist Paul Van Laer will give a lecture; Antje Majewski and Azhar Jandossova will introduce the Alma Museum.
The Alma Museum (Almaty, KZ) which is dedicated to Malus sieversii, will be hosted for a temporary appearance in Antwerp. The exhibition includes photos of Sievers apple trees and their fruits from Zhongar and Trans-Ili Alatau; photos of apples of Aport variety; archive photos provided by the State Photo-Video Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan; photos by Aymak Djangaliev; and children’s drawings and other materials from the collection of Alma Museum Almaty. Curator of the Alma Museum: Azhar Jandossova
In Help us to save the Wild Apples of Kazakhstan! (2023), Majewski recorded the voices of apple activists from Almaty. They tell us about the urgency to help preserve Malus sieversii. With the participation of Azhar Dzhandossova, Ruslan Konyshev, Vasilisa Konysheva, Karlygash Makatova, Zhanna Mambetova, Saule Sadenova, Laura Shadmanova, Svetlana Spatar.
In Joris de Rycke’s ongoing project Pomology the idea of varieties itself is questioned. He shows us apple trees found growing from discarded apple cores in the surroundings of Antwerp. As apple trees can’t self-pollinate, every tree that grows from a seed is a new unnamed variety. Since 2019, these apples are documented, named and the ones with an interesting taste and qualities are propagated by grafting. Their unique tastes and qualities are copied into new trees that are nursed in an orchard at the Verbeke Foundation (Kemzeke). In time they will be planted back into the landscape.
Kasper de Vos enlarges one of the most beloved apple varieties, a Pinova, into a giant wax fruit, which seems familar and strange at the same time.
Pawel Freisler’s intricately crafted apple sculptures are wondrous objects, requiring time in their making – their composition as art objects – and the stopping of the biological time of decomposition of an apple for a limited time. They permit us to think about the body in relation to time, but also about the concept of artworks as timeless objects. Freisler’s digital photographs record apples in gardens, homes and supermarkets, where he observes their beauty and transformations, but also their packaging and marketing. Biological, always changing subjects transform into objects within both the world of commerce and art.
Antje Majewski’s still-lives of apple varieties picture historical, almost-forgotten varieties like the Uelzener Kalvill or Landsberger Renette as well as new trademarked varieties such as Red Love or the first genetically modified variety, the Arctic Apple. The images feature a wealth of color, shape and surface texture, rendering each variety as a monument of its own.
As part of the presentation, one can discover Majewski’s documentary The Freedom of Apples, which highlights the problems caused by the disappearance of less commercially viable apple varieties, and the importance of preserving Kazakhstan’s wild apple forests. This extends to broader issues of global food production, the impact of technology and breeding on agriculture, political and ethical implications of new developments in genetic engineering, and the influence of the global economy.
The artists propose a new tradition of community apple tree planting in urban spaces, in order to foster collective engagement and the greening of cities. This initiative aims to unite a diverse public around a common goal, and to create areas in cities where urban life quality and social cohesion is improved and people can have free access to produce.
Season 3
Join us in celebrating the vibrant season of harvest during the final phase of the Superhost project, opening on 22 September 2024. This special programme will transform the museum’s top floor into a unique experience dedicated to apple harvesting.
We invite you to explore the intricate interplay between nature, art, and an involved and active community. The real harvest of the apple project is the links that are created between humans and apples, the museum, and activists or farmers. The apple project by Antje Majewski and Pawel Freisler is ongoing and circular, as is nature: each time it is realized, apple trees are planted, and a lot of people get involved.
Antje Majewski’s video Apple Trees for Cities shows the planting of apple trees in all previous Apple projects in different countries, with the help of volunteers, citizen’s groups, schools or activists. More trees will be planted in Antwerp in autumn. All of these trees together form a huge apple garden dispersed in space and time.
The community garden activist organization Plukgeluk was commissioned to lead apple grafting workshops for the Apple project in Antwerp. Their work with teenagers can be seen on a second monitor.
The walls in the first space are covered with drawings and paintings around the topic of apples, made by children and teenagers in Thun (CH), Almaty (KZ), and in Antwerp.
Three Apple Ornaments, painted by Antje Majewski, can be seen on the walls. The ornaments had been collaboratively made by participants during previous projects and will be joined by a new Apple Ornament on the floor, made with real apples. We invite you to take part in making this ornament together during the DAKkan festival opening programme on 22 September.
Pawel Freisler’s wonderfully carved apples are covered with patterns. His photos bring us close to these small wonders that are artworks and at the same time part of nature. Preserved in a vitrine, they are nevertheless changing as all organic materials do, and remind us of an end that can also be a beginning.
The Superhost space will also showcase works by Setareh Alipour and Ada Van Hoorebeke, offering fresh perspectives on the themes of growth and renewal.
Setareh Alipour’s Lamp, crafted from Apple-Fruitleather (Persian: Lavashak), transcends its function as a mere light source, transforming into a sensory time machine. The material’s gummy bear-like texture and fruity scent evoke the sweet and sour nostalgia of childhood. When illuminated, the Lavashak panels radiate like stained glass, casting warm hues of amber and gold, and turning the everyday into the extraordinary. Each panel acts as a diary entry—some vibrant, others faded—resonating with Derrida’s concept of différance, where meaning is perpetually deferred. The apple form abstractly connects the material back to its origins, intertwining tradition with contemporary symbolism. This work serves as a tactile narrative, bridging past and present while challenging perceptions of time and memory.
Ada Van Hoorebeke presents The Bees’ Compound at the Superhost space, a large-scale installation of textiles displaying patterns and shapes reminiscent of enlarged honeycombs. The textiles are dyed with apple bark for the yellow hues and with Mexican bloodwood or logwood for the violet shades. These colors, yellow and purple, are ones that bees can see and smell vividly. The installation invites visitors not only to observe other species but to see and feel as they do, understanding that we are all part of the same ecosystem. We pollinate with our fingertips, harvest, and store in cupboards constructed like the lens of an eye. We take the last fruits of summer and transform them into luminous, delicious treasures, hidden from the sun, slowly fading but intended to sustain us through the winter. As the days grow longer, we can produce again—abundantly, lushly, and freely!
ACTIVITIES
During three public moments, the artists invite you to take part in an artistic journey around apples:
– At the launch of this project on 29 February 2024, Antje Majewski will give a talk with a special focus on the artistic dimensions of apples. The lecture takes place within the framework of M HKA’s new programme FRONT ROW, organised together with NICC.
– Did you know that the main ancestor of our apple trees comes from Kazakhstan?
You can visit a real apple museum from Almaty, temporarily hosted by M HKA.
And during an event on 18 May, we will discuss the origin and distribution of apples with experts.
– Autumn is the season to plant apple trees, but it is also the time to harvest apples. On 22 September, during DAKkan festival, Antje Majewski invites the public to make an apple ornament, celebrate together, and plant an apple tree in the city.
SUPERHOST 2024: Who and What
Pawel Freisler is an experimental conceptual artist – day and night. In the 1970s he emigrated from Poland. He lives in Malmö and works in Trelleborg (Sweden). Information about his work consists mainly of anecdotal stories, such as abandoning active participation in the art scene or taking up gardening, often filled with gossip, rumours, fairy tales, legend, fabrications – fabrications or personal connections with the artist.
Antje Majewski’s practice comprises paintings, video works, texts and performances, and is informed by anthropological and philosophical questions. Majewski questions objects, territories, and plants, and focuses on research into alternate systems of knowledge, storytelling, and the potential of transformative processes – with a particular interest in cultural and geobotanical migration. An integral part of Majewski’s aristic process is her recurring collaboration with other artists, ecological groups, and urbanism-focused collectives. Since 2014 she has been working together with Polish artist Pawel Freisler on the apple project.
Setareh Alipour is a multidisciplinary artist and curator currently residing between Frankfurt and Potsdam. Her artistic practice fluidly transitions between installation and drawing, with a focus on the social body, relationships, and memory, all deeply rooted in psychoanalysis and the humanities. Alipour’s work explores the complexities of human connections, weaving together autobiographical elements with broader societal themes. Through intimate family moments, repurposed everyday materials, and site-specific installations, she evokes a sense of care, tenderness, and the fleeting nature of time.
Ada Van Hoorebeke lives and works in Berlin and Bruges. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in Antwerp in 2006. Over the past 18 years, she has dedicated herself to researching textile dyeing techniques, with recent years focused on cultivating plants for natural dye production to inspire her installations. Her artistic practice includes long-term collaborations and educational sessions across Europe, Gambia, Indonesia, and Japan. Van Hoorebeke has been an Artist in Residence at WIELS Contemporary Art Center in Brussels (2010), R.U. in New York City (2017), and Terraform Samsø (2021). She was also a recipient of the Berlin Art Prize in 2019. Her works have been exhibited internationally at venues such as Mu.ZEE in Ostend, WIELS in Brussels, the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York, Kunsthal Gent, Heidelberger Kunstverein, and BankART in Yokohama.
Plukgeluk is an Antwerp-based organisation. Their mission is to introduce students to the beauty and wisdom of nature through experiential learning, and through growing love for nature so that they genuinely understand and cherish where food comes from and how ecosystems function.
Superhost is a programme investing in a yearlong relationship between an artist or collective practice, the museum, and its participating communities, and supporting the production of artworks, performative or discursive creations. One artist or collective is invited to be M HKA’s Superhost every year. By embracing the ambiguous and interrelated dynamics of hospitality – in which the host is always a guest; the guest always also a host – M HKA affirms a longing for increased institutional transformation, permeability, and exchange. The invitation materialises freely, both in the museum’s top-floor gallery spaces and as programmes of discursive and performative events.
Superhost 2024 is part of the Museum of the Commons (2023-2026), a project by the museum federation L’Internationale, of which M HKA is a member. The Museum of the Commons weaves together three thematic strands: 1) Climate; 2) Situated Organisations; and 3) Past in the Present. All three align with the major challenges contemporary societies face. The ‘climate’ theme revolves around the current planetary climate crisis, the sustainability of institutional, artistic, and cultural practices and processes, and the urgency to transform our political processes, societies, cultures, and lifestyles more ecologically.
L’Internationale brings together seven major European art institutions: MSU (Zagreb); Museo Reina Sofí a (Madrid); MACBA (Barcelona); M HKA (Antwerp); MSN (Warsaw), Salt (Istanbul), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), with Institute of Radical Imagination (Venice), tranzit.ro (Bucharest; Cluj; Iasi), HKW (Berlin), and VCRC (Kyiv). L’Internationale works with complementary partners such as HDK-Valand (Gothenburg), NCAD (Dublin) and ZRC SAZU (Ljubljana) along with with associate organisations from the academic and artistic fields, IMMA (Dublin) and WIELS (Brussel).
