The fall 2023 archival presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (M HKA) is devoted to the triptych of exhibitions of contemporary art that was part of the main Visual Arts program of the project Antwerp '93, Cultural Capital of Europe. Under the direction of Bart Cassiman (°1961), exhibitions were organized at the Middelheim (New sculptures for the Middelheim ), the Royal Museum of Fine Arts ( The Sublime Void. On the memory of the imagination ) and the MUHKA (On Taking a Normal Situation and Retranslating it into Overlapping and Multiple Readings of Conditions Past and Present). Thirty years on, 'Kiezen voor kunst' uses archival documents to look back on the role, place and meaning of these three exhibitions within the Antwerp '93 project, but also within the cultural policy of the time.
'Kiezen voor kunst' is curated in collaboration with the M HKA by Eléa De Winter and Wouter Davidts of the research group KB45 (Art in Belgium since 1945, Ghent University), with exhibition design by Kris Coremans (ssa/xx) and graphic design by Pauline Scharmann. The exhibition will be on view from Sept. 16, 2023, to Jan. 7, 2024.
In the context of the exhibition, KB45 is organizing the symposium Dossier Antwerpen '93 at the end of October, in collaboration with the Center for Urban History of the University of Antwerp (Prof. Ilja Van Damme) and with the support of UGent (Faculty of Arts and Philosophy), M HKA, De Cinema and the Antwerp city archive/FelixArchief.