Feast of Fools. Bruegel Rediscovered
07 Apr 2019 - 28 Jul 2019
In the exhibition "Feast of Fools. Bruegel Rediscovered" the visitor becomes acquainted with a series of key works by Flemish and international artists who ‘have a thing about Bruegel’. They latch onto his themes, reinterpret them, quote him ... and thus demonstrate that his work has lost none of its relevance.
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Château de Gaasbeek - 40 Kasteelstr. 1750
Pieter Bruegel is often seen as the embodiment of Flemish identity. Why has that been so since the revival of his work around 1900? How has he grown to become an icon, an inexhaustible source of inspiration and a huge cliché? In the exhibition "Feast of Fools. Bruegel Rediscovered" the visitor becomes acquainted with a series of key works by Flemish and international artists who ‘have a thing about Bruegel’. They latch onto his themes, reinterpret them, quote him ... and thus demonstrate that his work has lost none of its relevance.
The exhibition takes as its starting point ‘the great misunderstanding’, when Bruegel, in the last years of the Romance era, was proclaimed a painter of peasant psalms, crackling snow landscapes and eternally rustling cornfields, with his roots firmly in the Flemish clay. The exhibition inquires the way in which Flemish, and by extension Belgian and international artists, handled his artistic legacy in the period between and after the wars. Hence we focus on the following artists: James Ensor, Valerius De Saedeleer, Jules De Bruycker, Gustave Van de Woestyne, Jean Brusselmans, Constant Permeke, Anto Carte, Otto Dix and George Grosz.
At the same time, the exhibition pulls out various contemporary stops, with art, performance and music. In collaboration with curators Luk Lambrecht and Lieze Eneman, ten artists have been invited to delve into the themes from Bruegel’s work or into the interpretation of them by the generation of rediscoverers. These creations are linked to existing works relevant within the context. Included artists are Pascale Marthine Tayou, Honoré d’O, Emanuelle Quertain, Jan Van Imschoot & Salam Atta Sabri, Dirk Braeckman/Franz West/Lisbeth Gruwez, Kasper Bosmans, Gilberto Zorio, Grazia Todori, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkácová, Christoph Fink, Daniel Buren, Jimmie Durham & Ricardo Brey and Bart Lodewijks.
The exhibition continues with a creation by Rimini Protokoll, one of Berlin's most creative theater companies. They develop an installation that forms an interactive and immersive counterpoint to the exhibition trajectory: Global Village. To Bruegel.
Rimini Protokoll draws a contemporary 'portrait' of country life in the form of a video installation with Virtual Reality glasses.
As in Bruegel's paintings, the visitor / viewer is confronted with a complex play of gestures and mutual relations that evokes the essence of rural life, not only in Flanders, but all over the world. The installation places the visitor unexpectedly in the middle of this model of society.
The exhibition takes as its starting point ‘the great misunderstanding’, when Bruegel, in the last years of the Romance era, was proclaimed a painter of peasant psalms, crackling snow landscapes and eternally rustling cornfields, with his roots firmly in the Flemish clay. The exhibition inquires the way in which Flemish, and by extension Belgian and international artists, handled his artistic legacy in the period between and after the wars. Hence we focus on the following artists: James Ensor, Valerius De Saedeleer, Jules De Bruycker, Gustave Van de Woestyne, Jean Brusselmans, Constant Permeke, Anto Carte, Otto Dix and George Grosz.
At the same time, the exhibition pulls out various contemporary stops, with art, performance and music. In collaboration with curators Luk Lambrecht and Lieze Eneman, ten artists have been invited to delve into the themes from Bruegel’s work or into the interpretation of them by the generation of rediscoverers. These creations are linked to existing works relevant within the context. Included artists are Pascale Marthine Tayou, Honoré d’O, Emanuelle Quertain, Jan Van Imschoot & Salam Atta Sabri, Dirk Braeckman/Franz West/Lisbeth Gruwez, Kasper Bosmans, Gilberto Zorio, Grazia Todori, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkácová, Christoph Fink, Daniel Buren, Jimmie Durham & Ricardo Brey and Bart Lodewijks.
The exhibition continues with a creation by Rimini Protokoll, one of Berlin's most creative theater companies. They develop an installation that forms an interactive and immersive counterpoint to the exhibition trajectory: Global Village. To Bruegel.
Rimini Protokoll draws a contemporary 'portrait' of country life in the form of a video installation with Virtual Reality glasses.
As in Bruegel's paintings, the visitor / viewer is confronted with a complex play of gestures and mutual relations that evokes the essence of rural life, not only in Flanders, but all over the world. The installation places the visitor unexpectedly in the middle of this model of society.
