Galleries in Mechelen

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Some interesting galleries you could visit if you are in Mechelen:

Pin'Art is a actually a wine-shop which also has a nice small gallery upstairs showing very nice (recent) works of young & old artists (see pic).
Check the site.

Art Studiois a small 4 storey gallery with interesting recent artworks run by a female artist. Her site.

Transit also has nice exhibits. Check out: http://www.transit.be/

Vienna-Brussels, The Secession Years (La Loge, Brussels, 3-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

"The Secession" is the name for the Austrian version of Jugendstill / Art Nouveau. All of these are slightly different movements but they have a lot in common.

It is not widely known that the secession-movement was influenced by and had influence on Belgian Art Nouveau artists. This exhibit shows those influences, mainly on design and architecture.

The Loge (see earlier review) isn't very big but there are some great things to be seen. We love the designs of this age and we are still wondering why not all houses are Art Nouveau because they are so beautiful!

Check out: http://www.aam.be/ (only French and Dutch!)

Gallery Aeroplastics (Brussels, 3-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Aeroplastics is a really cool gallery in an extremely beautiful old mansion in Brussels. The exhibit we saw has ended but I'm sure the next one will be worthwhile too.

Check:http://www.aeroplastics.net/
If you want to see the house you can do a virtual tour; it's fun!

Arcade Fire (Forest National, Brussels, 2-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Any-one who says a hurdy-gurdy (I love this word!!) doesn't rock has clearly never seen Arcade Fire live and that's a real shame because they are brilliant!

Their music and performance is a celebration of the chaos of modern life but the great thing is that there is still a clear structure in it. There are so many sounds (violins, keyboards, drums, percussion, an organ, voices, etc., etc.) to hear but they are all part of the whole picture. Everything is essential: all the instruments, all the musicians, all the images, all the chaos and all the fun they are so clearly having.
Definitely a worthwhile experience!

Check them out at:http://www.arcadefire.com/flash.html
Or just ask Quietlaughter: she has all their albums ;-)

The Grand Atelier (Bozar, Brussels, 1-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Another Europalia.Europa exhibit

There are 4 exhibits in the Bozar at the moment: 2 paying, 2 free. For 17 euro's you can see them all ;-)
Thursday is the best day to do this because they are open un till 21:00. And during these two Europalia exhibits the Bozar is also open on mondays!

The Grand Atelier is an exhibit about European art between the 5th and the 18th centuries. Many well-known (Da Vinci, Dürer, Rubens) and unnamed masters (ivory carvers, book illustrators, goldsmiths) are included.
If you want to see what us Europeans have brought to the world of art this is THE exhibit.

It certainly made me proud to be part of Europe because we really made some beautiful artworks. Especially the ivory carvings from the time of Charlemagne (around 800 AD) + the early medieval Irish and later 12th century book illustrations are simply divine.
The exhibit includes a vast amount of illustrated books by the way so if you are interested in those, like I am, this is a great opportunity to see them.

At the end (or the beginning) you can see the film installation "27x27x27" with interviews about art in Europe and pictures of the 27 European countries. The pictures made by Michiel Hendryckx are great!

Melting Ice/Hot Topic is an exhibit about climate change. Artists made works on the title topic.
This is the most redundant exhibit I've ever seen. If you let a class of 17-year olds make works on the same topic you will get more interesting works!
I think just two of the pieces were visually interesting but nothing more than that...
This would get no stars so I'm glad it was a free visit.

Encompassing the Globe (Bozar, Brussels, 1-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Another Europalia.Europa exhibit

There are 4 exhibits in the Bozar at the moment: 2 paying, 2 free. For 17 euro's you can see them all ;-)
Thursday is the best day to do this because they are open un till 21:00. And during these two Europalia exhibits the Bozar is also open on mondays!

Encompassing the Globe is an exhibit about Portugal in the 16th and 17th centuries. Portugal was a global empire back then and the exhibit shows some of their influence on their colonies and vice versa.

Many foreign products and strange beasts reached Europa for the first time because of the search for trade-routes by seafaring nations like Portugal.
This exhibit shows many many interesting artefacts from those times.
Also very interesting to see are the artefacts from the colonies that portray the portuguese themselves, especially the ivory objects from Nigeria (see pic).

This is a great exhibit for any-one who likes to see beautiful objects and learn something about Europe/Portugal and their relation to the rest of the world in the 16/17th century.

The void: a free exhibit about the architecture of G. Byrne + Aires Mateus. The scale models and pictures look nice but the buildings don't always look too practical.

Siouxsie + support act: Tripoli (AB, Brussels, 27-10-2007)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

As we had never seen this New Wave icon before this was our chance. And of course we took it ;-)

Tripoli we had seen before (see review Maanrock) and this concert was even better. Very nice new band, every-one should definitely check them out: http://www.tripoli.be/

Siouxsie Sioux is a very special lady with a dark strange voice and even weirder outfits and suggestive dances. It's great fun to see her perform but you have to like her music to truly enjoy her shows. I would not recommend you go to one of her concerts if you haven't checked out some music beforehand!
http://www.siouxsiemantaray.com/siouxsie.htm

She has a new solo album out and the new stuff wasn't half bad but the old ones are so much more convincing. All in all it was a very enjoyable trip into a hip New York Gothic vampire club like atmosphere.

We also saw the Rob Walbers photo exhibit: http://www.abconcerts.be/abxpo/robwalbers.html
Great pics so check it out!

O'Reilly's Irish Pub

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Restaurants
Cuisine:	Irish
Location:	Brussels (near the AB)

A conveniently placed pub with nice Irish food. There's usually rugby or football on their big tv screens so the place isn't very quiet ;-)

http://www.oreillys.com/brussels/index.htm

Agorafolly Inside & Outside (Brussels, 27-10+1-11-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

An exhibit for Europalia Europa (http://www.europalia.eu/home.php).

Europalia is an annual art festival in Belgium. Every year one country is chosen to display some of their visual arts, plays, music, dance, literature and any other art forms you can imagine.
This year is special because it's not just one country but it's 27: the European Union. This year is our 50th birthday so a cause for celebration!

Agorafolly is a great concept: 27 artists from the 27 countries of the European Union show one piece of art about their idea of the identity of Europe outside on a square in Brussels and one work of art about their idea of the identity of their country inside in "La Centrale Electrique".
This whole "identity"-thing may sound a bit conceptual and boring but trust me: the works are almost all far from boring!

We went to Agorafolly Inside first. For this part you have to pay but it's well worth the visit. It's always interesting to see how people see their own country and how they convey their ideas in works. Most works had a lot of humour in them too so it was a lot of fun.
If you go here be sure to take a close look at the works from Cyprus (see pic), Latvia, Portugal and Slovakia.

At "La Centrale Electrique/De Elektriciteitscentrale" you can get the free map for Agorafolly Outside. The tour takes you through the whole inner city to many interesting places. We didn't have time to do the whole tour at once because it takes quite some time.
If you want to do the tour or at least see some of the works you should not wait too long because several of the works were already vandalized...

Agorafolly Inside runs un till 13-1-2008, Agorafolly Outside runs un till 9-12-2007.

Museum Maagdenhuis (Antwerp, 14-10-2007)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Other

Museum in a former charitable institution. The name literally means "house of virgins" and used to be an orphanage for girls. Part of it is a nice small museum now.

The exhibit we saw was a really interesting one about playing cards. People used to use them for a lot more than just games!
If a mother left her child at this orphanage she would pin a playing card to it's clothes. If she kept a half she wanted to see her child again some day, probably when she could take care of it. If the whole card was pinned to the clothes the mother gave up her child permanently.
But this was just one of the many uses: calling cards, notes, lottery tickets, obituaries; anything was a possible use!
It was great to see so many uses and so many original cards.

This exhibit has ended but you can of course still visit the museum.

Middelheimmuseum (Antwerp, 21-10-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

We had never been here so the Paul McCarthy exhibit was a great reason to go check out this open air sculpture museum.

This museums combines three great things: walking in a park, enjoying nature and seeing art. And it's not the usual kind of sculptures you'd find in a park either! Or do you know many parks with giant inflatable McCarthy artworks?
(see pic)

The permanent collection is great too and the best thing: it's all free!
Enjoy your sunday walk: http://museum.antwerpen.be/Middelheimopenluchtmuseum/indexEN.htm

Museum Dr. Guislain (Gent, 14-10-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Our second visit to this museum for the History of Psychiatry. The exhibits we've visited have already ended but you can always check out their collection of outsider art (which is great!).

To give you an idea of the kind of exhibits you can expect here are the ones we saw:

Isolation and Fantasy - The Morgenthalercollection from Bern. This collection is made up of art made by psychiatric patients (early 1900's).

200 years brothers of love- The history of this congregation.

Sketch or Shadow - About architecture and intuition.

=> Interesting information and pretty things;
And it's great to sit in their quiet garden on a sunny day. And there's a nice red cat in the garden too by the way ;-)

Check: http://www.museumdrguislain.be/en/index.html

Contour-Decoder (Mechelen, 5-10-2007)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Contour is the name of the organisation which brings video art to Mechelen. Decoder was the name of their third biennial for video art which ran from 18-8 un till 21-10.

If you ever have the chance to visit this biennial you should! The concept is great: video art of high quality and from all over the world is shown in old and often abandoned buildings. Not only do you get a chance to see great art but also great locations and the combination is simply divine!
Another great thing is that the exhibits are open late and some of the buildings don't have much lights so it becomes a magical dark tour on some locations.

Best video's this year:
- Venusia (Aline Bouvy & John Gillis)
- Faded Majesty (Una Szeemann)
- Ash Tree (Sarah Vanagt)
- Nightshade (Gabriel Lester, see pic)

Funniest video's:
- the absurd urban "sports" and other situations by Tsui Kuang-Yu

Weirdest place to visit:
- The old Match supermarket where we used to shop. It's very weird to see a supermarket stripped down like that but with still some of the prize tags on shelves. Freaky!