BRIT(ish)*AUThenticity /  by fariba mosleh

Somehow, I didn’t make it to the 3rd talk, but the happier I am to have had the chance to attend the incredibly good and inspiring Conversation #4 on Authenticity of the KAAI Theater series … This time on race, identity, and belonging with AFUA HIRSCH. Among others, especially with the meanwhile bestseller BRIT(ish) the Guardian journalist, author and, human rights activist Afua Hirsch contributed an way important body of discussion of the hyper-contemporary discourse on the question of how long it’s gonna take that an immigrant becomes a part of a society without being asked “from where are you"?” or “the question”, as Hirsch states it, again and again.
I’ve to confess that I’ve been a bit doubting before the talk as I’ve had been occupied with that topic of P.O.C. a lot and recently was not so pleased about the direction of the discourse in the situations I heard and read about it. BUT Afua Hirsch already completely caught my attention with the extract reading out of her book. And listening to her talk afterwards made me falling in love with her and her british approach to the topic. I ended up buying the book from this inspiring lady even though I did plan not to. Now I can’t wait to start reading.
Afua’s contribution to the discourse on race and belonging within the western society has something very refreshing and contemporary as well as something down-to-earth. She combines her personal experiences and history with so much knowledge and interest for the common question lying beneath this personal question. More then emphatic she created her own space for the question of identity and opens it up for the broader discussion. I very much appreciate that*

Afua Hirsch in conversation with Heleen Debeuckelaere.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

BUNCH OF KUNST /  by fariba mosleh

Musique au cinéma, an exciting format at Cinéma Aventure in Brussels.
I saw them last year at their first concert in Vienna at Flex and it simply blew my mind away - fantastic sound by beatmaker Andrew Fearn and incredible lyrics plus performance by Jason Williamson. Together these two English guys form SLEAFORD MODS and with their manager Steve Underwood they took on the music business on their very own grass-roots terms. They’ve won ever growing attention throughout Britain, Europe and beyond within the last 4 to 5 years through creating a simply unique and contemporary form of punk rock.
Christine Franz, German director, accompanied them at the perfect period of time on the edge of bedroom recording, part-time musicians performing in tiny bars till their absolute break-through at Glastonbury Festival 2016 - which concluded in a fantastic documental portrait.

A BUNCH OF KUNST
by Christina Franz 2017

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

The art guru* /  by fariba mosleh

Last Thursday I went to the first gallery opening in this very young year and it was also my first time at this gallery called Damien and the love Guru in my neighborhood, which I pass nearly everyday.
10th of January - when I reached the building and saw the incredible big crowd in front of and in the gallery it seemed that these young hipsters literally were following the call of a guru. It was hardly possible to enter the gallery or walk through the group show, see the works or to realize what’s going on in the performance … I can see the works another day … I assume the party mood is linked to the fact that there is an art school in the same street and it’s students are part of the show … the works itself don’t tell anything so far, except that I can’t find a link to the stated curatorial background of Timothy Morton’s thoughts on the future.

I know - it’s always a lot easier to criticize (in a non-constructive way), but I am gradually getting frustrated about such weak and powerless gallery presentations - even though the huge audience had a great start into a long night.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Goodbye 2018 * Hello 2019! /  by fariba mosleh

(C)armen Subota

Wow, it was a cultural, art intensive, and especially a highly political year! Including a job and country-change … It’s time to submerge myself for some time in order to refuel new energy for 2019.
*Bonne année * Gelukkig nieuwjaar * Happy new year * Gutes neues Jahr *

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

The potential of revolution?! /  by fariba mosleh

Voilà, my brusselsARTproject, what actually is a kind of an experiment experiencing what’s going on art and culture-wise in Europeans’s informal capital, ends with my first evening at KVS, Koninklijke Vlaamse Schouwburg, and the premiere of My revolution is better than yours, directed by Brussels-based Serbian theater maker and performer Sanja Mitrovic, produced by Caravan Production.
Well, revolution - currently one of Europeans most controversial political topics in times of neo-nationalism, local as well as pan-national movements and Jilet Jaune for instance. Mitrovic takes a look back into European history of revolution in the 20th century around 1968 and stages diverse personalities who’s life had become being revolutionaries. Starting and ending a theatre piece with a refugee from Africa giving a kind of prologue and epilogue and in between functioning as the observer of this euro-centric rehabilitation of revolutionary icons to me seems quite problematic. I would have preferred the refugee, who introduced himself as an artist living in Europe, being part of the performance - not a framework, but a performer, an artist like the others on stage.
Still, what caught my attention was the power and energy this piece broadcasted via it’s play with green-screen techniques and the sound design by Vladimir PejkoviĆ. Somehow they made it possible to put all this in time and space different events and personalities into a contemporaneity, which is quite exciting.

(c) Martin Argyroglo

(c) Martin Argyroglo

One of my wishes for 2019 - let’s become more revolutionary on stages of institutions like the KVS! In front of as well as behind the scenes - stage socio-political realities, which means diversity!

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

La danse avec le canard* /  by fariba mosleh

Chesterfield - sofas, sometimes endlessly long, always leather … the Austro-Frensh dancer and choreographer Alix Eynaudi with history at Rosas and P.A.R.T.S. showed her latest piece Chesterfield at Kaai Studios. Based on the research at Vienna’s Volkskunde Museum she developed an object based dance performance for brut Wien last year, now touring. Lucky me that I could see the production my Alix whom I know from Vienna. She performed with the 3 other dancers Mark Lorimer, Quim Pujol and Cécile Tonizzo. It is a strong, partly silent and poetic as well as intimate performance. Absolute highlight for me was Alix’s appearance performing with a leather duck with luminous eyes.
Take your chance to see it at BUDA in Kortrijk in February for instance.

(C) Christine Miess

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

From exhibition to meeting the author* /  by fariba mosleh

This week’s Wednesday eve was divided into exhibition opening and lecture.

First, I passed the opening of the current artist’s in residence exhibition at WIELS. For the exhibition on the myth of The Divine Goat the Greek resident Yiannis Skarimbas did a collaborative work with all the other residents currently working at WIELS. I think that’s a really nice approach, even though the presentation didn’t really say a lot to me … yet, it produced a nice winterly atmosphere.

Well, we hopped further and had the great pleasure to attend a reading by Austrian writer Arno Geiger and a conversation with Belgian writer and philosopher Geert van Istendael at Bozar, organized by the Austrian Cultural Forum. Geiger’s latest book Unter der Drachenwand has been published in Flemish Onder de Drachenwand - this was a good occasion to talk about the genesis of this piece, which he has been working on for more than 10 years and about his remaining œvre. It was such a good in-depth talk about Geiger’s research for the book, which is a kind of “Gesellschaftsroman” counting the story of people in a small village near Mondsee in Austria in the year 1944, from the perspective of not knowing that the war is going to an end. Though Geiger is an historian he tried to completely fade out his knowledge, didn’t research with secondary literature but only reading primary sources as thousands of pages of letters from that time. That’s what makes the novel is so special, thrilling and recommendable. In conversation with Istendael Geiger was so well reflected and quick on the comeback - also when it came to contemporary (Austrian) right and nationalist politics.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

the history of the SELF !? /  by fariba mosleh

The day after the largest demonstration on the topic of climate change Belgium ever had seen, Kaai Theatre invited to the second conversation with experts on the 2018/19 season’s leitmotif Authenticity and Beyond: Conversation #2 Phillipp Blom From the Age of Enlightenment to climate change: a history of the self.
After Didier Eribon for the first talk in September, they now invited German historian Phillipp Blom and introduced him as the chronicler of the self. Guy Gypens, artistic director of Kaai Theater, welcomed with words on how similar we people are becoming, forcing a same lifestyle, buying and consuming the same products etc. … as a result of the longing for authenticity? What is the self meant to be in a time of hyper consumerism, globalization and neoliberalism?

Phillipp Blom is one of the scholars you listen to and find each sentence striking (at least I am) … it was a pleasure to follow his remarks and diving into the topic of the self, which he underlined to be a product of enlightenment. Blom stated that modernity has created a new kind of person, who could read, write, and earn money - a middle class, which also claimed political rights for the first time in history. The self in western oriented society has become a contradiction. Especially for artists the self seems to be so important on the one hand, but art is so much produced in a hardly reflected canon of neoliberal structures. People thriving for identity in a digital world - doesn’t that feel paradox?!
Well, I love the in-depth framework program on the season’s topic of Kaai consisting of performances, conversations, debates and a symposium. They even invited scholar Rudi Learmans to write an essay on the issue, which is freely availably for all people interested. Looking forward to the next one.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.


Working*Title*Festival /  by fariba mosleh

WorkSpaceBrussels is a really great organisation which facilitates artists of diverse disciplines (with a slight focus to performing arts) with space, network, funding, cooperation partners or the like. They are cooperating with several smaller and larger institutions in Brussels (and beyond) like Kaai Theatre, Kanal Centre Pompidou or Les Brigittines, and they are working with local as well as international artists.
Twice a year WorkSpaceBrussels offers a wonderful chance for the audience as well as the artists with the WorkingTitleFestival - as the heading already reveals, the one-weekend long festival is meant to open the artists’ studios and give the interested crowd the possibility to get into touch with their current work in progress. I find this approach quite nice on several levels - the artists kind of have to sum up their work in a interim’s stadium, they can reflect upon their work with visitors and colleges, and there are maybe producers, curators, gallerists, collectors passing by … so it can mean a drive for their work in progress.

For me it was a special pleasure to visit Flup Marinus and his brother Tuur Marinus, who are current residents. I’ve been working with Flup a year ago for an exhibition in Vienna at Krinzinger Projekte. Now the brothers are working on the quite exciting Stereoscope Project using a 100-year old kind of first 3D photographs and transforming them via painting into contemporary 3D photo objects.
Further we got an impression L’Océan, a performative project the artist Clara Guémas is working on. She works with and researches on newcomers in Brussels and their views on certain issues, perspectives and backgrounds.
At the studio of Antje van Wichelen we confronted ourselves with past, present and future possibilities of face surveillance and the indexing of face categorization linked to stereotype classification - The recognition machine.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.



Parliamentart* /  by fariba mosleh

The Artothek of the Republic of Austria, containing of about 37.000 works of Austrian artists (collected via annually selections by a jury) has chosen around 16 pieces to travel to the European Parliament in Brussels and to be shown in a 6-months exhibition during the Austrian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
I took the chance to see the selected works and went on a guided tour (only possible way). It was my first time in the European Parliament - and art is the best occasion to do so. On the way to the temporary exhibition Artspace Austria we saw several works from the collection of the European Union, from Peter Doig for instance. Some nice pieces. Most of them on a “functional” display which doesn’t “disturb” daily business in the building where European politics are/could be made.
So the Artspace Austria - on the walls of a busy corridor where most of the people have to pass - so it’s really seen - in a non-art environment. There where some a few good works by Austrian artists as Eva Schlegel or Ona B. for instance. But the selection of the work was all in all weak, kind of arbitrary and not at all a strong statement of contemporary Art originated in Austria. Yet, what does this corridor and walls even allow? …
And of course, unfortunately we are not allowed to share any pics with you.

I’ve to confess, my personnel highlight of the visit was seeing Guy Verhofstadt passing us :)

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

Cut around the world @ studioOne BXL /  by fariba mosleh

Every hair needs some love - so we invited our dear Carmen Subota to make a stop @ studioOne Brussels to spread some love with her unique project cut around the world for artists, friends and neighbors. After Barcelona, New York, Vienna or Traiskirchen (AT) it was fantastic to organise an event with this wonderful person and stylist in Brussels. And the best - to be continued in spring 2019 outdoor :)
thanx*love

Meanwhile check out her website and find Carmen as Stylist in residence at Frau Schneider in Vienna.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

really? /  by fariba mosleh

I don’t want to sound like a fine art spectator entering contemporary exhibitions stating “what’s that? art? everybody can do that.”, and the like … BUT as a person who is following artistic practises, in all kinds of forms and around the world, for more than a decade, sometimes it is actually hard to keep calm and not freaking out when entering a high-end top gallery in Brussels seeing the solo show of a under 30 year old artists presenting, in this case, about 10 monochromatic large scale paintings in this great rooms. I enter - quite open-minded - and can’t other than ask myself really ??
Yes, of course I can find links to art history, to contemporary approaches, I can define it as daring and provocative, reflect upon technical experiments of the artist, I can talk to the art crowd which came for the opening and find interesting relations … yes, it makes one talk about it, and that’s maybe more moving than some other boring exhibitions which try to do something new or trendy. But woMan - we are talking about art pieces of young guys which are on the market for (ten)thousands of Euros, taking the spaces for works which are so much more interesting and contemporary.

But he might have achieved his aim making me feel weird and annoyed … and the dialogue with other artists whom I respect a lot makes me calm down a bit after seeing such presentations. They are not angry about such developments, they are more concerned about the pulverisation and exploitation of young artists. One artists points out the short-living of such practises of young artists, he asked me ,what do you think he gonna do in ten years?`…

(c) Carmen Subota

Yet, such an evening is completely saved if it ends with two very close friends and a lot of fun at a concert at Beursschouwburg - British-Nigerian producer Tony Njoku and before the Bombataz from Brussels … even though this could end up in another discussion about really?

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

play*ground /  by fariba mosleh

Already for the 12th time two quite different art institutions in Leuven, a beautiful town about 25km or a half hour train ride away from Brussels, cooperate, and open their houses for artists experimenting on the intersection of performance and visual art at the PLAYGROUND Festival. This year the festival took place from 15th to 18th of November again at Museum Leuven and STUK - House for dance, image and sound. The festival title refers to the aim that the local and international more “emerging” than “established” artists from various fields should be given the chance to experiment within their artistic practise and - for those performing or presenting at Museum Leuven - getting into dialogue with the institution, the building, the permanent exhibitions and collections there.

“Playground” and the fact that the festival is scheduled during the whole day and in the eves might also suggest that it is an really vivid art festival for people of all ages … well, this year’s edition at Museum Leuven, where happens more the day program, came up with quite reluctant and sensitive performances. It is a kind of art history museum with a quite contemporary approach and also contemporary art exhibitions in a new & old architecture-wise interesting building in the city centre. I would like to mention the performance and installation Grammatica in the lobby; performance artist Evelien Cammaert and visual artist Joris Perdieus joint for the creation of a work which plays with the process of creating a piece of art. Using recent technological material discussing a highly art historical topic - the studio situation in the evolvement process of a canvas painting. Cammaert and Perdieus are sharing a quite unique and intimate moment with the audience. Grammatica opens up a mental space for the spectator, slowing down the individual’s speed and making it possible to let ones thoughts flow, at least for the period of the performance.
I further would like to mention the interventions by the artist Grace Schwindt, who designed costumes for two performers which she positioned in different rooms among the objects and visitors of the permanent collection - interacting with them with a minimum of movement, but a lot of power and for me as well humour. Addressing “humour” I’ve also to note these two strange but lovely big dolls dresses in swim suits made out for tulle moving around the ground floor of the museum within the performance Les Baigneurs referring to a plentitude of art history - a funny and visually catchy performance by Clédat & Petitpierre.
Whereas the evening program and performances at the fantastic highly interdisciplinary STUK building came up with a more powerful and “louder” program (which I couldn’t really enjoy as I had two girls on my side pleaguing me to drive back home ;).

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

one Night in paris*** /  by fariba mosleh

One really fantastic thing about living in Brussels is its great geographical location!
It makes it possible to go to Paris within 2 hours. So we kind of have to take the chance to go to this wonderful metropole to see some of the current exhibitions of our interest. Those large scale exhibitions are hosted by two very much different institutions, the 1977 opened Centre Pompidou in the heart of the city and the Fondation Luis Vuitton, which opened its doors in 2006, in Jardin d'acclimatation. These immense super-buildings couldn’t be more different - from the architectural point of view as well as from their mission.

Let’s start with FRANZ WEST at Centre Pompidou, a building & multidisciplinary institution that I still love so much! Especially the feeling one gets walking through the glazed hallways on the outside of the building, which kind of puts over the normally inner constructions to the outside. It’s a present to the public as it, among all the other specialities, allows the visitor to feel like walking above Paris with exceptional views. But let’s enter the exhibition, which is praised as the first posthumous large scale retrospective of Austrian artist Franz West, who passed away in 2012, which will go on to Tate Modern in London next year. There are three parties fussing around the meanwhile worth millions’ heritage of West, and therefore it’s quite hard to come up with an exhibition like this. As a confessing fan of his approach and œvre, I’ve been a bit disappointed about the space they gave this exhibition. It includes quite a lot of pieces from different periods, forms and materials brought together in a slightly narrow space. Everything shown in a strictly chronological way and somehow missing the necessary air to breathe. Still, it made a lot of fun to go through the exhibition, working with some of his pieces Passtücke, and reflecting on his audience including approach to art.

Well, the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition at Fondation Luis Vuitton was an absolute highlight - not only of this visit in Paris, but also of a personal long list of exhibition visits. I’ve been adoring Basquiat’s work for a long time, have seen some works in real here and there, but now this retrospective with 120 works, including several pieces first time shown in Europe, made a dream come true. Once in the exhibition you hardly feel the extroverted architecture except the huge and wide spaces - it takes about 10 rooms to navigate through the exhibition. I don’t know where to start - one can see the absolute peaks of his short, but extremely intensive career, but also less known and more quiet pieces. After looking so much into catalogues, books and documentations it is fantastic to see his works in real; the materials, colours, and the space-taking object character of his work can’t be communicated via printed documents. A fantastic exhibition*

Not enough, at the same time there is the œvre of another guy who already died at the age of 28 years on display at the Fondation Luis Vuitton - it’s the incredible work by Austrian artist Egon Schiele, who’s drawings I adore! Even though I can draw some lines between the work of Basquiat and Schiele, maybe it’s more recommendable to see their exhibitions separated from each other. It’s quite a stunning body of work they brought together at Fondation Luis Vuitton and as an Austrian it’s highly interesting how his work is looked at in France.

The building itself - well the money behind it makes such exhibitions possible, but I absolutely can’t link Frank Gehry’s architectural “masterpiece” with the things I highly appreciated to see inside. What sense does it make to build such an incredible building, where it is necessary to make build white cubes inside which display exhibitions as they could be anywhere in other white cubes (of that size) in the world?
When I reached the building I thought this could maybe fit for an opera house or philharmonics where it is necessary that the architecture goes along with sound qualities and the like … well, I am not an architecture expert in any way, but as an art producer I prefer buildings which go into dialogue with what the construction is meant to be used for. And of course money is an argument - can’t imagine how much that house cost and what could have been possible to invest into contemporary art otherwise.

… I don’t need to mention the many other little beautiful moments Paris offered to us. An especially cool thing - after staying in a squat at Place du Voges last time, an artist colleague’s mum invited us to sleep in the upper floor of her tiny little gallery and architecture office in the heart of the centre. Love such adventures! We’ll be back*

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

#weproclaim ed*** /  by fariba mosleh

Welcome to the Republic of Europe!
During days where constant negative perspectives on the future of our nation states, the continent and the whole world are defining our media, we took the chance and shared a beautiful moment with diverse people proclaiming the European Republic within the European Balcony Project yesterday in Saint Gilles, Brussels.
This EUtopean idea of a shared Republic with equal rights and status of all people living on this continent as a positive and logic answer to all of these nationalistic tendencies in Europe picks me personally exactly up where I am currently standing mentally - so it was clear we gonna proclaim the European Republic in our Brussels’s Studio Apartment with all the other over 100 participating initiatives all over Europe. Several people of diverse backgrounds and generations joined the informal event and read out the manifesto in 7 languages - one after the other as well as simultaneously together, what was really touching. The discourse was opened up on the prospects of the future of Europe - a political event accompanied by positive vibes and a European pumpkin soup ;)
Thanx to the everyone to come and celebrating these ideas with exciting dialogues in a great atmosphere!

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

*tristes blogs* /  by fariba mosleh

Sometimes I think I should do like Claude Lévy-Strauss had done with Tristes Tropiques, first published in France 1955, starting a parallel blog telling more about behind the scenes, the real ups and downs accompanying a project like this. Taking your kids out of school and kindergarten, moving into a new city without a paid job, knowing anybody … only to follow up your ideals in the search of a different and individual approach to life.
Being a mum, with kids on your side who really suffer due to the change of social environment and language (!), cultural manager & independent worker who did not follow a call by the EU or a splendid institution to come to Brussels (only a crazy idea in my head) … but I am also an anthropologist, with the aim of integrating this background into my work in the field of art.
Especially navigating through a field which it mostly smoothed surface - the art and culture field. Having reached a current low-point it may be the right time to also share this part of the story with the people who follow my blog. Blogging, especially in the art and culture field, is mostly an endless sequence art consuming’s manifestations - either critical or not.
Even though it might sound sometimes as if I am hopping and reporting from one art event to another, the content of this blog to write about an experiment. About navigating from one EU country to another and to get into to touch with how collegues, people in the field of art, deal with the current political shifts in Europe. Which answers do find artists and culture producers in their artistic practises and the programming in institutions? What are the socio-political realities in Europe’s informal capital? … Having prepared this stay in Brussels for a long time and very intensively still, we are facing so much contrary wind, not only from kids who have a more than imagined hard time to adapt to the new environment, but also from unexpected bureaucratic pressure which is enormous … in troubling times it feels so hard and ridiculous at the same time to go on with your work, develop further your ideas and keep on going.

IMG_3064.jpg

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

FEMIly*** /  by fariba mosleh

… it was awesome — 3rd time Femi Kuti! One people one world - tour!
Last year I saw Seun Kuti in Central Park NYC. Ten years ago the last time Femi … at Arena in Vienna. Yesterday at Festival des Libertés Bruxelles. He got older and more grey, as I am, but still has a lot of energy, as well as great things to spread! Splendid musicians - The Positive Force!
Africa for Africa***
Check out the tour dates and take your chance …

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

*fAstiWELL* /  by fariba mosleh

… bam, bam, bam. Though BXL is not the largest city, everyday starts another interesting festival in another exciting venue with a worth to checkout program. I absolutely can’t catch up with it. But well, that’s not the aim of this experiment, this blog. One never can have a holistic quantitative approach to culture and art production (and consumption), especially not if in favor of several (partly overlapping) fields. So I’ve to make choices.
This week’s highlights are definitely the Tashweesh Festival at Beursschouwburg and Festival des Libertés at Théâtre National de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.

Tashweesh comes up with a very tense program in performing art, poetry slam, discussions, concerts etc. highlighting female artists with relation to the Middle East and Northern African Arabic world. I had the pleasure to attend Small Talk on feminist artistic practice by the poetry slamers Mona Moon (based in Berlin) and Samira Saleh (based in Brussels) before they and 6 other slamers rocked the house at the Slam Night.

Festival des Libertés host critical and reflecting events on a dialogue in the formats of screenings, debates, conference, exposition, DJing and concerts, all of them also in one spot which spreads a great vivid and on the topic festival affair.
Yesterday’s concert of political reggae singer Protege with The Groundations was fantastic. Full house, smaller concerts afterwards, and in the frame of the photo exhibition focussing the topic of becoming a widow in different areas of the world.
I am extremely looking forward of tonight’s highlight - Afro Beat with Femi Kuti! It’s gonna be my third concert to see from him, and I am sure it’s gonna be intense like ever.

The impression that the festivalisation of culture is tremendously far developed here in Brussels and beyond, is also approved if I am looking onto the upcoming program of diverse institutions, culture hubs and so on in the region. I am not sure, how I think about that. It is going into that direction in all major cities. Due to financing, merchandising, focussing, foregrounding the respective topics. That is highly interesting, intense and important on the one hand. It is possible to create a very focussing atmosphere for a certain period of time and therefore create a sensitivity and platform for these themes. On the other hand, it’s getting harder and harder to catch up with the multitude of festivals with more and less important and qualitative contents. It is such a speedy thing, either you jump into it or you just miss it. You have established festivals of high quality, fix starters for years, then those which are popping up and shutting down. How sustainable are the contents highlighted for a few days or weeks for the rest of the year? Where is all that energy going to? … It’s a huge topic I am addressing here, and I won’t further discuss it at this point. It’s certainly something culture producers as consumers are confronted with.

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

*being hot on Jürgenssen's heels* /  by fariba mosleh

… I have been very much looking forward tho the opening of Birgit Jürgenssen exhibition at Gladstone Gallery Brussels today. The Austrian artist, who passed away far too early, and her work has been acknowledged in the necessary manner way too late. I love her work and its apparent lightness and humor; many of her ideas and works facing that times’ private as well as public socio-political realities concerning emancipation and feminism.
Well, I’ve no thought of the fact that it could be a boring high end gallery exhibition as it turned out to be. Still, there were a few really good pieces in the show - some drawings, photographs and 3 of her splendid shoe series ♡

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.

PLAY! 游戏 ! /  by fariba mosleh

What an incredible powerful performance … PLAY!
The Bruegel year not only led to blockbuster exhibitions like the one at Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, but also inspired artists of other fields to develop this contemporary dance theatre production for instance.
Basis for PLAY! is Pieter Bruegel’s famous painting “Kinderspiele”, also to see at Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Dschungel Wien and Het Paleis Antwerp did an exciting coproduction bringing together the Belgium choreographer Karolien Verlinden and her crew with six professional Austria based dancers. After the premiere in Vienna in September I took the chance to the Belgium premiere yesterday in Antwerp (by the way one of the last pieces where I did production back in Vienna ;) … The piece surprised, and has it all - great performers, an unique choreography (actually more sport than dance), sound, costumes, set design … and above all: games, games, games … without hardly more than some wooden slats these guys used their bodies to play a countless number of competitive children’s games*

Highly recommended. Don’t miss PLAY! in December on stage at Dschungel Wien age 10+

Well, once in Antwerp, I obviously seized the chance to visit Chinatown and have lunch there! The topic I was occupied with intensively for my publication Vienna Chinatown INvisible still thrills me so much. In 2001, Antwerp was Europe’s second city (after The Hague shortly before) to build up a dragon gate and call this quartier near the Central Station officially Chinatown, even though Chinese migration to Antwerp dates back to the 1970ies. It’s Belgium’s only official Chinatown, though there is a Chinatown INvisible, as I would call it, in the very centre of Brussels between La Bourse and St. Catherine. It felt so familiar to walk through this not more than 3 streets … and, it reassured me that Vienna’s decision against building up such an architectural sign like the dragon gate is a good one. It’s above all a marketing gag - what’s happening in this area is the interesting part, not its branding.
The food was delicious*

For the whole blog of the brusselsARTproject click here.