Urgent Conversations: Athens – Antwerp

    ENELNL

    The exhibitions Urgent Conversations: Athens–Antwerp and Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens are a collaboration between EMST and M HKA, a theoretical and visual dialogue, based on works from the collections of both museums, which includes more than 70 works structured in 22 topics.   

    28.04.2017 - 07.01.2018        

    M HKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen - Leuvenstraat 32, 2000 Antwerpen

    EMST, National Museum of Contemporary Art - Kallirrois Avenue & Amvr. Frantzi Str., Athens 11743

    Urgent Conversations: Antwerp – Athens, Part III

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    (c)image: M HKA
    De paddestoelen der gramschap, 1973
    Paul De Vree
    Photography , 83 x 68 cm
    photo emulsion, canvas

    The denunciation of the sometimes violent actions of the state and police apparatus is given a striking expression in De paddestoelen der gramschap. The title of this work refers to John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and serves here as a starting point to depict an overpowering, white-helmeted police force as the embodiment of hateful repression. The poem consists of a montage of several photographs, resulting in the dissemination, over the entire surface of the picture, of countless white helmets, like a parasitical fungus. The violent, aggressive character of the display of power shown here is powerfully rendered through the heavy clubs of the so-called ‘officers of the law’.

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