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

Jimmie Durham

image: (c) Marco Fedele di Catrano
A Stone from Metternich's House in Bohemia, 1996
Video , 00:00:30
PAL

"I went to an old monastery in Plasy, Bohemia (Czech Republic) to establish a pole for the center of the world. Metternich, the German who had become foreign minister of Austria in 1809, had bought the monastery and made it into one of his summer house. Metternich once said that asia begins at the Landgasse in Vienna.

I brought a stone from the monastery to Vienna, to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s house. Metternich wanted Austria to save Europe (from the free-thinking French revolution) so he had to put a lot of people in stone dungeons below the beautiful buildings. Their screams added nothing to the sounds of the violins above." [full text here]