Urgent Conversations: Athens – Antwerp

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    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

    Koen van den Broek

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    (c)photo: Studio Koen van den Broek, Merksem
    Die Zauberflöte, 2015
    Koen van den Broek
    Painting , 120 x 80 cm
    oil on canvas

    The overworld versus underworld is at the heart of this painting which was created following Mozart's opera. Van den Broek took his inspiration for this division in South Korea, on Jeju Island to be precise, which is one of the last matriarchies. The painting is based an earlier work by him, Omniverse, also inspired by the images he made of the Water Museum, a creation of the Japanese-Korean architect Intam Jun on Jeju. It is a circular concrete structure around a water feature where the light coming through is constantly changing. In this work too, we see a reference to that water feature with a reflection of the sun above. An externalization of the internal process where one must dig deep to reach the light. That alchemical trip, the innovative process that unfolds amidst a struggle between the new and the old, also marks the key theme of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.

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