VISIT TO THE NEW ABBY MUSEUM KORTRIJK

An interesting museum, an old site restored in the middle of the city, surrounded by old walls and fragments of buildings and a small church. The restored old parts are sculpturally interwoven into the whole and shown to their best advantage. It is also quite interesting to bring together old and new in the paintings here. A good move!

The surroundings serve as a natural source of inspiration. A museum of old art from 1450 and contemporary art with the theme: “sensing unexpected disaster”, depicting it and giving it a place in art. The old masters such as Dürer used skeletons, especially skulls or dead birds, as predictors of disaster or other macabre metaphorical objects. In this exhibition, we find an important expressionist: Otto Dix, who experienced and foresaw the First and Second World Wars and used many skeletons to depict the disaster and slaughter among people. This was later frequently copied by Ensor.

As far as contemporary artists are concerned, Philip Vandenberg particularly struck me with his very painful image of pierced feet. The terrible, agonising pain is palpable. His written red words also testify to pain; he invokes them as revenge. Red on white, like graffiti! Everything that evokes imminent death: despair cries out.

Borremans' strange work: a child with a stain on the ground, gives a feeling of unease. Even the child notices it and holds back. His people are also dressed in black robes like flagellants, black shadows but with invisible faces, turned away: only the play of the black, gloomy robes! Awful!

Thierry de Cordier: black surface: everything black! Is life black? Abramovitsch, staged as a contemporary Madonna: but a strong pointing finger indicates that life continues through the female baby. Not the male, as in ancient times.

Holluy Muller creates feet with wings that are supposed to represent the anima. The human being where the soul is most important.

At Bondi, we find the prediction in the 5th dream. And we rise by lifting others.

Sherin Nesrat with her Arabic script on her hands: garder la révolution.

Finally, Luc Tuymans' pale figures, the cross and two women at the bottom. Tranquil, mysterious! The pale as a haze of warning about what is to come. 

The old artists simply depict metaphorical objects alongside people and scenes, referring to transience. This is no longer the case with contemporary artists, who give shape to the image as a disaster according to their own invention and intuition.

The illuminated books after the invention of printing are also fantastic, but they take a lot of time to delve into and discover what the metaphors are.

More info about this museum >>