{"id":9153,"date":"2014-12-17T10:52:09","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T09:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/?p=9153"},"modified":"2020-11-25T14:46:56","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T13:46:56","slug":"at-the-middelheim-museum-time-is-a-constructive-reality-featured-by-kader-attia-and-the-cave-painters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2014\/12\/17\/at-the-middelheim-museum-time-is-a-constructive-reality-featured-by-kader-attia-and-the-cave-painters\/","title":{"rendered":"At the Middelheim Museum time is a constructive reality (featured by artist Kader Attia and the Cave Painters)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t<style type=\"text\/css\">\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 {\n\t\t\t\tmargin: auto;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-item {\n\t\t\t\tfloat: left;\n\t\t\t\tmargin-top: 10px;\n\t\t\t\ttext-align: center;\n\t\t\t\twidth: 33%;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 img {\n\t\t\t\tborder: 2px solid #cfcfcf;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t#gallery-1 .gallery-caption {\n\t\t\t\tmargin-left: 0;\n\t\t\t}\n\t\t\t\/* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes\/media.php *\/\n\t\t<\/style>\n\t\t<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-9153 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2014\/12\/17\/at-the-middelheim-museum-time-is-a-constructive-reality-featured-by-kader-attia-and-the-cave-painters\/attia_800\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Attia_800-480x319.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-9154\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-9154'>\n\t\t\t\tGueule Cass\u00e9e, 2014 \u00a9 Kader Attia\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2014\/12\/17\/at-the-middelheim-museum-time-is-a-constructive-reality-featured-by-kader-attia-and-the-cave-painters\/1-courtesy-kader-attia-and-galerie-nagel-draxler-photo-simon-vogel\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"112\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/1-Courtesy-Kader-Attia-and-Galerie-Nagel-Draxler-Photo-Simon-Vogel-359x480.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-9173\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-9173'>\n\t\t\t\tKader Attia, \u201cAct 2: POLITICS: The Continuity of Debt\u201d, 2013 Metal shelfs, books, postcards, framed images, Carrara marble busts, wooden busts. Courtesy Kader Attia and Galerie Nagel Draxler Photo Simon Vogel.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2014\/12\/17\/at-the-middelheim-museum-time-is-a-constructive-reality-featured-by-kader-attia-and-the-cave-painters\/3-courtesy-kader-attia-and-galerie-nagel-draxler-photo-simon-vogel\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"112\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/3-Courtesy-Kader-Attia-and-Galerie-Nagel-Draxler-Photo-Simon-Vogel-480x359.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-9172\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-9172'>\n\t\t\t\tKader Attia, installation view at the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp. Courtesy Kader Attia and Galerie Nagel Draxler Photo Simon Vogel\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2014\/12\/17\/at-the-middelheim-museum-time-is-a-constructive-reality-featured-by-kader-attia-and-the-cave-painters\/muresan\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"112\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/muresan-480x359.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-9158\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-9158'>\n\t\t\t\tCiprian Muresan, Dead Weights, 2014, installation view at the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2014\/12\/17\/at-the-middelheim-museum-time-is-a-constructive-reality-featured-by-kader-attia-and-the-cave-painters\/janssens\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"112\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/janssens-359x480.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-9157\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-9157'>\n\t\t\t\tVeronica Janssens, 22 April, 2014, installation view at the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2014\/12\/17\/at-the-middelheim-museum-time-is-a-constructive-reality-featured-by-kader-attia-and-the-cave-painters\/2874c_770x616\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"120\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/2874c_770x616-480x384.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-9159\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-9159'>\n\t\t\t\tDan Graham &#8216;Past\/Future Split Attention&#8217;, 1972.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/2014\/12\/17\/at-the-middelheim-museum-time-is-a-constructive-reality-featured-by-kader-attia-and-the-cave-painters\/bradshaw_rock_paintings\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/CFA-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Bradshaw_rock_paintings-480x320.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-9163\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-9163'>\n\t\t\t\tTassel Bradshaw (Gwion Gwion), figures wearing ornate costumes.\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\">Surely one of the most important sculpture parks in Belgium, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.middelheimmuseum.be\/man.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Middelheim Museum in Antwerp<\/a> hosts more than 200 outdoor artworks in its 30 hectares of gardens as well as running two exhibition spaces also within the limits of its park, the Braem Pavillion and Het Huis.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\">The latter is currently holding an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.middelheimmuseum.be\/Museum_Middelheim_EN\/MiddelheimEN\/MiddelheimEN-Exhibitions\/MiddelheimEN-Exhibitions-Kader-Attia.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">exhibition by Kader Attia<\/a> in which the French Algerian artist shows a series of hand carved busts made by African craftsmen from photos of disfigured soldiers who were recruited in those lands to fight World War One. The connection between imperialist past and today\u2019s post-colonial discourse in Attia\u2019s work functions as a politicised introduction to a recurrent theme we witnessed all across the museum: how the past translates into the present forming a \u201cthird ground\u201d of critical interpretation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\">The walk from Het Huis to the Braem Pavillion at the other side of the park is of great historical interest, leading to a gradual discovery of the vast outdoor collection of sculptures spanning more than one hundred years. However, the free path through the pieces as well as their scattered set up in the garden quickly make the spectator forget any idea of chronological order to prompt aesthetic and poetic associations. For instance, we imagined Constantin Permeke\u2019s bronze <span lang=\"it-IT\">Marie Lou<\/span> (1935), an example of Belgian expressionism, approaching the nearby <span lang=\"it-IT\">Bridge Without A Name<\/span> by Ai Weiwei (2012) to share the discomfort of walking over its uneven surface or the very problematic being in the world (or state in the case of Ai\u2019s China whose contours are the bridge\u2019s decks).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\">At the end of the walk, the Braem Pavillion once again placed us in front of this constructive dialogue between the past and the present. At the moment, the space hosts the exhibition <a href=\"http:\/\/www.middelheimmuseum.be\/Museum_Middelheim_NL\/MiddelheimNL\/Expo\/Allegory-of-the-cave-painting.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span lang=\"it-IT\">Allegory Of The Cave Painting &#8211; The Other Way Around<\/span><\/a>, the second and complimentary episode of a much larger event held at <a href=\"http:\/\/extracitykunsthal.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Extra City Kunsthal<\/a>, also in Antwerp. Both the shows share a very factual starting point: the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bradshawfoundation.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bradshaw rock paintings<\/a>. These are pictures found in Australian caves dating back to prehistory whose pigments are being constantly restored by active bacteria which therefore maintain their original form. Taking these paintings as an allegory of an object whose time can no longer be pinned down, the whole exhibition at the Braem Pavillion seemed to be a sample of the very same kind. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\">Starting with the intervention of artist Ciprian Muresan called <span lang=\"it-IT\">Dead Weights,<\/span> for which the artist took more than a dozen sculptures by artists such as Pietro Consagra, Karl Hartung and Jacob Epstein out of the museum\u2019s permanent collection to hide some of his engravings under them, making these pictures invisible pieces generated by the intrinsic physical property of older and \u2018more\u2019 historical artworks. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\">Along a similar way, Ann Veronica Janssens\u2019 <span lang=\"it-IT\">22 April, 2014<\/span> consists of a magnifier installed in front of one of the pavilion\u2019s windows with which we are asked to distort the shapes of the sculptures standing outside (including one by Janssens herself).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;\">Finishing with Dan Graham, the artist\u2019s contribution to the exhibition is the record of a performance called <span lang=\"en-US\">Past Future Split Attention<\/span> he gave in London in 1972 which ironically functions as the perfect summary of a 2014 show (and museum). As the artist write about the piece: \u201ctwo people who know each other are in the same space. While one predicts continuously the other person\u2019s behavior, the other person recounts by memory the past behavior of the other\u201d. Hearing the recording of this dialogue leaves the spectator in a state of temporal confusion and missed causality where time as a concept seems to loose its reliability in favour of a differently constructive approach to reality.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Surely one of the most important sculpture parks in Belgium, the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp hosts more than 200 outdoor artworks in its 30 hectares of gardens as well as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1796],"tags":[1880],"class_list":["post-9153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mapping-the-artscape","tag-kader-attia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conceptualfinearts.com\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}