29/01/22 - 19/09/22
As part of the Europalia 2022 festival and the Lille 3000 event.
The only museum designed by the architect Victor Horta, the Museum of Fine Arts of Tournai will be entering a new phase of renovation and expansion in two years. While waiting for construction to begin in 2024, curators propose rotating exhibitions of the collections and invite contemporary authors and creators to adopt the space in order to write a new chapter in the museum's history.
In this respect and on the occasion of the EUROPALIA TRAINS & TRACKS festival dedicated to the invention that has shaped modern society – the train – EUROPALIA and the Museum of Fine Arts are joining forces to offer artist Raffaella Crispino (b. 1979, Italy) to question the collection and develop a project around "L'Abdication de Charles Quint" (The Abdication of Charles V), a monumental canvas by the artist Louis Gallait who, in the middle of the 19th century, toured part of Europe and Germany in particular by train. Beyond this railway journey, this painting, which brings us up against one of the first global empires, is an opportunity to tackle current issues dear to the artist, such as globalisation and colonialism. As the title of the exhibition suggests, with Open Field Raffaella Crispino brings together a number of wide-ranging areas of thought.
To design her new works, the multi-disciplinary artist has adopted a process of freely associating historical or scientific references that are seemingly far removed but resonate with a contemporary audience. Raffaella Crispino also brings a fresh perspective on the museum's architecture.
Freely inspired by the spirit of the place, she imagines the museum’‘s central atrium as a large greenhouse in a botanical garden. It takes visitors on a journey through a journey with lots of stories : of seeds imported to our country following the development of rail, of plants developing astonishing survival strategies, and of women healers considered to be witches.
In response to the artist's creations, the museum's curators have selected a series of works from the museum's collections that punctuate the route, always with the same desire to make the museum's heritage part of the world we currently live in.
Raffaella Crispino. Open Field
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