From 19 September till 7 October 2010, the Minsheng Art Museum will host Brussels Body Speech, an exhibition project designed to present the city of Brussels and some of its most brilliant contemporary artists to the people of China during the Shanghai World Exhibition.

The concept of the exhibition is based upon a strong opposition between two artistic positions, both reflecting on the status of the body. In doing so, the curators of the exhibition installed both positions diametrical against each other on a central axis.

On one side of the axis we placed ‘dance’, as dance might well be considered as the oldest form of human intelligence, ever since it occurred in the development of the Homo sapiens sapiensis. It never disappeared throughout the history of mankind, and entered a whole new era of bodily expression and refinement when in the early 1980 a still very young Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker broke open a whole new chapter in the history of dance. Brussels Body Speech invited the world-renowned Brussels choreographer and dancer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. We will show de Keersmaeker’s movie of her ‘opus 1’: Rosas Danst Rosas, with which she internationally broke through.

On the other side of the axis, we invited Frank Theys to present his movie ‘Technocalyps’. Through this documentary, the artist explores in three parts the world and opinions of a group of scientists obsessed with the quest of eternal life. The film features a number of highly intelligent researchers who are convinced of the fact that in order to maintain the essentials of the human race in the coming centuries, we will need to adapt its traditional format: the human body. Experimenting with a variety of possibilities, going from massive structural improvements of the body, to leaving the old format behind all together, those scientists, called "transhumanists", represent a remarkable development in the evolution of human knowledge and science.

Contributing each in a very specific way to the above-mentioned concept, we also invite three more visual artists based in Brussels:

In the light of the appearance of an installation by artist Olafür Elliason in Beijing earlier this year, showing a space filled with mist, we are very proud to present the artist who originally conceived this type of work: Ann Veronica Janssens. The whole oeuvre of the artist is based on a far-reaching inquiry on the basic conditions of human perception. Trained as a sculptor, the artist gradually disengaged in the treatment of physical material, becoming a designer of experimental environments, dominated by different light sources, in which the spectator becomes both the observer and the observed. Ann Veronica Janssens’ project fits perfectly well within the central opposition of ideas that are on stake here, and enriches considerably its purpose.

The same goes for a beautiful film-based installation by one of our most gifted young artists David Claerbout. If sections of a happy moment appears at first as an intriguing visual experiment situated on the edge between film and photography, it is only after further scrutiny that a spectator might discover the origin of its strange overall effect: every single sequence of the piece, showing several Chinese families playing among housing blocks in an Antwerp - Belgium, suburbs, is the result of manipulations by the artist, offering the installation an almost existential and philosophical dimension.

Over the last 25 years, Joëlle Tuerlinckx has established an international career with an oeuvre that keeps on developing in an extraordinary manner, a bright set of ideas brought up by Marcel Broodthaers and his fellow conceptual artists in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her oeuvre, however, that focuses on the flow of human energies, traces left behind and the impossibility to come to a complete consciousness of oneself, questions the very idea of identity in a post-modern world. Her work forms the ideal counterpart to the interventions of Ann Veronica Janssens. She will be the artist physically performing within the museum.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

Kindly supported by:
The Brussels Capital Region, External Relations Department
Minister Jean-Luc Vanraes

Hosted by:
Minsheng Art Museum

Curated by:
Prof. dr. Hans M. De Wolf

Assistant Curator:
Drs. Carl Jacobs

Participating Artists:
Anne Teresa De Keersmaker
Frank Theys
David Claerbout
Ann Veronica Janssens
Joëlle Tuerlinckx