M HKA gaat digitaal

Met M HKA Ensembles zetten we onze eerste échte stappen in het digitale landschap. Ons doel is met behulp van nieuwe media de kunstwerken nog beter te kaderen dan we tot nu toe hebben kunnen doen.

We geven momenteel prioriteit aan smartphones en tablets, m.a.w. de in-museum-ervaring. Maar we zijn evenzeer hard aan het werk aan een veelzijdige desktop-versie. Tot het zover is vind je hier deze tussenversie.

M HKA goes digital

Embracing the possibilities of new media, M HKA is making a particular effort to share its knowledge and give art the framework it deserves.

We are currently focusing on the experience in the museum with this application for smartphones and tablets. In the future this will also lead to a versatile desktop version, which is now still in its construction phase.

The Fool, 2019

Installation, 120 x 80 x 200 cm .

© Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys. Photo: M HKA

Collection: Collection M HKA / Flemish Community (Inv. no. BK009240).

We know that the fool has a mental age of around eight. When visiting the zoo with his aunt, he was entranced by the nocturnal creatures. He stood stock-still for hours on end, staring into the eyes of a barn owl until hypnotised. Since then, he only sings the few songs that he can remember from his childhood.

(Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys)

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Media

>Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, The Fool, 2019

>Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, The Fool, 2019

>Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, The Fool, 2019

>MONDO CANE (2019), Bezoekersgids

>MONDO CANE (2019), guide du visiteur

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>MONDO CANE (2019) represented the Belgian Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale with Anne-Claire Schmitz as curator and was given an honourable mention by the jury.   MONDO CANE presents itself as a local folkloric museum that displays the human figure. Silent, pale and frightened, the pavilion’s inhabitants appear as aestheticized shells, stuck in a loop of formal activity that the visitor perceives as odd and out of touch with contemporary reality. The exhibition contains some twenty dolls, most of them automated; a series of large illustrations depicting pastoral scenes; and steel bars that fence off the pavilion’s lateral recesses. At the centre of the building there are craftsmen and women—such as a cobbler, a stonemason and a spinner who, true to themselves, ply their respective trades. The side rooms, for their part, are a parallel world peopled by louts, zombies, poets, psychotics, the insane, and the marginalized. These two worlds exist in the same space, but they seem to be entirely unaware of one another. They do not interact. The separation is clear. The universe of the pavilion does not shock: it is itself traumatized.  The gestures of the dolls are mechanical and awkward. The sounds and movements alternate and are activated by the visitors’ presence via a motion detector at the entrance. The space is imbued with songs, plaintive cries and labour. The dolls’ heads are modelled both on fictive characters that have already appeared in the work of Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys and on real people. We enter the pavilion as we were entering a wonderland. Full of beauty and ugliness. In accordance with an age-old tradition, spectators allow themselves to be drawn by the promise of seeing wonderful things at an exhibition: "A show well worth the while of parents and their children!" The Belgian Pavilion offers a real promenade, akin to a touristic or anthropological experience, reminiscent of an old Europe. Next to the exhibition, MONDO CANE further develops as a publication and website to be found at www.mondocane.net. Both are additional spaces for unfolding and exploring the posture of the project.

>Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, The Fool, 2019 and Flap & Flop, 2019 (installation view, Museum in Motion, 2022, M HKA)

Artist

> Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys.

Exhibitions & Ensembles

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> Exhibition: Museum in Motion - Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys. M HKA, Antwerp, 16 September 2022 - 08 January 2023.

> Exhibition: Museum in Motion. M HKA, Antwerp, 16 September 2022 - 08 January 2023.

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> Ensemble: An Architecture for Art - Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys.

Related Items

>Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys, Flap & Flop, 2019.Installation, 3d-printed head coated in plaster, gypsum, aluminium, textile, clothes, wooden cart, varnish, acrylic paint, 120 x 80 x 180 cm .