Tribute to the victims of the SamudaripenOn August 2, 2023, the Jewish Museum of Belgium will pay homage to the victims of the Samudaripen genocide by the Nazis of Roma/Manouches/Sintis/Travellers in Europe.
In collaboration with the ESMA-Carrefour des cultures association, the Jewish Museum of Belgium is organizing a commemoration event on the occasion of the “European Day of Remembrance of the Roma Genocide”, on Wednesday August 2, 2023 at 2:30 p.m. Two conferences will take place: Génocide des Roms : des sources du racisme au génocide nazi by Olivier Bonny (Esma-Carrefour des cultures) and a presentation of research and collection of testimonies and interviews in Eastern countries – by Costel Nastasie of Dignité Rom. The commemoration will be followed with a concert of Balkan Roma style music by Eleonora Mustafovska (singing), Simeon Atanasov (composition, accordion) and Muhi (keyboards) (40 minutes)
Program :
Reception from 2 p.m.
Lectures at 2:30 p.m.
Concert from 3:45 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Farewell drink
Free of charge, reservation required via edu@mjb-jmb.org with mention Commemoration August 2
On view in its Project Space, the Jewish Museum of Belgium presents the paintings of the Canadian-born Brussels-based artist Shoshana Walfish (°1988). This exhibition focuses on the artist’s research into the representation of the female body, in two scopes. Rooted in the classical pictorial tradition, her works vary in scale and style, from sculptural figuration to figurative abstraction.
Shoshana Walfish questions the idea of the woman as an object and of objects as female bodies. Between surrealism and the absurd, Walfish questions the gaze, the objectification and the narratives produced by history and art history. In a second series, Walfish explores the lush aesthetic allusions associated with body organs, thus mingling corporality with the natural world, science and society.
The Sugar Pot (2021)Symbiogenesis (2022)Fig from Thistles (2023)Elder’s Circle (2021)
The Jewish Museum of Belgium invites you to discover a short film directed by Sarah Lederman, which draws its inspiration from the work of filmmaker Chantal Akerman, one of the artists featured in the “Four Sisters” exhibition.
Les Racines de l’eau (synopsis) : Two women, one Ashkenazi Jew from Poland and one Sephardic Jew from Algeria meet in Brussels with the same quest: to find out what their Jewish identity means to them. Their biggest desire is to undergo the water ritual called Mikveh. But they are not welcome in a bath house, being neither married nor orthodox. Nonetheless, they try to claim their heritage on a road trip and own their Judaism.
Price: 10 euros (+ free admission to the “Four Sisters” exhibition)
free for students
Biography of Sarah Lederman : Sarah Lederman (1994) was born and raised in Brussels, Belgium. She is a film maker and studied both Documentary and Fiction at the The Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema & Sound (RITCS) in Brussels. She finished her Film MFA at Sint-Lucas Brussels with her short film ‘Les Racines de l’Eau’. At UK Jewish Film Festival 2022 she won the Best Short Film award.
‘Licht’, a children’s documentary for KETNET and VRT, which premiered at DOK LEIPZIG, recently won the Ensor for Best Short Film 2023. She just finished her fiction short film ‘Friday, 1st of July’. Both projects were subsidized by VAF.
She specializes in visual intimate stories through fine story telling, honest and pure with a considerate attention for detail. She has a great sensibility for capturing unfolding unique moments. Documentary and fiction film both fascinate her.
“Mirror effect: I am all this, piece by piece. I go out through every pore. I am crossed, invaded, dispossessed. And yet, in this thin skin, I grow, I am alive.” (Marianne Berenhaut)
In Private Collection / Vie Privée, choreographer/performer Ula Sickle invites the audience to explore the exhibition “Four Sisters” through the materiality of the Poupées-Poubelles – transparent nylon tights filled with textiles and everyday objects – made by artist Marianne Berenhaut.
In 1969, a fall of more than four metres left Marianne Berenhaut bedridden for over a year. The accident became an opportunity to question and reinvent her artistic practice: no longer able to engage in large-scale physical productions, it was with the Poupées-Poubelles that she returned to a production that resonated with the demands of feminist thought to which she was close.
For this performance, Ula Sickle invited Sabrina Seifried and Joëlle Laederach to develop a series of wearable pieces in natural latex, a mutable material known for its healing, protective and sensual properties.
The performer Katja Dreyer personifies the Poupées-Poubelles, which she embodies by wearing these clothing creations in a choreography developed by Ula Sickle.
Program :
3:30 p.m.: Doors open
4:00 pm : Start of the performance
16h30 – 17h30 : Talk with Yann Chataigné, Marianne Berenhaut and Ula Sickle (EN)
5:30 pm : Performance
18h00 : Drink
Price: 10 euros (+ free access to the “Four Sisters” exhibition)
Ula Sickle is a Canadian choreographer and performer, living and working in Brussels. From a background in contemporary dance, she works across disciplines, frequently drawing from contemporary music and the visual arts. In 2017-18 she was artist in residence at Ujazdowski Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw and WIELS Arts Center in Brussels. She is currently a PHD researcher at KU Leuven and Luca School of Art. Her performances have been presented across Europe in festivals and venues including the Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Wiener Festwochen (Vienna), Actoral (Marseille), MACBA (Barcelona) and the Serralves Museum (Porto), among others. Ula is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Flemish Authorities.
It is common knowledge that war photography is a profession often dominated by men. Julia Pirotte however, like many women photographers, has also worked in war zones. The Polish photographer of Jewish origin, documented the resistance in Marseille during World War II, Jewish families in the internment camp of Bompard and the Kielce Pogrom. Throughout these conflict territories, women often had access to families and children, Julia in particular made it a point to render these moving portraits. Her images played a decisive role in shaping war imagery. By highlighting Julia Pirotte’s photographs and journey, Bruna Lo Biundo, Caroline François and Maja Wolny tell us the specificity of female gaze on war and show us that women are as much transmitters of images as witnesses of war atrocities. The conference will also explore how other women she met along the way have contributed to her work.
The conference will be held in FR/EN The speakers are : Maja Wolny, Bruna Lo Biundo, Caroline François Program : Opening of the doors 18:00 Beginning of the conference 18h30 Drink at 19h30/20h
With the support of the Polish Institute in Brussels
Maja Wolny (* 1976 in Kielce) is a Polish writer, curator of international exhibitions, doctor of humanities.From 1998 to 2002 she was a journalist for the Polish weekly newspaper “Polityka”. She lived for many years in Belgium, where she directed the Eastern European cultural center Post Viadrina in Ghent.In 2016, her novel “Black Leaves” was published in Poland about the life of the Polish-Belgian-Jewish photographer Julia Pirotte and the pogrom in Kielce. The book was translated into Dutch and published by the Bezige Bij with a recommendation by Griet Op de Beeck. “Black Leaves” was included in 2017 in the list of the best novels of 2017 according to the newspaper De Standaard.Maja Wolny has been living in Poland since 2016, in Kazimierz Dolny, where she is involved in the city’s Jewish past. In 2016 and 2017, she traveled alone to Siberia to gather material for her latest novel, “Powrót z Północy” (“The Return from the North”).In 2018, the jury of the Hercule Poirot Prize awarded her the Fred Braeckman Prize for her novel “De boekenmoordenaar”.
Bruna Lo Biundo holds a doctorate in literature and history of French culture. She is a specialist in the representation of women in French culture between the wars. Since 2007, she has worked as a researcher and curator of historical and documentary exhibitions in Paris. She has notably worked for the Mémorial de la Shoah, La contemporaine and Génériques. In 2018, she co-founded the association Past/Not Past which promotes research in the field of cultural heritage. As cultural project manager for Génériques (2013-2018), a center for research and valorization of immigration heritage, she worked on immigrant and refugee women in France in the 20th century and participated in various international conferences on this theme. It was in the context of this work that she discovered the work and fate of Julia Pirotte and her sister Mindla Diament.
Caroline François is a historian, responsible for the temporary and travelling exhibitions of the Shoah Memorial in Paris. She is also an exhibition curator and author of several articles on the question of women in the Shoah. As a lecturer, she regularly participates in the Shoah Memorial’s training program on the following topics: discrimination, gender issues and sexual violence in the context of the genocidal process. In 2016, She curated a temporary exhibition for the Shoah Memorial on women, mainly Jewish, in the French Resistance. Among them were Julia Pirotte and her sister Mindla Diament.
During the Nocturnes, the Jewish Museum will be more than ever a space for encounter and dialogue. In addition to its permanent exhibition on Jewish religion and culture, the museum hosts two temporary exhibitions. Four sisters combines the works of Chantal Akerman, Marianne Berenhaut, Sarah Kaliski and Julia Pirotte, all four women, artists, Jews, and custodians of a memory. 236. Land(es)capes of the 20th Convoy offers, through the photographs of Jo Struyven and the paintings of Luc Tuymans, an artistic look at an exceptional episode in the history of the Second World War. On April 19, 1943, thanks to resistance actions, 236 deportees managed to jump from the train that was taking them to Auschwitz.
WORKSHOP Want to discover Judaism? What rituals and practices are part of Jewish family life? In this workshop on Jewish cultures, the aim is to build bridges, to show the commonalities between cultures and their enriching differences. The workshop is for all audiences, regardless of their background and beliefs.
→ 18:00 (NL) / 19:30 (FR) – Limited places Please send an e-mail to edu@mjb-jmb.org with your name, the number of people you wish to register, the language of the activity and name of the activity.
WORKSHOP The last survivors of the Holocaust share their personal stories with you, documented by the Museum’s archives. A unique and exceptional opportunity to get to know someone who survived the Holocaust and who will explain why bearing witness is still necessary today.
→ 17:30 (FR) / 19:30 (FR) –Limited places Please send an e-mail to edu@mjb-jmb.org with your name, the number of people you wish to register, the language of the activity and name of the activity.
On March 19, 2023 at 5:00 pm, the Union des Etudiants Juifs de Belgique, the MerKaz and the Musée Juif de Belgique will have the pleasure of receiving sociologist Illana Weizman on the occasion of the publication of her latest book “Des blancs comme les autres?” dealing with the blind spot that the fight against antisemitism represents within the anti-racist world.
A panel of speakers from Jewish and anti-racist associations will follow IIlana Weizman’s presentation to discuss her book. We will publish their names on the event in the next few days.
It is a fact that in today’s Jewish communities, there is a prevailing feeling that the fight against antisemitism is the most overlooked aspect of anti-racist campaigns. The loneliness that those involved in the fight against antisemitism too often face or, quite simply, the frequent lack of understanding of the antisemitic phenomenon in anti-racist circles are all elements that reinforce this feeling.
Faced with this observation, the speakers and the audience will discuss several major questions: Why is antisemitism sidelined in anti-racist struggles? How can we rehabilitate the fight against antisemitism and the inclusion of this fight in the anti-racist movement? How can we renew the collaboration between activist organizations and Jewish communities?
This event will be in French.
Chantal Akerman, Marianne Berenhaut, Sarah Kaliski and Julia Pirotte are artists. One makes films, the other sculptures. Another is a painter, the last a photographer. Four Jewish women. Coming from different generations, they emigrated or were born of stateless parents who fled Eastern Europe and the persecutions of the 1930s. All four lived in Brussels and have in common that they lived – directly or through their relatives – through the Occupation, that they saw and suffered deportations, that they lived through the disaster.
Chantal, Marianne, Sarah and Julia are sisters. Sisters from other parents. They have survived, or simply lived, thanks to their own resilience. Like Ruth Elias, Ada Lichtman, Paula Biren and Hanna Marton, The Four Sisters who returned from the death camps and whose testimonies were collected by the filmmaker Claude Lanzmann in the late 1970s, they share the experience of the Shoah. They are custodians of a memory, made up of as many stories as of absences and incomplete words. A gap, a silence, a haunting which they inherited.
These artists have created works, languages, and ways of seeing in and around this hole in history, in their history. Evolving each in a singular world, Chantal, Marianne, Sarah and Julia have sometimes crossed paths, seen each other at the bend of an exhibition or a projection. These women have built themselves with a strength and a commitment that make them today’s models of life and freedom. As Jews, they have questioned the weight of belonging and transmission, the power of a scattered and diasporic culture.
Four Sisters is a choral exhibition that follows the gaze of these four figures, whose lives, placed end to end, cover an entire century of history, where events and places, destruction and emancipation, political transformations and intimate experimentations are connected. Combining works and archives, images and texts, monographic presentations and collective arrangements, Four Sisters interweaves the threads of these life stories in a weaving fashion extending into the present, through the punctuated participation of artists from a younger generation. Within Four Sisters, in the details and folds, memories mingling with fiction, there are gestures, times and fragments whose echoes resonate and compose new patterns, like a memory that can only be formed in sharing.
This exhibition project is realized in partnership with Bozar, the Museum of Photography of Charleroi, the C.A Foundation and the Polish Institute Brussels.
Sarah Kaliski is a “metaphysical” painter whose sensitivity transcends the media. She de-multiplies the body through a painting that is as sensual as it is poetic and marked by history.
Born in 1941 in Brussels, passed away in 2010 in Paris, Sarah Kaliski is the youngest of four children who have distinguished themselves in the arts. Of Jewish and Polish origins, the Kaliski family grew up in Belgium and suffered the tragedies of the 20th century, including the loss of their father deported to Auschwitz. Since then, one can observe in Kaliski’s work the thematic recurrence of the torments inflicted by the Nazis, Belgian culture and identity, violence towards children and the sexual freedom of women.
Julia Pirotte
Artist and fighter, Julia Pirotte’s poignant photographic work is one of the rare and precious visual testimonies of the Resistance.
Born in 1907 in Poland, Julia Pirotte, had to flee her country because of her communist political ideas. She took refuge in Belgium where was given her her first camera. From then on, Pirotte never stopped photographing her daily life as a resistance fighter and activist. In 1940, she fled and joined Free France to continue her resistance activities. In Marseille, she shot numerous photographs documenting daily life under the Vichy regime. After the war, she returned to Poland where she witnessed the massacres in Kielce, which she immortalized in a series of moving photographs. She continued her documentary practice until the end of her life while teaching this medium to the younger Polish generation. She died in Warsaw at the age of 92.
Marianne Berenhaut
Marianne Berenhaut’s installations reveal themselves to the viewer as a waste product. They seem to form a question mark where any attempt at an answer evaporates. Never fixed, always moving, her sculptures are enigmas where a fragile and striking assemblage of narratives, identities and memories collide.
Born in Brussels in 1934, Marianne Berenhaut was separated from her family during the war and found refuge with her twin brother in a Catholic orphanage. Her older brother and her parents did not survive Auschwitz.
Through the technique of assembling eclectic materials, Marianne Berenhaut’s sculptural work addresses the themes of trauma, absence and remembrance. The subtle balance of her works questions the instability of identities, that of women as well as that of the objects that compose them.
Chantal Akerman
A key figure of modern cinema, revered internationally, Chantal Akerman is without a doubt the most important Belgian filmmaker. One of her films was recently ranked “best film of all time” by the British magazine “Sight&Sound”.
Born in 1950 in Brussels into a Jewish family, Chantal Akerman was raised by her father and her mother, an Auschwitz survivor, who left its mark on the filmmaker’s work.
Akerman’s work is as much fiction as documentary. Temporality, femininity, and filiation are the recurring themes of her work. Akerman’s frontal and verist look at daily life, often inhabited by women, questions, through gestures and rituals, the definitions of femininity and the relationship we have with memory.
Died in 2015 in Paris, Chantal Akerman fascinates more than ever as her work remains, even today, of a relevance and a primordial importance.
Through personal stories, which they can present themselves, students become familiar with the history of the 20th convoy to Auschwitz and the resistance that rose up against it.
Thisexhibition offers an artistic take on an exceptional episode in the history of the Second World War. On 19 April 1943, the Twentieth convoy left the Mechelen transit camp for Auschwitz, with 1,631 Jewish deportees on board. Thanks to acts of resistance onboard and an attack by the resistance along the way, 236 of these deportees managed to jump off the train that was carrying them to their extermination.
The photographer Jo Struyven (b. Sint-Truiden, 1961) reflects on this unique act of rebellion in Western Europe under Nazi administration, showing us the landscapes in which this little-known story took place. These photographs constitute a contemporary “memorial”, providing a response to the indifference that characterises these stripped landscapes today. Although they seem devoid of human presence, they were nevertheless infused with (in)humanity.
Two paintings by Luc Tuymans (b. Mortsel, 1958), which also evoke the destruction of the European Jews and Romani, engage in a dialogue with these photos. In his work, Tuymans has repeatedly explored the relationship between individuals and history, confronting them with their ability to ignore it. The persecution during the Second World War emerged as a theme in his painting practice in the late 1970s.
“To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric”, the German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno famously said in 1949. The exhibition raises the question of whether art is (im)possible after the Holocaust, through the perspectives of two visual artists.
Organised in partnership with the Auschwitz Foundation, this exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue book (to be published on 19 April 2023), as well as an educational area presenting the testimonies of escapees from the 20th deportation convoy.
Luc Tuymans, Our New Quarters, 1986, oil on canvas, 80.5 x 120 cm (MMK -Germany)
Luc Tuymans, Die Wiedergutmachung, 1989. Oil on board, mounted on plywood, Oil on canvas; diptych, 36.6 x 43 cm, 39.4 x 51.8 cm (Private collection)
In partnership with PhotoBrussels Festival
This exhibition, Moroccan women – Between ethic and aesthetic, – an original creation of the Centre de la Culture Judéo-Marocaine – revisits the rules of appearance in Moroccan aesthetics, explores the ethics and customs imposed on women as well as the motivations – still at work – of these highly codified customs.
For the first time, ancient productions and recent creations are put in dialogue, in a rich narrative journey presenting a large quantity of objects dating from the 16th century to the present day: traditional and cultic objects, clothes, ornaments, talismans and jewels, archival documents, photographs and drawings, orientalist paintings coming from the Dahan-Hirsch Collection, which holds a special place in the safeguarding of Morocco’s cultural and civilizational heritage, whose great historical and affective value we measure here.
Amulet for synagogue glass suspension – Khemsa Yellow copper Fès 1900 Jews of Mogador M. Girard Essaouira, 1949
Necklace – Lebba Gold-plated silver and semi-precious stones Fès, 19ème
Encre sur parchemin Fès, 19ème
Jewish women in fiesta dress John-Frédérick, Lewis 1805-1876 Grande-Bretagne, 1836
Amulet of protection for travel Ink on parchment Fès, 19èmeLarge wedding dress – Keswa l’Kbira Rabat, early 20th century
Jacques Aron (Antwerp 1933), architect and urban planner, has taught the history and theory of these disciplines. An honorary professor at the University, he has always devoted himself to writing and visual arts. He is also the author of numerous works on architecture, philosophy and Jewishness, particularly in German-speaking countries.
From the 1990s onwards, he tried his hand at collage, initially on paper but soon in digital form. This artistic practice complements his research into an overall philosophical conception of the European Jewish condition.
Passionate about painting and the history of Western painting, this self-taught artist seized a creative opportunity: the sculpture on the beach at Ostend by the artist Kris Martin, which, in oxidised steel, reproduces the shape of the frame of the polyptych of the Mystic Lamb by the Van Eyck brothers.
The beach altar in Ostend is a nod to the name given by Kris Martin to his sculpture planted on the beach in front of the Palais des Thermes hotel. This empty frame offers walkers the chance to use it as windows evoking different seascapes that change with the light of day and the seasons.
Or perhaps it is an enigma for them, or a structure that they can use as a support for physical exercise, or even to take a photo souvenir, or to photograph themselves in the contemporary age of selfies?
In this series of collages, he links the idea of the empty frame to that of the death of God, as written by Nietzsche in particular. Once the frame is empty, the collage artist’s imagination is free to fill it with a multitude of themes, sometimes drawn from the works of other famous painters such as Ensor, Magritte, Bruegel, Poussin, Géricault, Millet, and others, who rub shoulders with some of the characters of the Van Eyck brothers, or other themes born of his extensive literary culture.
Through the various works on display, visitors are invited to try and work out which artists feature in which collages.
The Arie Mandelbaum exhibition is an original creation of the Jewish Museum of Belgium. Fre- quently exhibited, the work of painter Arié Mandelbaum (°1939, Brussels) had not yet been the subject of a retrospective. For the first time, old productions and recent creations engage in dia- logue here, in a journey which starts in 1957 and ends in 2016.
Arié Mandelbaum, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants, began painting at the age of sixteen. As from the early 1960s, he was considered one of the most promising talents in Belgian painting. His idiosyncratic and compelling oeuvre continued to develop over the decades that followed. After the heightened expressionism of his early days, greater restraint followed as of the 1980s, giving rise to works of disturbing fragility, which he has created to this day.
The exhibition is structured around different themes. We first discover the way in which the artist deals with intimacy, before politics – especially the anti-authoritarian protest of 1968 – telescopes his soul-searching. The visit continues with the exploration of the self-portrait and the body, two themes through which we see the work of Arié Mandelbaum transform into a reflection on trace, absence and erasure. Political violence, particularly related to (neo)colonialism, then made a marked return in his work. Over the past two decades, it has become increasingly influenced by the memory of the Shoah – as a return to what was repressed in this child of the war, who will re- main a rebel painter all his life.
The works presented come from the collections of the Jewish Museum of Belgium, but also from institutions such as the Museum of Ixelles, the Museum of the National Bank of Belgium or the collections of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. A number of private collections have also been mobilized, in particular those of private individuals and the Belfius Art Collection.
As an opening for this exhibition, Anass El Azhar Idrissi, a Moroccan photographer living in Brussels since 2002 and a graduate of the Agnès Varda School of Photography, brings a contemporary perspective to Arié Mandelbaum.
He presents Arié, rue des Grands Carmes, a photographic project, carried out between July and September 2021, at the time when Arié Mandelbaum is obliged to leave his studio and change his place of living. This artistic project introduces us to the intimacy of Arié Mandelbaum and acts as an opening onto the future of the artist and his work.
Through the eyes of refugees, a walk in the Marolles in search of Jewish migration from the beginning of the 20th century until the post-war period. Our tools consist of photos, maps and historical documents on tablets. The history of Europe and its migrations, condensed in a district of Brussels!
The Jewish Museum of Belgium is pleased to present a new exhibition devoted to the American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007). The exhibition is organized by Barbara Cuglietta and Stephanie Manasseh in collaboration with the artist’s family. Through a unique selection of Wall Drawings, works on paper, gouaches, structures and archives dating from the 1960s to the 2000s, this exhibition aims to highlight the diversity and unity in Sol LeWitt’s prolific work. It will feature a double “premiere”: an exploration of his Jewish heritage and an investigation of his links with Belgium. It will also be accompanied by the launch of the new Sol LeWitt app created by Microsoft.
Exhibition
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, into a Jewish immigrant family from Russia, Solomon (Sol) LeWitt is one of the pioneers of conceptual and minimal art, best known for his Wall Drawings. Although he is not religious, leading a secularized life, Sol LeWitt has maintained discreet but tenacious links with his Jewish heritage throughout his life. In the 1990s, he became actively involved in his community in Chester, Connecticut, designing the new synagogue for the Reform Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek, which was inaugurated in 2001. For Sol LeWitt, designing a synagogue was “a problem of geometric forms in a space that conforms to ritual usage”. With the help of archives, drawings, photographs and testimonials, the exhibition explores the genesis of this major project, which has remained little known to the public until now.
The exhibition also addresses another forgotten aspect of Sol LeWitt’s career: the close relationships he developed throughout his career with collectors, gallery owners and artists based in Belgium. Visitors will be able to discover Wall Drawing #138, first shown in Brussels at the MTL gallery – which played a pioneering role in introducing conceptual art to Belgium – as well as Sol LeWitt’s collaboration with architect Charles Vandenhove on the design of the University Hospital in Liège.
All the works shown in the exhibition come from Belgian public and private collections, as well as from the LeWitt Collection. As for the realization of the Wall Drawings, directly on the walls of the Jewish Museum of Belgium, it is the occasion of an exceptional participative experience, bringing together alongside professional draftsmen from the LeWitt studio young artists and art students based in Brussels. For each mural, teams are formed around a professional assistant who accompanies and guides the apprentices. This educational initiative is a unique opportunity for the latter to be involved in the creative process of one of the greatest American artists.
Finally, the exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Belgium is the occasion for the European launch of a smartphone application dedicated to the artist and his work, developed by Microsoft with the LeWitt Collection. True to Sol LeWitt’s desire to make art accessible to all, this app will offer visitors an immersive and educational experience unlike any other.
Wall Drawing #528G, 1987, india ink and color ink wash. Installation view at the Jewish Museum of Belgium (c) Private Collection, Belgium / Picture: Hugard & Vanoverschelde
Born in Brussels in 1950, Julien Friedler is the son of Jewish parents from Transylvania (now Romania). His work is deeply atypical, designed to move and be transformed.
The cycle of paintings on paper presented in this exhibition takes us on an intimate journey, in the form of free associations, which Julien Friedler renders in a powerful, suggestive, archetypal work. The work is an introspective daydream, an imaginary transcription of an ambiguous reality that moves from wonder to disenchantment, from radiance to the disquieting expression of the dark forces that inhabit it. The evocations born of this quasi-hypnotic plunge into the unconscious world are revealed through gesture and color, to be inscribed in an almost automatic writing, like an instinctive trace, on paper.
Why do you stand at the door? is the result of research carried out in 2021 and 2022 by Ukrainian artist Nikolay Karabinovych (°1988, Odesa*) at the Jewish Museum of Belgium. In “Project Space”, video, sound, text and installation by this multidisciplinary artist are placed in dialogue with publications from the 1920s-1930s preserved in the museum’s Yiddish library, as well as with objects from Jewish heritage.
The title of the exhibition Why do you stand at the door? is taken from the popular Yiddish song “Lomir Zikh Iberbetn” (Let’s reconcile). The lyrics are a call for reconciliation in love, as much as a reference to the fear of the other’s leaving. The verse is used here as a metaphor for the migration of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, a forced nomadism also found in the Yiddish books of the Jewish Museum of Belgium. These books provide a starting point for the poetic exploration of a forgotten collective memory. Particular attention will be paid to the testimonies of Yiddish women and authors of the interwar period, whose books shed light on a history of migration sidelined by national narratives and myths.
Working in partnership with curator Patricia Couvet (°1994, Paris), Nikolay Karabinovych seeks to bring together objects and archival documents with sources that are not referenced by institutions, with a view to valorizing what is not perceptible and unearthing invisible narratives. This approach enables us to rewrite a collective history, at a time when one of the foundations of that history – Yiddish, the quintessential diasporic language – seems to be disappearing. It also provides a framework for understanding the personal experiences of forced migration, past and present. It reminds us that, in every era, the artist is a witness to his own time: a critical source of historiography, he makes visible the cracks in a history that we cannot ignore as it unfolds every day in Kyiv, Odesa, Bucha, Kharkiv and Mariupol.
*Most Ukrainian city names have historically been translated from Russian into other languages. In this text and in the exhibition, we have taken the decolonial approach of keeping the names of the towns in Ukrainian.
La frontière entre réalité et fiction est souvent floue. Les institutions démocratiques sont sous pression et les charges de travail grandissantes laissent peu de temps à la réflexion et à l’action. Ces préoccupations semblent contemporaines, mais il y a plus de 50 ans, Hannah Arendt écrivait déjà abondamment sur ce sujet. Aujourd’hui, les idées d’Arendt ont encore gagné en importance, voilà pourquoi nous organisons cette série de conférences avec d’éminents experts de la pensée de cette grande philosophe. A travers ce cycle, nous nous concentrerons sur un thème à la fois actuel et intemporel, et, osons-le dire, arendtien: l’identité.
Qu’est-ce que l’identité ? En quoi est-elle si importante ? Au cours de ces conférences, à travers échanges et conversations, le travail et la vision d’Arendt seront analysés et étudiés. Nous verrons comment intégrer sa pensée dans notre réalité actuelle et essayer ainsi de mieux comprendre le concept d’identité, et la réflexion qui l’entoure.
Hannah Arendt Lecture 1
Quel enseignement Hannah Arendt nous apporte-t-elle sur l’identité ? Comment concevait-elle son identité propre? sa judéité ? le fait qu’elle soit femme ? mais aussi comment voyait-elle le concept au sens plus large d’identité ?
La femme proche de Heidegger voyait sans doute l’identité différemment de celle qui fuyait les persécutions durant la guerre, ou encore de celle qui relatait le procès Eichmann à Jérusalem. Nous tenterons de faire cette distinction, de voir comment sa pensée évolue à travers les événements qui ont ponctué sa vie.
Intervenants : Geert Van Eekert (N) et Martine Leibovici (F) Modération : Tinneke Beeckman (N/F)
Informations pratiques
Date et heure : Mardi 19 avril 2022 de 19h00 à 20h30, suivi d’une réception.
Lieu : Musée juif de Belgique, Rue des Minimes 21, 1000 Bruxelles Tramways : 92, 8 – Bus : 27, 48, 95 – Métro : Louise – Train : Bruxelles-Central
Entrée : 10 euros, gratuit pour les étudiants et les personnes à faibles revenus.
Langue : Les intervenants s’expriment dans leur langue maternelle. La conversation alterne entre le néerlandais et le français. Il n’y a pas d’interprétation simultanée.
Het Joods Museum van België presenteert een nieuwe tentoonstelling gewijd aan de Amerikaanse conceptuele kunstenaar Sol LeWitt (1928-2007). De tentoonstelling wordt georganiseerd door Barbara Cuglietta en Stephanie Manasseh in samenwerking met de nalatenschap van de kunstenaar.
Aan de hand van een unieke selectie van Wall Drawings (muurtekeningen), werken op papier, gouaches, structuren en archiefmateriaal uit de jaren 1960 tot 2000, belicht deze tentoonstelling de diversiteit en eenheid in Sol LeWitts productieve oeuvre. Het wordt een dubbele première: een verkenning van zijn Joodse roots en een onderzoek naar zijn banden met België. De tentoonstelling gaat ook gepaard met de lancering van de nieuwe Sol LeWitt-applicatie, ontwikkeld door Microsoft.
De tentoonstelling
Solomon (Sol) LeWitt, geboren in Hartford, Connecticut, in een familie van Joodse immigranten uit Rusland, was een pionier op het gebied van conceptuele en minimalistische kunst, en staat vooral bekend om zijn Wall Drawings. Hoewel hij niet religieus was en een seculier leven leidde, onderhield Sol LeWitt gedurende zijn hele leven een discrete maar hardnekkige band met zijn Joodse achtergrond. In de jaren negentig raakte hij actiever betrokken bij zijn gemeenschap in Chester, Connecticut, en ontwierp hij de nieuwe synagoge van de gereformeerde Congregatie Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek, die in 2001 werd geopend. Voor Sol LeWitt was het ontwerp van een synagoge “een probleem van geometrische vormen in een ruimte die aangepast is aan ritueel gebruik”. Aan de hand van archieven, tekeningen, foto’s en getuigenissen verkent de tentoonstelling in het Joods Museum van België de ontstaansgeschiedenis van dit belangrijke project, dat tot nu toe weinig bekend is bij het grote publiek.
De tentoonstelling gaat ook in op een ander vergeten aspect van Sol LeWitts carrière: de nauwe relaties die de kunstenaar doorheen zijn carrière ontwikkelde met Belgische verzamelaars, galeriehouders en in België gevestigde kunstenaars. Zo zal onder meer Wall Drawing #138, voor het eerst gemaakt in Brussel in de galerie MTL – die een pioniersrol speelde bij de introductie van conceptuele kunst in België – worden getoond, evenals Sol LeWitts samenwerking met de architect Charles Vandenhove bij het ontwerp van het Universitair Ziekenhuis in Luik.
Alle werken in de tentoonstelling zijn afkomstig uit Belgische openbare en privé-collecties, alsook uit de LeWitt Collection. De Wall Drawings, die rechtstreeks op de muren van het Joods Museum van België worden aangebracht, vormen een uitzonderlijke participatieve ervaring, waarbij in Brussel gevestigde jonge kunstenaars en studenten aan kunstscholen worden samengebracht met professionele kunstenaars uit de studio van LeWitt. Voor elke muurtekening worden teams gevormd rond een professionele assistent die met de lokale studenten werkt en hen begeleidt. Dit educatieve initiatief is voor hen een unieke kans om betrokken te worden bij het creatieve proces van een van de grootste Amerikaanse kunstenaars.
Ten slotte is de tentoonstelling in het Joods Museum van België de gelegenheid om in Europa een applicatie voor smartphones te lanceren, gewijd aan de kunstenaar en zijn werk en ontwikkeld door Microsoft in samenwerking met de LeWitt Collection. In overeenstemming met de wens van Sol LeWitt om kunst voor iedereen toegankelijk te maken, zal deze applicatie de bezoekers een unieke meeslepende en educatieve ervaring bieden.
“A collection is a state of mind.” Galila Barzilai Hollander
“Works on Paper” offers an incursion into the teeming universe of Galila Barzilai Hollander, a Belgian collector born in Tel Aviv. For the past fifteen years, this extraordinary personality has been assembling works of contemporary art into a collection that tells the story of her own life: underpinning the works brought together is a compelling desire to reinvent the self.
The exhibition offers a clear cut through this plethoric universe, presenting a selection of works on paper. Visitors discover how international artists (Jonathan Callan, Jae Ko, Anish Kapoor, William Klein, Angela Glajcar, Andrea Wolfensberger, Brian Dettmer, Haegue Yang and others) reinvent this everyday, commonplace material into unexpectedly powerful art objects. Collages, sculptures, inscriptions, installations and jewelry are all on display, reminiscent of the collector’s ex-centric personality, but also offering a reflection on the art of diversion. Here, work on paper becomes a realm of detour, where each work plays with our perception as much as our judgments.
From October 15, 2021 to March 31, 2022, the Jewish Museum of Belgium presents its new educational project “Caricatured Imagery of Jews throughout History. Outline of an unusual collection”.
Through an overview of the extraordinary collection assembled by Arthur Langerman, an Antwerp-born Belgian born in the middle of the war, it offers a glimpse into the collective madness represented by visual anti-Semitism, a phenomenon that is tracked here across continents and centuries. From pagan and religious anti-Judaism to social and political anti-Semitism, this didactic project presents an original and striking look at the representation of Jews, from the Middle Ages to the present day, and the stereotypes attached to them.
The presentation of multiplex-printed facsimiles includes paintings, engravings, wooden statuettes, photographs, archives, posters and postcards, as well as unusual objects such as beer mugs, kennels, enamel plates, ashtrays and matchboxes. While offering images from all origins, the designers have chosen to focus particularly on “Belgian” illustrations: from the alleged desecration of the hosts in Brussels (1370) to the textile vignettes made by some of the actors at the Aalst Carnival, Belgium is not to be outdone.
The panels are accompanied by objects and archives from the collections of the Jewish Museum of Belgium. A video module, dedicated to the collector Arthur Langerman, reveals his personal story, shedding light on his atypical career and his motivation, driven by the duty of remembrance.
The Jewish Museum of Belgium presents this project as part of its Educational Service, accredited by the “Democracy or Barbarism” department of the Wallonia-Brussels federation. À travers des visites guidées, le service éducatif propose d’interroger l’utilisation de stéréotypes, hier et comme aujourd’hui. Our “Let’s meet a Jew” workshops, in particular the “Myths and Stereotypes” activity, will be offered in conjunction with this educational exhibition, as will the possibility of organizing a meeting with a witness to the Holocaust.
Vous avez entre 12 et 15 ans ? Vous souhaitez découvrir différentes cultures et croyances à Bruxelles ? Alors cette visite est faite pour vous. Le Musée Juif de Belgique se trouve sur ce parcours le jeudi 12 août. Au programme : découverte de soi, initiation au judaïsme, discussion sur les stéréotypes et visite d’une synagogue. Inscrivez-vous sur le site de Axcent.
The exhibition
Combining photographs, videos and manuscripts, the exhibition places at its heart a space-time as precise as it is emblematic: the island of Lesbos in the year 2020. Situated in the Aegean Sea, a few kilometers off the Turkish coast, this island experienced a succession of crises in 2020, making it a nodal point in our history and consciousness. It is in this context that the Jewish Museum of Belgium has conceived this exhibition, an original creation that explores themes that reflect the long history of Jewish communities: exile, violence and solidarity.
Shown here for the first time, Mathieu Pernot’s work on Lesbos in 2020 is part of a long-term project. For over ten years, the photographer has been tackling the issue of migration and the presence of asylum seekers on the European continent. While the first images reflected the invisibility of these individuals, hidden under sheets in the streets of Paris or chased out of the forest of Calais, the series produced subsequently explore new forms of shared narratives. By collecting texts written in school notebooks or receiving images recorded on their cell phones, the author also acts as a conduit for “other people’s lives”, showing how this life, even before being that of others, is a shared History that must be told together.
Winner of the Prix Cartier-Bresson 2019, Pernot follows the approach of documentary photography, ultimately subverting its protocols. Questioning his own practice, exploring alternative formulas, his work builds what is so often missing: narratives with several voices.
Published by GwinZegal and produced as part of the “Something is Happening” exhibition organized by the Jewish Museum of Belgium, “Something is Happening. Lesbos 2020” is on sale at our museum reception desk.
Coming off the press in May 2021, this book immerses us in Mathieu Pernot’s photographic work with migrants in the Moria camp. In this pictorial narrative, the winner of the 2019 Cartier-Bresson prize takes us, chapter by chapter, “On the path”, “Crossing the footbridge”, “Building a shelter”, “Making a fire”, “Waiting”. The book shifts gears, showing us “What happens” when everything is suddenly destroyed by an act of despair reminiscent of classical tragedy, and all that’s left is to “Save what can be saved” and “Start all over again”.
As a prelude to the retrospective of French photographer Mathieu Pernot, from April 30 the Jewish Museum of Belgium presents a group exhibition featuring works by Armando Andrade Tudela, Marianne Berenhaut, Heidi Bucher, Miriam Cahn, Latifa Echakhch, Sigalit Landau, Alina Szapocznikow, Naama Tsabar et Lawrence Weiner.
A project by Eloi Boucher in collaboration with the Jewish Museum of Belgium
Ellis Island is “that narrow sandbar at the mouth of the Hudson”, an islet facing Manhattan. It was the main point of entry for many communities arriving on American soil between 1892 and 1924. Nearly sixteen million emigrants – mostly from Europe, but also from Arab countries – passed through here, undergoing a series of medical and psychological examinations, as well as a change of identity. Georges Perec, a writer of Polish-Jewish origin, offers us a detailed description of this “non-place” in a text written in 1979. A utopian place where we forget ourselves, where our bodies and identities are transformed, a place where we also leave room for dreams and the hope of a better world.
Following on from Perec’s story, the exhibition at the Jewish Museum of Belgium focuses on how contemporary artists deal with the theme of exile, and how they confront the world as a place of dispersion, confinement and wandering. Ellis Island explores uprootedness and emigration as a mental or physical state, but also as a creative “catalyst” where artistic processes of assemblage and fragmentation are brought into play.
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