Archive
Stephan Vanfleteren
Present is the renowned Belgian photographer Stephan Vanfleteren’s (°1969) first major retrospective. The general public knows him best for his evocative black-and-white portraits but in recent decades he has produced a wide range of journalistic, documentary and artistic work.
MAAN/MOON
On 21 July 1969, at 2.56 UTC, Neil Alden Armstrong was the first person to ever set foot on the moon. 50 years later, the exhibition MAAN/MOON takes you on a photographic odyssey to our closest celestial neighbour and back. The object of dreams and fantasies, but also the catalyst for a global space race, the moon leaves no one unmoved.
Rebel Lives
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan insurgent group led by Joseph Kony, emerged in the second half of the eighties. It is especially notorious for its mass abductions of civilians, of whom over half are children. The extreme violence practiced by this armed militia means that little is known about the lives of the abductees. The Rebel Lives project relates a visual story about this rebel movement and the people who are a part of it.
Photobook Belge
Photobooks have been one of the most effective means of expression for photographers since photography began. They remain in circulation, are portable and can be reissued, thus reaching a larger public than an exhibition ever could. To date, hardly any research has been conducted into Belgian photobooks. Photobook Belge aims to fill this gap by providing an overview of the evolution of the Belgian photobook from the mid-19th century to today.
This exhibition and publication are finally giving the Belgian Photobook – a concept in itself – the recognition it deserves. The publication Photobook Belge is published by FOMU in partnership with Hannibal.
Claude Samuel Zanele
Claude, Samuel, Zanele. Three photographers who train the lens on themselves three times as a window on the world.
Pink
Bieke Depoorter (BE, °1986) joined the renowned photography agency Magnum Photos in 2012. She already had an impressive career behind her at a young age. In her first solo exhibition for FOMU, Depoorter reveals a different side of herself: an artist at a turning point in her career. She questions her position as an image-maker and outsider in five separate series, some of which are still ongoing.
Camille Picquot - Young Belgian Photography
In Camille Picquot’s (°FR, 1990) visual world, nothing is what it seems at first glance. Her images are striking, with their tight compositions and sharply contrasting colours. But there is always an element that causes unease: an unusual angle or a disturbing detail. From pleasantly curious, one starts to feel guarded. Over the years, Camille Picquot has steadily built a coherent body of work that includes both film and photography.
Paul Kooiker - Untitled (nude)
Untitled (Nude) is the first major museum exhibition of Paul Kooiker’s (NL, °1964) work outside the Netherlands. This alternative retrospective, focused on “watching”, voyeurism and distance, draws the viewer into a confusing, destabilising creative and obsessive vacuum.
31 days of .tiff - Highlighting Emerging Image Makers
België barst van fotografisch talent. Elke dag wordt het FOMU overstelpt met portfolio’s, websites, blogs en fotoboeken die op zoek zijn naar een breder publiek. Om dit jong talent op te vangen werd het .tiff platform opgericht. Deze zomer zetten we 10 fotografen in de kijker: Alexey Shlyk, Arnaud De Wolf, Calixte Poncelet, Jeroen Bocken, Maria Baoli, Massao Mascaro, Pauline Beugnies, Pauline Niks, Sine Van Menxel en Thomas Nolf.
Gilbert d'Haen - Fotograaf
In 2012, Gilbert d'Haen (Deurne, °1932) donates his life's work to the FOMU collection. The archive contains no less than 280 000 negatives, a number of cameras, docking materials, a series of analogue prints and personal details.
Harry Gruyaert - Retrospectieve
Harry Gruyaert (Antwerp, °1941) is one of the most well known photographers in Belgium. A pioneer of colour photography, Gruyaert has been a distinguished member of the renowned photography agency Magnum since 1982. The FOMU retrospective presents a broad overview of his work and shines a light on some of its more surprising aspects.
Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation - Mathieu Asselin
The multinational Monsanto® has been causing controversy for many years. Today, the biotechnology company is best known as the market leader in genetically modified seeds and the much-discussed herbicide Roundup. Mathieu Asselin (FR, °1973) has been investigating the impact of Monsanto®’s activities on people and nature for over five years.
Collectie In Transit
Preparations are underway for the large-scale relocation of FOMU’s collection to the new collection tower, the first low-energy depot for photography in Europe.
Ai Weiwei - Mirror
Ai’s radical visual critique of human rights violations, abuse of power, and the unchecked state control of the Chinese government in particular has made him into one of the world’s most important contemporary artists. Although he is often characterized as a Chinese “dissident”, he primarily sees his activism and critique against the Chinese government as a defense of the universal values of free speech and freedom of expression.
Ebifananyi - Andrea Stultiens
The noun Ebifananyi is derived from the verb Kufanana, which means “to resemble”. Ebifananyi is the Luganda word for drawings, paintings and photographs.
The Still Point of the Turning World - Between Film and Photography
The photographic image is imbued with stillness. No movement, no sound, no time. But what happens if you add one of these missing elements? The exhibition The Still Point of the Turning World – Between Film and Photography focuses on that rare moment in which a photographer turns towards film or a video artist turns towards photography. What beauty can be found on the border between these two media?
Suzy Embo - Artiste photographe, photgraphe d'artistes
Artist, photographer, wife… Behind the artist name Suzy Embo (BE, °1936) lies a privileged witness to the post-War Belgian avant-garde. Embo’s graphic and high-contrast photographs connect her with the Subjektive Fotografie (Subjective Photography) of Otto Steinert, who used pure photographic techniques for the sake of personal expression.
5 jaar .tiff
Belgium is bursting with photographic talent. Every day FOMU is inundated with portfolio’s, websites, blogs and photo-books crying out for a wider audience. To respond to this need, FOMU publishes an annual magazine devoted to inspiring young Belgian photographers: .tiff.
Alec Soth - Gathered Leaves
FOMU is bringing the work of renowned Magnum photographer Alec Soth (US, °1969) to Belgium for the first time with the exhibition Gathered Leaves. This retrospective draws from four critical series from his oeuvre: Sleeping by the Mississippi (2004), Niagara (2006), Broken Manual (2010) and Songbook (2014).
Braakland
For seven months, The Braakland (Fallow Fields) project transforms the top floor of FOMU into an experimental workspace for photography. The diversity of the photographic medium will thereby be the prime objective.
Saul Leiter - Retrospectieve
This autumn, FOMU presents a retrospective of the work of Saul Leiter (US, 1923 - 2013), a pioneer of colour photography. Leiter was already using colour film in 1946 at a time when only black and white photography was accepted as an artistic medium. This fact negates the commonly-held assumption that colour images were only used from the 1970s onwards, with the advent of the New Color Photography movement led by Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. Saul Leiter only gained recognition for his pioneering role late in his life; since then, his permanent place in the history of photography has been secure.
Selleslags pakt uit
Herman Selleslags (BE, °1938) is one of Belgium’s most famous photographers. In 2015, he donated his archive, and that of his father Rik, to FOMU. Over the course of half a century, Selleslags built up an incredible photography archive. Hundreds of thousands of photographs, glass plates, slides, negatives, press prints, pocket diaries, contact sheets and cameras were relocated to the FOMU depots. The multitudinous archive boxes are literally and figuratively the heart of the exhibition Selleslags Unpacks.
Show Us The Money
Show Us The Money takes you on a journey to the world’s off-shore tax havens and corporate financial nerve centres. FOMU provides a glimpse of the structures that impact on all of us but which are themselves practically invisible. Three projects use very different artistic strategies to expose this global issue.
Tom Callemin - Jonge Belgische fotografie
FOMU is offering a platform for young Belgian photographers for the fifth consecutive year. In 2016, we present the photographic universe of Tom Callemin (BE, °1991). Callemin continually questions the role of the camera as obstacle between the photographer and reality. This inquiry is translated into haunting images that are usually created in the studio and which take months of preparation. His work reads as an ode to slowness. The exhibition juxtaposes painstakingly constructed black-and-white compositions with Callemin’s on-going exploration of the portrait. With his enigmatic and refined images, the photographer is creating a powerful signature style.
Boris Mikhailov - Ukraine
With Ukraine, FOMU brings a comprehensive retrospective of the work of Boris Mikhailov (UKR, 1938) to Belgium. Mikhailov is one of the most important living artists to have grown up in the former Soviet Union. The exhibition assembles over 300 works focused on Mikhailov’s homeland of Ukraine. His depictions, descriptions and distortions of his country date from the 1960s up to the recent Euromaidan revolution in Kiev.
Mariken Wessels - Taking Off. Henry my Neighbor
Taking Off is the factual image story of a failed marriage. Replete with the sexual frustrations and voyeurism that characterised the relationship, the exhibition introduces us to Henry’s obsessions with photography. His wife, Martha, has lived under his yoke for years, heedlessly posing for his extravagant nude studies. Mariken Wessels (NL, °1963) acquired the complete private collection through acquaintances in the United States.
Photography Inc. - Van luxeproduct tot massamedium
These days everyone's a photographer! A click of your smartphone and you have a great picture. No more fussing around with rolls of ilm. Farewel darkroom. The digital era has changed photography for good. Things were very different 175 years ago when photography was in its infancy: a portrait involved sitting still for several minutes and the printing process was very complicated.
August Sander - Meesterwerken en ontdekkingen
August Sander (DE, 1876-1964) is considered one of the most influential photographers of the last century. With his conceptual portrait series People of the 20th Century, he set out to provide a record of the social order of the age. As iconic as his portraits are of 'the pastrtry cook', 'the farmer', 'the revolutionaries' and so on, to reduce his life's work to his well-know portrait series would be to do Sander an injustice.
Jan Hoek - Shooting Stars
Jan Hoek (NL,° 1984) inhabits terrain that borders on the controversial. He is intersted in photographing people without exploiting them. His models deviate from the conventional. For example, there is Kim, a homeless, former heroin addict whom he encountered on the streets of Amsterdam: her dream of becoming a supermodel is not likely to be fulfilled. He removes the Sweet Crazies (homeless Ethiopians with mental health problems) from their context and portrays them as majestic men against colourful, noble backdrops.
Mijn Vlakke Land - Over fotografie en landschap
This summer, FoMu takes you on a visual journey through unspoiled nature and poses the question: Is it possible to recreate the sensation of hiking within the walls of a museum? When we go for a walk, we experience a succession of impressions that melt almost imperceptibly into each other. The exhibition Mijn Vlakke Land (My Flat Land) is a photographic montage that features works from 1856 to 2015 by over 50 artists from Belgium and abroad.
Jan Rosseel - Belgian Autumn. A Confabulated History
In the early 1980s, Belgium experienced a collective nightmare. A group known as the Brabant Killers committed a series of robberies, mainly of supermarkets, involving unprecedented violence. Thirty years later, Rosseel delves into the country’s memories of the events to create a confabulated history.
Cédric Gerbehaye - D'entre eux
What does it mean to belong somewhere? After years of shooting documentaries in remote areas of conflict, he is now concentrating on his compatriots, the people with whom he belongs, the people with whom he should be.
Jeffrey Silverthorne - The Precision of Silence
The exhibition Silverthorne – The Precision of Silence is the first European retrospective of the work of American photographer Jeffrey Silverthorne (°1946). Using polaroids, staged shots, portraits and work that borders on documentary in style, Silverthorne playfully explores such diverse subjects as death, sex and old age.
Mathieu Pernot - La Traversée
La Traversée takes us on a journey into the multifaceted photographic work of French documentary maker Mathieu Pernot (°1970). He analyses our contemporary society using both archival sources and his own photographs: the themes of emigration, social housing and homelessness run like leitmotifs through his work. However, Pernot is not interested in presenting one-sided interpretations and his images evoke the constant flux that is the reality of life.
Yann Mingard - Deposit
The documentary project Deposit by the Swiss photographer Yann Mingard (°1973) confronts us with provocative and germane questions about the current state, sustainability and future of life on earth. Can we control life on the planet by collecting and storing genetic, biological and human information? Mingard went on a journey of discovery and brought back images of four types of stored information: Plants, Animals, Humans and Data.
Nick Hannes - Mediterranean. The Continuity of Man
Over the past five years, Nick Hannes (BE,1974) has visited twenty countries located around the Mediterranean. He witnessed an unpredicted period of turnoil for the region: Southern Europe buckling under the weight of the global economic crisis, Arab countries entangled in the aftermath of the Arab Spring and tourist and migrants encountering each other on the beaches of the Mediterranean sea.
Vincent Delbrouck - Dzogchen
For the third consecutive year, FoMu is providing a platform for young, Belgian, photographers. Vincent Delbrouck (BE,1975) presents his latest project Dzogchen, which chronicles several journeys he made to the Himalayas between 2009 and 2014. While there, Delbrouck immersed himself in Buddhist philosophy and allowed the environment to dictate his imagery.
Shooting Range - Fotografie in de vuurlinie?
The 'Great War' was the first large-scale conflict that was recorded on celluloid and film. The fledgling media appeared to have unprecedented powers as the all-seeing eye, a reminder, but also as a weapon. Images not only chronicle a conflict, they also play a crucial role in it. Shooting Range highlights the way in which this happened in a conflict that kept the world in its grip for four years.
Richard Mosse - The Enclave
With The Enclave, FoMu brings Richard Mosse's (IE, °1980) acclaimed multimedia installation to Belgium. Starting in 2010, Mosse made several trips to eastern Congo to capture on film the region's intractable spiral of war. Since 1998, this conflict has claimed the lives of 5.4 million people, yet goes relatively unreported in the mass media.
Walker Evans - Magazinewerk
This concise exhibition focuses on Walker Evans' photographic magazine work. Uniquely, Evans (US, 1903-1975) photographed, wrote, edited and designed his pages. From 1929 to 1965 he published in avant garde journals and the mainstream magazines Fortune, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Sports Illustrated and Life.
Mikhael Subotzky & Patrick Waterhouse - Ponte City
Ponte City is the latest project from artists Mikhael Subotzky (ZA, °1981) and Patrick Waterhouse (GB, °1981). The project focuses on a single building, the monumental Ponte City, an apartment block that dominates the Johannesburg skyline. One of the architectural icons of the city, it is also the perfect witness to a society in constant change.
Broomberg & Chanarin - Everthing was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
Adam Broomberg (ZA, °1970) and Oliver Chanarin (UK, °1971) have been working collaboratively for 17 years. This is the first comprehensive survey of their practice, beginning with their first work, a commissioned painting of a Hutu and a Tutsi and ends with their most recent series, produced with 3D facial recognition software.
Rinko Kawauchi
Japanese photographer Rinko Kawauchi (JP, °1972) is not confined by space and time. She plays with universal memories and references. The pure colours and compositions seek the essence of the world: elements of nature, the cycle of life, the perennial and the transitory, departing from a Japanese sensibility and developing a style which already bears her name.
Ed van der Elksen - Een liefdesgeschiedenis in Saint Germain des Prés
In 1950 Ed van der Elsken (Netherlands, 1925 - 1990) leaves for Paris, where he finds his peers in Saint Germain des Prés, amongst a group of bohemians. Unknowingly, he keeps a photographic diary of their comings and goings. He is particularly fascinated by the red-haired Vali Myers. In his photos he captures the essence of the younger generation during the existentialist post-war era.
Germaine Van Parys & Odette Dereze
Germaine Van Parys (1896-1983) was a pioneer in Belgian photo journalism. Together with her godchild Odette Dereze (DOB 1932), Van Parys accomplished an impressive oeuvre. Their work offers a unique insight into the history of Belgium from 1918 until the end of the last century.
The Sochi Project - An atlas of war and tourism in the Caucasus - Rob Hornstra en Arnold Van Bruggen
Photographer Rob Hornstra (NL, °1975) and journalist Arnold van Bruggen (NL, °1979) started their mammoth project in 2009. They travelled for the first time to the southern Russian city of Sochi in order to make a photographic documentary. Sochi is the subtropical setting for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Five years and eleven trips later, The Sochi Project chronicles the turbulent region around the city, from the unknown, apostate little country of Abkhazia to the south of Sochi to infamous republics such as Chechnya and Dagestan on the other side of the mountains. The region is rich in contrasts, characterised by poverty, separatism, terrorism, mass beach tourism and now the upcoming Olympics - to date, the most expensive ever held.
Editing the news - De bril van de fotoredacteur
The news that ends up in the newspapers at our breakfast tables has been subjected to endless filters. Just as well. Every day, thousands of photographs are posted to editorial offices, while only a few make it to the finish. With the exhibition Nieuws?, FoMu questions these selection rounds.
Collectie FOMU: Le Lynx
Press photography forms an inherent part of our society. Images tell and illustrate stories in newspapers and magazines. With the creation of the news agency Le Lynx, Jospeh Quatannens (BE, 1902–1974) contributed to the professionalization of the young sector of photojournalism.
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet - Muziek en fotografie
Music and photography are inseparably linked. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet shows the work of photographers who stand out for their unique style and original approach. The exhibition includes intimate backstage portraits, eccentric group portraits and iconic album covers.
Ruud Van Empel
The photography of Ruud van Empel is hailed for its haunting beauty. He creates collages using hundreds of fragments of his own work. Van Empel uses Photoshop to construct romantic, fictional worlds and conjures up people and landscapes that only exist within a photographic reality.
Jonge Belgische Fotografie
FoMu presents the second exhibition in the series Young Belgian Photography. This edition will show work by Frederik Buyckx, Max Pinckers and David Widart, three nominees for the Paule Pia prize for young Belgian photography.
Power! Photos! Freedom!
A cheering crowd in a Libyan sports stadium, gazing hopefully in the direction of their leader. Thus started the dubious political career of Muammar Gaddafi, a career which would end 42 years later in blood and gore. The photos went around the world. The FoMu focuses on the power of photography during recent events in the Arab world. The extensive Gaddafi archives are complemented by photographs on Syria, Egypt and Tunisia. Even though photography is clearly the ultimate propaganda tool for leaders in authoritarian regimes, it can also prove to be an important weapon for the people during a revolution.
Charles Freger - Wilder Mann
In 2010 and 2011, Charles Fréger (FR, °1975) crossed the continent in search of people who uphold ancient local traditions. Their rituals are variations on the same theme: the changing of the seasons, fertility or the struggle between man and nature. Fréger collects these masquerades under the header Wilder Mann, referring to a character from Germanic mythology. Being half-animal, half-man, born from the union of woman and bear, the wild man epitomizes man's animal side.
Camera Exotica - Selectie uit de collectie FOMU
De fascinatie van de mens voor het exotische, het onbekende en ‘de ander’ is van alle tijden. Het verlaten van de vertrouwde omgeving en het verkennen van onbekende werelden heeft verschillende oorzaken en drijfveren die steeds gepaard gaan met gemengde gevoelens. Fotografie speelt kort na haar ontstaan in 1839 een belangrijke rol in de beeldvorming van het exotische.
