FOMU EN

The group exhibition Her Voice - Echoes of Chantal Akerman presents photographic and video works by seven contemporary artists inspired by the work of Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. Manon de Boer, Moyra Davey, Gabby Laurent, Frida Orupabo, Joanna Piotrowska, Collier Schorr and Carmen Winant explore what it means today to be a woman, artist, mother, daughter and lover.

James Barnor - Studio of Life offers an overview of James Barnor's (b. Ghana, 1929) remarkable career. His multifaceted and powerful images made him a photography pioneer. This exhibition not only showcases Barnor's rich and diverse body of work but also examines the cultural connections between Accra, London and Antwerp.

Vincen Beeckman (°1973, Belgium) is a photographer who connects people. His life is filled with encounters. He invests time in building good communication channels by being repeatedly present - if only briefly. Chance meetings turn into long-term relationships.

At FOMU’s invitation, Meggy Rustamova (°1985, Georgia) created her new video artwork Bang [Ding Dong]. The film tells the story of a group of children learning to speak Dutch.

Every year, FOMU selects ten promising artists and photographers with a Belgian connection. They are taken on a one-year journey where they are given several opportunities to present their work to an international professional audience. In addition, FOMU creates the magazine and group exhibition .tiff with them.

For Grace Ndiritu Reimagines the FOMU Collection, British-Kenyan artist Grace Ndiritu constructs an original photographic universe of paintings, textiles and interior design inspired by female artists O’Keeffe, Modotti and Albers. It represents a radical and holistic reinterpretation of the classic collection exhibition.

“How do you work as a photographer? There’s always this uncomfortable, unequal balance of power. How do you break that down? How can it become a dialogue?” 
– Susan Meiselas   For nearly five decades, Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas (US, 1948) has been using her camera to bear witness and to connect with people. Meiselas has travelled the world and focused on a wide range of subjects, from the sex industry to war and human rights violations.

When the body says Yes is an immersive video installation by melanie bonajo. The artist believes that touch can be a powerful remedy for the loneliness that has become endemic in our society.

Recaptioning Congo presents images from Congo’s long and turbulent history as a colonised country, spanning nearly 100 years from its formal establishment in 1882 to independence in 1960.

The artist Aglaia Konrad (Salzburg, 1960) has an infectious fascination for architecture. At FOMU’s invitation, she created the exhibition Umbau specifically for the top floor of the museum.

Every year FOMU selects ten promising phototographers, all living or working in Belgium. In addition to a variety of networking opportunities, FOMU will accompany them on a development journey to create the portfolio magazine .tiff, culminating in a group exhibition.

Photographer Bertien van Manen (NL, 1942) has captured the daily lives of the people she meets on her travels since the 1970s. From the Netherlands to China and from the former Soviet Union to the Appalachians, it is the ordinary, chaotic moments that most attract Bertien van Manen. Her straightforward 35mm camera allows her to get close to her subjects, and she was a pioneer of the empathetic, intimate documentary style.

FOMU presents the European premiere of the exhibition Santa Barbara by Diana Markosian (Moscow, 1989). In an innovative and deeply moving approach, Markosian tells the story of her family, and how they immigrated to America. Using film, still and archival images, Markosian explores the profound sacrifice made by her mother in pursuit of the American dream.

In the practice of Alexey Shlyk & Ben Van den Berghe, the inspiring play between photographic image and architectural space is key. The artists combine new images and elements from previous works to continually create distinct, site-specific installations. They immerse visitors in alienating, disorienting environments using lens-based and computer-generated imaging technologies that blur the boundaries between physical and virtual realms. The ambiguous relationship between humans and technology is a recurring theme in their work.

Three children sit on plastic chairs in a courtyard. Dappled sunlight filters through the leaves, casting shadows on the ground. We see a photograph of a photograph, the flash of the camera reflected on the surface of the image. Artist Joud Toamah, born in Syria in 1992 and based in Belgium, unravels the meaning of images thread by thread. She is interested in the relationship between photography and memory; in how a family photograph can evoke certain emotions and take you back to a specific place and time.

Can a photograph say something about the world we live in? Max Pinckers (BE, 1988) places photography under the microscope. He explores the boundaries of documentary and reveals its manipulative nature. His artistic response is “speculative documentary”, a blending of fact and fiction. FOMU presents the first retrospective to cover the past five years of Pinckers’ work.

In the surreal months following the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, Hélène Amouzou (1969) left Liège to visit family in her native Togo. It was the first time since moving to Belgium 25 years ago that she paid such a long visit to her birth country. The pandemic brought the world to a standstill. To Amouzou, it felt like it had turned back the hands of time.

Masculinities: Liberation through Photography is an ambitious group exhibition on the subject of masculinity that explorest the myriad ways that masculinity is experienced, performed and constructed through film and photography from the 1960s to the present day.

Aurélie Geurts is a regular photographer for De Morgen and de Volkskrant. In this exhibition, Geurts presents two personal series, which clearly show how she manages to gain the trust of her subjects: with patience, time and determination.

.tiff 2021 - Emerging Belgian Photography

Issei Suda - My Japan Issei Suda (1940-2019) is a famous name in the world of Japanese photography, yet he remains relatively unknown in Europe. FOMU wants to change this with a first retrospective of his work outside Japan.

re-collect FOMU collects, 2010-2020 Vincent Delbrouck, Bieke Depoorter, Boris Mikhailov, Max Pinckers, Annemie Augustijns, David Claerbout, Jacques de Lalaing, Kimbei Kusakabe, Zanele Muholi, Dirk Braeckman … These are just a few of the photographers whose work FOMU has acquired for its collection over the past 10 years.

Mous Lamrabat - We Gonna Be Alright Beauty and a sense of hope are central to Mous Lamrabat’s work. His photographs are absurd and surrealistic, at times subtly provocative, always colourful and fun.

Made In Dublin - Multimedia installation From January 14 to February 27, FOMU will show the multimedia installation Made In Dublin in the center of Antwerp, at Wapper 7.
Made In Dublin is a nine-screen, quadrophonic multimedia installation. The installation combines Doyle’s photos, Donohoe’s soundscapes, Barry’s words and narration, and Sweeney’s montage and production design

Martine Franck Martine Franck (BE, 1938-2012), who was born in Antwerp, discovered a passion for photography while on a long journey through Asia in 1963. Once she had returned home to Paris, she set herself as a freelance photographer and created portraits and reportages for the major American magazines, including Life, The New York Times and Vogue. Martine Franck claimed wonder and a deep joy for humanity, with all the empathy she displayed.

Lynne Cohen
Depth on the surface When you look beyond the surface of a Lynne Cohen (CA, 1944-2014) photograph, you enter a subtly absurd and surreal universe. She exclusively photographed interiors for four decades: spas, military facilities, classrooms, laboratories, etc. What goes on in the minds of the designers and users of these spaces? There are no humans in these scenes, only cryptic traces that once there were.

33 days of .tiff
Each year, FOMU selects ten promising photographers who live or work in Belgium. It is the start of a year-long journey that commences with publication in our portfolio magazine .tiff and ends with a group exhibition in the museum. With works from: Laure Cottin Stefanelli, Etienne Courtois, David Denil, Katherine Longly, Renée Lorie, Sebastian Steveniers, Wiktoria Synak, Florine Thiebaud, Pierre Vanneste, Sybren Vanoverberghe.

Eamonn Doyle - Collection purchase FOMU has purchased the unique work 'Baggot Street' from Irish photographer Eamonn Doyle for the collection. Eamonn Doyle made this work together with Niall Sweeney. This collection purchase is exhibited in FOMU from 02.10.2020 until 24.01.2021

Stephan Vanfleteren - Present 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. This exhibition provides space for both his iconic images and his equally impressive, lesser-known photographs, which together illustrate the evolution of Vanfleteren’s oeuvre.

MAAN/MOON

Rebel Lives - Photographs from inside the Lord’s Resistance Army 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.

Photobook Belge Photobooks have been one of the most important means of expression for photographers since the beginning of photography.

Restricted Images - Patrick Waterhouse Since 2011, Patrick Waterhouse has been collecting maps, photos, flags and other documents to create an extensive archive of colonial representations of Australia, from 1770 to the present day.

Claude Samuel Zanele

Bieke Depoorter - Pink

Camille Picqout - Young Belgian Photography

Paul Kooiker - Untitled (nude)

31 days of .tiff - Highlighting Emerging Image Makers

Gilbert d'Haen - Fotograaf

Harry Gruyaert - Retrospective

Monsanto®: A Photographic Investigation

Collection in Transit

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 Still Point of the Turning World - Between Film and Photography

Suzy Embo - Artiste photographe, photographe d'artistes

5 jaar .tiff

Alec Soth - Gathered Leaves

Braakland

Saul Leiter - Retrospective

Selleslags Unpacks 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.
Cover photo: Herman Selleslags, Ghent, 1974, Collection FOMU, P/1978/27/2, © Herman Selleslags

Show Us The Money

Tom Callemin - Young Belgian Photography

Boris Mikhailov - Ukraine

Mariken Wessels - Taking Off. Henry my Neighbor

Photography Inc. - From luxury product to mass medium

August Sander - Masterpieces and discoveries 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 - On photography and landscape 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 - Photography and The Great War 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 - Magazines 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 -
Everything 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 - A history of love 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

The Sochi Project - An atlas of war and tourism in the Caucasus

Editing the news - De bril van de fotoredacteur

FOMU Collection: Le Lynx

You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet- Music and Photography

Ruud Van Empel

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

Camera Exotica - Selection from the Fomu collection