The Importance of Being…

Gathering 40 international artists, the exhibition The Importance of Being… will travel to four important museums in Latin America along one year and a half, offering a vast panorama of the contemporary art scene in Belgium, without intending to encompass thoroughly. Plural discourses and transversal approaches through a wide range of artistic supports make it possible to highlight nowadays crucial problematics worldwide in order to think on possible connections with other latitudes while mapping similarities and differences.

The goal has been to go beyond the notion of Belgium. It is a departure point as a laboratory/platform with specific but also global cultural dynamics and geopolitical approaches, in the center of Europe on the decision-making and towards the rest of the world. In this sense, subjects related to power and memory, to the binomial identity-alterity, conflicts and borders, human relations with both the technosphere and the biosphere in the context of the globalization are developed on the exhibition. In this sense, the exhibition proposes five conceptual trends establishing a strong thread between the selected artworks.

The title originates from the eponymous play by Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest. The deliberate ellipse opens up to the conceptual approaches proposed by the exhibition in order to introduce the philosophical question of Being in its own equation and definition between/by time and space in contemporary times. From an ontological point of view, the definition of that being or entity encompasses reality par excellence, in its widest sense and also in its dimension of denial.

In parallel to the show, a program of performances, workshops with local art schools, conferences and panels of discussion will take place along the exhibition. The first venue will be Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana as from February 13 this year.

Artists: Marcel Broodthaers, Chantal Akerman, Francis Alÿs, Charif Benhelima, Guillaume Bijl, Michaël Borremans, Dirk Braeckman, Jacques Charlier, David Claerbout, Leo Copers, Patrick Corillon, Cel Crabeels, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Jan De Cock, Peter de Cupere, Carl De Keyzer, Raoul De Keyser, Edith Dekyndt, Wim Delvoye, Fred Eerdekens, Jan Fabre, Michel François, Kendell Geers, Johan Grimonprez, Ann Veronica Janssens, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Jacques Lizène, Kris Martin, Hans Op de Beeck, Walter Swennen, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Ana Torfs, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Philippe Vandenberg, Koen van den Broek, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Koen Vanmechelen, Lieve Van Stappen, Bruno Vekemans, Angel Vergara Santiago

Curator: Sara Alonso Gómez 
Director: Bruno Devos