With Département des Pièges, curator Clémentine Deliss invites you to closely study an unusual assembly of objects and paintings. These nets, snares, decoys and visual illusions all play on the concept of the trap or the lure. Rarely exhibited, they are loaned from the collections of ten Brussels museums, from the Design Museum Brussels and AfricaMuseum to the National Museum of Resistance and the Museum of Medicine. The diverse pieces are displayed alongside works by contemporary artists such as Guillaume Bijl, Kasper Bosmans, Laurent Dupont, Aline Bouvy, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Valérie Mannaerts, Miao Miao and many others whose practice also reflects on the idea of the trap. The title pays tribute to the Département des Aigles, the fictional museum of Marcel Broodthaers, one of the leading surrealists and conceptual artists of the 1960s in Brussels and beyond. The mise-en-scène of the exhibition similarly invokes the merging of a museum and university into a "department" or faculty for visual thinking. At the centre of the room is a large table in the shape of a lung. Here, historical artefacts and contemporary works appear side by side, while paintings by Belgian and international artists from the 17th to the 21st century line the walls. An accompanying booklet provides additional information about the context of each exhibit and a special edition of the artists’ and writers’ publication Metronome presents further reading on traps and their metaphors. Take a seat in this Département des Pièges to create your own stories and connections, which might reveal something about the world at large. Artists: Georges Aglane, Yesim Akdeniz, Arman, Guillaume Ballewijns, Raymond W. Barion, Nick Bastis, Guillaume Bijl, Kévin Blinderman, Kasper Bosmans, Aline Bouvy, Jakob Brugge, Pierre Caille, Jacques Chemay, Marc Cram, Wim Delvoye, Laurent Dupont, Pélagie Gbaguidi, Robert Grange, Kayembe F., Walter Leblanc, Jef Leempoels, Valérie Mannaerts, Miao Miao, Rokko Miyoshi, Otobong Nkanga, Douglas Park, Marina Pinsky, Albert Saverys, Andrzej Steinbach, Camille de Taeye, Jeanne Tercafs, Luke Willis Thompson, Ju Ting, Oscar Tuazon, Didier Vervaeren, Jan Weenix and Nicolas Zanoni. Collections: Archive and Museum of Flemish Life in Brussels; Brussels Museum of the Mill and Food; Design Museum Brussels; documenta archiv Kassel; Horta Museum Brussels, La Fonderie – Brussels Museum of Industry and Labour; MoMuse Communal Museum of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean; Museum of Ixelles; Museum of Medicine Brussels; National Museum of Resistance Brussels; Royal Institute of Natural Sciences Brussels; Royal Museum for Central Africa Tervuren, Wallonia-Brussels Federation. Département des Pièges has been developed in partnership with the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Brussels in the framework of the post-graduate research project The Metabolic Museum directed by Dr. Clémentine Deliss. Master’s students have accompanied this research since 2023. The exhibition and the publication receive the support of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Brussels; documenta archiv Kassel; Goethe-Institut, Belgium; German Embassy Brussels and Cloud Seven, Brussels and Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing Zurich, Ardez.
Département des Pièges
Location: Square Sainctelette , 1000 Brussels
