Feast of Fools. Bruegel Rediscovered

From 07.04 until 28.07.2019 in Gaasbeek Castle

Pieter Bruegel is often seen as the embodiment of Flemish identity. Why has that been so since the revival of his work around 1900? How has he grown to become an icon, an inexhaustible source of inspiration and a huge cliché? In the exhibition 'Feast of Fools. Bruegel Rediscovered' the visitor becomes acquainted with a series of key works by modern and contemporary artists who ‘have a thing for Bruegel’. They latch onto his themes, reinterpret them, quote him ... and thus demonstrate that his work has lost none of its relevance. 

Bruegel, the misunderstanding
​The exhibition takes as its starting point ‘the great misunderstanding’, when Bruegel, in the last years of the Romantic era, was proclaimed a painter of peasant psalms, crackling snow landscapes and eternally rustling cornfields, with his roots firmly in the Flemish clay. The exhibition inquires the way in which Flemish, and by extension Belgian and international artists, handled his artistic legacy in the period between and after the wars. Hence we focus on James Ensor, Valerius de Saedeleer, Jules De Bruycker, Gustave van de Woestyne, Frits Van den Berghe, Jean Brusselmans, Constant Permeke, Anto Carte, Otto Dix, Stijn Streuvels, August Sander, Hubert Malfait and George Grosz.

Bruegel, today
​At the same time, the exhibition pulls out various contemporary stops, with art, video and music. Curators Luk Lambrecht and Lieze Eneman invited a series of contemporary artists to ​ reflect on Bruegel's work, resulting in creations by Lázara Rosell Albear, Kasper Bosmans, Dirk Braeckman, Ricardo Brey, Carlos Caballero, Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová, Leo Copers, Jimmie Durham, Christoph Fink, Jan Van Imschoot, Bart Lodewijks, Hana Miletić, Yola Minatchy, Elisabeth Ida Mulyani, Honoré d’O, Ornaghi & Prestinari, Jonathan Paepens, Emmanuelle Quertain, Kurt Ryslavy, Sam Samiee, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Grazia Toderi, Yurie Umamoto, Birde Vanheerswynghels, Peter Verhelst & Anneleen Boehme and Gosie Vervloessem. ​ These creations will be linked to relevant existing work of Marcel Broodthaers, Mario Merz, Panamarenko and Franz West. ​ ​
​​
​Studio Job also created a new sculpture for this exhibition, 'The Peasant Wedding', a rather funky homage to the great painter.

Bruegel, worldwide
​The exhibition also presents a creation by Rimini Protokoll, one of Berlin's most creative theatre companies. They developed an immersive Virtual Reality project that focuses on our contemporary food industry, with the ironic title: ‘Feast of Food’. While Bruegel was alive, food was still produced close to the consumer, only gradually exotic products found their way to our tables. This had radically changed in the 21st century: the families of farmers, as depicted by Bruegel, have turned into high-tech agro-industries and the food we buy in supermarkets has become a highly customized product whose origins most of us ignore. Meanwhile, the world population has doubled in the last 50 years. Rimini Protokoll embarks on a research to find out what farming and food production look like today. You, as a visitor, will be submerged into a world in which people work for us, far from our own kitchens: from Rungis – near Paris, the biggest food market in the world – to a gigantic slaughterhouse in Bavaria or plantations in Almería. 

 With the support of
​The exhibition 'Feast of Fools. Bruegel Rediscovered' is part of the ‘Flemish Masters’ project of VISITFLANDERS, which is supporting the exhibition.

 

Practical information / from sunday 7 april until 28 juli 2019, open daily from 10AM until 6PM (last entrance at 5PM), closed on monday, open on holidays. Admission is €15 (standard ticket), €14 concessions, €2 for -18 years and free for kids -7 years. Audioguide included. The Feast of Fools ticket also gives you access to artwork in the Museumgarden. ​
​A special audiotour for kids has been developed together with 'Het Geluidshuis'. ​
​Guided tours can be booked and are available in English, Dutch, French, German, Russian, Italian and Spanish. ​
​More information on www.feastoffools.be

For more information about this pressrelease, contact Tess Thibaut tess.thibaut@vlaanderen.be - www.kasteelvangaasbeek.be

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About Gaasbeek Castle

Gaasbeek Castle sits enthroned amidst the rolling hills of Pajottenland just outside Brussels. The medieval castle has had an eventful history, evolving from a strategic stronghold to a spacious country house. The Count of Egmond, was one of its best-known owners. The present building was given its romantic restyling at the end of the nineteenth century by the enigmatic French Marchioness Arconati Visconti. She was the daughter-in-law of aristocrats Giuseppe and Costanza Arconati Visconti, who, between 1821 and 1839, turned the castle into a unique meeting place for intellectual exchanges between exiled Italian politicians, European writers and scientists. Marie Arconati Visconti was also interested in the great intellectual debates of her time, as her correspondence with and support for Alfred Dreyfus testify. She set up the castle as a museum for her considerable art collection and treated it like a historical theatre set. The dream castle created then is still something of a time machine with its historic interiors, tapestries, paintings, furniture, sculptures and other valuable objects.

The castle park, with its centuries-old trees, ponds, lanes, winding paths and occasional historic buildings, is the ideal place for winding down. The estate also includes a unique museum garden where old varieties of fruit and vegetables are cultivated. 

Contact

Kasteelstraat 40 1750 Gaasbeek (Lennik)

+3225310130

kasteelvangaasbeek@vlaanderen.be

www.kasteelvangaasbeek.be