29 June – 23 September 2007
Opening Thursday 28 June at 20.00
with an introduction lecture by Wouter Davidts
The exhibition Beginners & Begetters departs from an unrealized project of 1955 for an Art Museum in Antwerp by the Belgian architect François Jamagne, published in the legendary book Megastructure. Urban Futures of the Recent Past (Harper & Row, 1976) by British architectural historian and critic Reyner Banham. This obscure but in Banham's words 'remarkably forward-looking project' by Jamagne is but one of the many schemes that architects, museum directors and officials dreamed up for the lacking infrastructure for institutions and museums of contemporary art in post-war Flanders. Due to the fact that it took until the mid-eighties and later for the three major museums in Antwerp, Ghent and Ostend to occupy their proper building, all three have an elaborate pre-history of unbuilt projects and plans. Due to the most diverse reasons, most of these were doomed to remain fictitious and unknown to the public. Presenting a historical cartography of these manifold and often visionary projects of the recent past, the exhibition aims to elicit a discussion on the future role and significance of architecture in the Flemish landscape of art institutions.
Research: Wouter Davidts (UGent, VUB) & Tine Cooreman
Graphic Design: Vinca Kruk & Adriaan Mellegers