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Mudam Luxembourg

Mudam is the foremost museum dedicated to contemporary art in Luxembourg, and strives to be attentive to every discipline and open to the whole world. Its collection and programme reflect current artistic trends and appreciate the emergence of new artistic practices on a national and international scale.

The building, by famous Sino-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei, is a marvellous dialogue between the natural and historical environment. Standing against the vestiges of Fort Thüngen, it follows the course of the former surrounding walls, and is rooted in the Park Dräi Eechelen (planned by landscapist, Michel Desvigne) which offers magnificent views onto the old town just a short walk from the European district of Kirchberg.

The simple volumes and generous spaces of the building show the mastery of the architectural language by the famous architect in combining stone and glass. The skillful play between interior and exterior, multiplying the selected views onto the park environment whilst opening onto the sky thanks to the audacious glass canopy, is highlighted through the use of the covering in Magny Doré, a honey-coloured limestone which assumes, at any time of the day and in all seasons, subtle nuances depending on the light which it reflects. The museum is spread over three levels of 4,500 m2 of surface area dedicated to the visits. Its construction was begun in January 1999 and it was inaugurated on 1 July 2006.

The cultural project of Mudam is based on a conception of art seen at a poetical distance from the world. Its key words are freedom, innovation, a critical mind, and all this, not devoid of humour. The programme favours every vector of expression while questioning our habits and our representations. It aims to capture not only a way of contemporary thinking, but also the aesthetic language of an age to come.

The Mudam Collection bares witness to contemporary creation in all its technical and aesthetic forms, while remaining open to every other artistic discipline: painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, as well as design, fashion, graphic design and new media are all put on show. Resolutely anchored in the contemporary, the collection endorses poetic variations from the great masters such as Bernd and Hilla Becher, Daniel Buren, Blinky Palermo or Cy Twombly. The museum’s interior and exterior furniture was entrusted to artists and designers such as Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec, Martin Szekely, Konstantin Grcic, Bert Theis, Andrea Blum or David Dubois). The Collection has been put together regarding the evolution of international creation while paying particular attention to the most significant national productions.

Mudam lives this adventure in relation with its public. The last-mentioned are invited to shed all preconceptions before entering the museum, to rid themselves of any prejudices and to apprehend art with a renewed look and in complete freedom. Numerous possibilities are offered in terms of the visit, from the most rigid to the most liberal, leaving a wide choice of exploration. A place for aesthetic discoveries, for reflection and contemplation, Mudam is also a place for conviviality in a restful environment (Mudam Café), and for finding treasures (Mudam Boutique).

contact

Mudam Luxembourg
Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean
3, Park Dräi Eechelen
L-1499 Luxembourg

fon: +352 45 37 85-960
email: info@mudam.lu

 

OPENING HOURS
Wednesday to Friday: 11am – 8pm
Saturday to Monday: 11am – 6pm
Closed on Tuesday.

ENTRANCE FEES
Full price: 5€
Concessions: 3€
(18-26 years old, >60 years old, Amis des Musées, Groups from 15 people. Groups are kindly request to inform Mudam about their visit, phone: +352 45 37 85-1 or e-mail: visites@mudam.lu.)

Photos: © Pierre-Olivier Deschamps / Agence Vu, Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Architect: I.M. Pei
Bewertungschronik

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Exhibition

Biennale Arte 2024: A Comparative Dialogue Act by Andrea Mancini and Every Island

A Comparative Dialogue Act challenges the entrenched notion of individual artistic authorship by presenting a collection of works where artists relinquish ego in favour of a profound exploration of collective creativity through the medium of sound.

A programme of residencies taking place over the duration of the Biennale will transform the pavilion into a production space where each individual exploration will contribute to a shared body of work.

This exhibition explores the transformative potential of sound as a medium for cultivating connection and understanding. It aims to transcend the limits set by singular perspectives of what Sound can lend to the acts of interpreting, distorting and appropriating

Sound as a Medium

The title, ‘A Comparative Dialogue Act’, encapsulates the nature of this experimental project – an exploration of diverse sonic languages and a contemplation of dialogue beyond the visual, into the immersive world of sound as a tool for negotiation.

Four artists are invited to explore the elements that define their individual practices and artistic methods. Each artist is asked to create a sound library representing their unique approach by the start of the Biennale. Each of these libraries will be a part of the Pavilion space to become one shared tool. During the six months of the Biennale, each artist will appropriate and use this libraryto create a soundscape. The aim is to stimulate collaboration and community through an understanding and interpreting of what was made available by others, while allowing, in exchange, the use of each other’s libraries to create distinct works and performances.

The body of work, both the libraries and the residencies’ productions, will constantly be absorbed and integrated anew – challenging notions of authorship and appropriation, each contribution will be shared, contributing to a dialogue between the artist present at a given time and those who came before, or will come to inhabit the space in turn.

Each artist will engage in a series of performances. The performance is part of the collective artwork and is the moment during which each artist presents their contribution in public. Although the artists never physically cross paths, their explorations intersect in a cyclically unfolding process of synthesis through interference, understanding and trust.

During the performances, artists may manipulate and combine the body of sounds as they wish, while incorporating new and live material. The resulting sequence of pieces will be published as a vinyl record, to be released at the end of the Biennale.

Throughout the thirty-week duration of the Biennale and its programme of residencies, the space will remain continuously accessible to the public: the installation of the pavilion is designed to foster moments of appropriation and performance, without setting boundaries between artist and audience, who, instead, will coexist.

Physical description of the pavilion:
The pavilion is conceived as an infrastructure for the transmission of sound. Technology is used to develop a local experiment investigating the transmission of knowledge and work in progress. The notion of openness is here not bound to the absence of limits, but rather to appropriation of ‘the other’ and its contribution to collective and open-ended scenarios.

The pavilion’s infrastructure is constituted of four elements: four walls, a floor, a ceiling, and a curtain façade.

The four walls, or ‘Sound Wall’, are the central piece and sound system itself. They are on wheels, allowing the artist to interact and work them as they are arranged or re-arranged in the space. Each trolley supports a glass panel: the sound is transmitted through one of them via a transducer, a loudspeaker component that lacks the frame and cone of traditional speakers and functions by vibrating a rigid surface to create sound.

The artist decides how to use the sound walls during their residency. The sound walls serve as tools during the performance, and to play the recorded library of sounds and produced pieces when no artist is present. The four sound walls can be in syntony, looping a previous performance, as well as in interference with each other. Each of these moments of confrontation or interference between the work of several artists is defined as ‘dialogue’.

The floor, constructed with standard floating floor panels left bare, functions as a vibrating surface tuned to the walls. The aluminium tiles are fixed to a network of Bass shakers, a type of transducer that transmits bass frequencies to floors. The suspended ceiling hosts a light installation and the electrical nerve of the installation, while a curtain façade acoustically divides the pavilion from the rest of the Sale d’Armi.

In line with the notion of continuous appropriation which will shape the pavilion’s content, the infrastructure is also physically altered. The metallic coating of the floor is engraved with symbols and texts that become a temporal record of the pavilion itself, but also the colophon and description of the work. It presents the timeline of appropriations, becoming a palimpsest for the audience to map moments of performance and moments of dialogue.

Visual identity concept:
“The visual identity has originated from a collaborative process, wherein we designed a collective idiosyncratic alphabet based on the writings of everyone involved in the pavilion, including artists and the curator. The typeface was then optimized to provide instructions to a CNC machine, converting human strokes into numeric instructions for the milling machine. This process facilitated the production of all the necessary graphic materials, from the poster to the floor of the pavilion itself”, Lorenzo Masson

Publication:
The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication and a vinyl record. The publication will act as a prequel and include a commissioned essay by writer and musician Dan Fox as well as a curatorial statement by Joel Valabrega, alongside a rich visual contribution by the commissioned artists. The record will be released at the end of the Biennale and stands as a sequel, comprising the resulting activity taking place at the Pavilion over six months. Together they will form a tangible, physical trace of A Comparative Dialogue Act. They will be published by Mudam Luxembourg - Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, and designed by Lorenzo Mason.

Biographies:

Andrea Mancini (b. 1989) is a Luxembourgish artist and musician based in Brussels. Mancini’s practice is interdisciplinary and investigates the relationship between space, form and the realm of sound through composition, installations and video environments activated by performance practices. His recurrent work method consists in confronting the intangible materiality of sound, the tension it creates and the texture it unveils. Mancini’s work also uses codes from club-culture, a scene he has been a part of for a number of years under his alias ‘Cleveland’. The artist’s works have recently been shown in exhibitions, festivals and labels such as Rotondes (2023), Kalahari Oyster Cult (2023), Casino Luxembourg (2023) and Cité internationale des arts in Paris (2022), among others.

Every Island was founded in Brussels in 2021 by Alessandro Cugola, Caterina Malavolti, Damir Draganic, Juliane Seehawer and Martina Genovesi. As a collective their spatial research focuses on the role of performativity in architecture, which translates into volatile building projects and installations. Their projects develop spaces that are open to different uses and consequently abandon inherited binary and conventional models. Space becomes a design tool that defines an alternative common ground. By provoking a confrontation between the spectator and the work, Every Island ‘arrives at scenarios in which seeing, acting and imagining become fundamental’. The work of the collective has been shown in several institutions and performative arts festivals, including Mudam Luxembourg (2022), Santarcangelo dei Teatri (2022), VIERNULVIER (2022) and BOZAR (2023).

Joel Valabrega (b. 1991) is Curator of Performance and Moving Image at Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean. She holds a master’s degree in Architecture (Milano and Venice). Valabrega has worked within institutional contexts as well as in independent spaces. Valabrega is part of the curatorial team responsible for programming of MEGA, a Milanese project space. In the past she has worked as visiting curator at the V-A-C Foundation in Moscow & Venice (2018-2019). Recent exhibitions, performances and commissions include projects with Tarek Atoui, Alexandra Bachzetsis, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Cecilia Bengolea, Trajal Harrell, Ligia Lewis, Ari Benjamin Meyers and Nora Turato.

The Ministry of Culture has appointed:
Kultur | lx – Arts Council Luxembourg as commissioner and organiser

Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Joel Valabrega as curator

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Exhibition

Rayyane Tabet. Trilogy

A Model: Prelude

Introducing A Model, Rayyane Tabet (b. 1983, Ashqout, Lebanon) was invited to conceive a site-specific project for the Henry J. and Erna D. Leir Pavilion. An architect by training, the artist attaches great importance to the context in which his projects are embedded. His installations consider the historical framework of the architecture of the museum, revealing its particularities alongside its contradictions.

Tabet’s body of work builds upon the analysis of sociocultural contexts, combining historical and subjective memory to offer an alternative reading to the official narrative of his object of study and open it up to new meanings. For the pavilion, the artist devised Trilogy, an installation that unfolds around pivotal moments of contemporary and Luxembourg history in dialogue with his personal memory.

This installation includes Sanatorium Paimio (bedroom furniture), a central work of the Mudam Collection conceived by architect Alvar Aalto between 1930 and 1933. Emblematic of functionalist research and humanist thinking, Aalto designed the bedroom furniture to contribute to well- being and recovery.

Transforming the pavilion’s walkway, Tabet installs translucent curtains originating from his grandparents’ 1950s apartment in Beirut. The artist highlights the signature architectural style of its architect Ieoh Ming Pei, characterised by glass-paned surfaces, as symbolic of openness and an era marked by progress and prosperity by inserting personal memory into Mudam’s building. In contrast, the pavilion’s glass roof panels are covered with a blue film in reference to the camouflage techniques used by residents of Beirut during the 1967 Six-Day War. Rendering Mudam’s interior invisible from above, the artist sets Sanatorium Paimio (bedroom furniture) in an infinite twilight.

Lastly, in the lower floor of the pavilion the artist references the 2020 Beirut explosion, exhibiting a series of jugs made from glass fragments retrieved onsite following the blast, envisioning a symbolic repair.

The artist
Rayyane Tabet (b. 1983, Ashqout, Lebanon) has had solo exhibitions at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2021), Sharjah Art Foundation (2021), Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York (2020), Parasol Unit Foundation of Contemporary Art, London (2019), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019), Musée du Louvre, Paris (2019), Carré d’Art – Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes (2018) and at the Kunstverein in Hamburg (2017). He took part in numerous international group shows, among which In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination Rises, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE (2023), Machinations, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, the Whitney Biennial (2022), the 7th Yokohama Triennial (2020), the 2nd Lahore Biennial (2020), the 21st Sydney Biennial (2018), Manifesta 12 (2018), the 15th Istanbul Biennial (2017), the 32nd Sao Paolo Biennial (2016) and the 10th and 12th Sharjah Biennial (2011, 2015). Rayyane Tabet lives and w rks between Beirut and San Francisco.

Curators:
Bettina Steinbrügge, with Sarah Beaumont, Clément Minighetti and Joel Valabrega

With the support of:
Banque Degroof Petercam Luxembourg

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Exhibition

Billy Bultheel & James Richards

Workers in Song

Workers in Song is the latest iteration of an ongoing collaborative project by composer Billy Bultheel (b. 1987, Brussels) and visual artist James Richards (b. 1983, Cardiff). Their immersive audiovisual installation and performance take visitors on a journey through a whirlwind of original material and citations, spanning the pleasures of online hookups, underground films, and subcultures of bygone eras, as well as the darker dimensions of romantic subjectivity. At Mudam, Bultheel and Richards present a choreographed performance with live music and film on 28 March 2024, alongside an installation that probes the tension between liveness, sentimentality and desire in the absence of the living body.

Conceived as an open-ended, modular structure, Workers in Song operates as a constantly evolving organism which adapts to the specific context of each presentation – the present version staged in an environment the artists specifically designed for the large curved space of Mudam’s West Gallery. Informed by the early days of cinema, when silent films were conceived to be presented with live music, and more contemporary forms including mixtapes or expanded cinema events, Bultheel and Richards present a dynamic musical score as a framework to bring their original material into dialogue with work by other artists – without subsuming any part into a uniform whole. Their own footage, taking viewers through nocturnal landscapes and dystopian brutalist interiors, is mixed with poems, films, and scores by other authors. The atmosphere of the installation is dark, although decisively rich, almost excessive. Many elements of the live event insistently return to the conflicts of human intimacy and the fraught boundaries between self and other. Nevertheless, the work’s episodic nature invites viewers to bring their own experiences to the table and connect the dots, allowing discrete elements to smudge and blur one’s perception.

A central thread running through the presentation of Workers in Song is ‘Der Leiermann’ from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise (1827), which the composer wrote while suffering from syphilis toward the end of his life. It sings of a spurned lover’s journey to the night and, more specifically, his encounter with a derelict hurdy-gurdy player who repeatedly performs a song that seemingly no one cares to hear. In Bultheel and Richards’s installation, a restrained video rendition by Sebastian de la Cour (b. 1980, Copenhagen) suspends the sentimentality of Schubert’s original piece between longing and disillusionment. At the same time, the titular hurdy-gurdy is translated into a computer-controlled piano player, constrasting the song’s lush emotional register by lack of human presence. With this conceptual twist, Bultheel and Richards seem to underscore an almost machinic dimension of human desire – one that keeps us constantly searching, though for what is never clear.

Deepening the convergence between the installation and performative aspect of the work, the presentation at Mudam questions the boundaries between liveness and the pre-recorded, between presence and absence, between ghosts and the archive, in an intimate and intuitive encounter between the audience, music, and moving image. The work Yellow Movie 1/12-13/73 (1973) by Tony Conrad (b. 1940, Concord – d. 2016, Cheektowaga), from the Mudam Collection, was selected by the artists to be part of the installation. Expanding on the history of film and performance, this work is also a nod and a link to the previous iterations of Workers in Song, which included Tony Conrad’s film The Flicker (1966).

Workers in Song seeks to confront the viewer with paradoxical sensations of pleasure and discomfort. It alludes to the depth of human existence, beauty, death, sex, loneliness, nostalgia, togetherness, and their intricate relationships.

Music sheets and documentation from the performance Workers in Song at WIELS are included in this booklet, providing visitors with a glimpse of the work once fully activated.

Biographies:

Billy Bultheel (b. 1987, Brussels) is a composer who incorporates his music into large-scale performance installations. His work Athens Songs I-IV was recently exhibited at the 7th Athens Biennial (2021). His work UNTER KAMMERMUSIK has been presented at the Halle für Kunst Steiermark, Graz (2021) and the Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2021). His work The Minutes of Olomouc was shown at the PAF Olomouc – Festival of Film Animation and Contemporary Art (2020). In 2019, he held two important performances in Berlin: Spat from My Mouth: Piano Concerto at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art and When Doves Cry at the Schinkel Pavilion. He lives and works in Brussels and Berlin.

James Richards (b. 1983, Cardiff) has recently held solo exhibitions at Haus Mödrath – Räume für Kunst, Kerpen (2021); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2020); Malmö Konsthall (2019); Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2018) and Secession, Vienna (2018). His work has also been presented in significant surveys at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2023); Camden Arts Center, London (2020); V-A-C Foundation, Venice (2019); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2018); KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2018); Tate Britain, London (2018); Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017); Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2016); Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2016) and Kunstverein München, Munich (2015). In 2017, he represented Wales at the 57th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. He lives and works in Berlin.

Curators:
Joel Valabrega, with Clémentine Proby
Assisted by Nathalie Lesure

Co-commissioned by:
WIELS – Centre for Contemporary Art
Batalha Centro de Cinema
Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean
KW Institute for Contemporary Art

Written, directed and produced by: Billy Bultheel and James Richards
Filmed appearances:
Sebastian de la Cour (bariton)
Sara Neidorf (percussion)
Adam Sinclaire (flute)
DOP: Tom Rosenberg
Second camera: Milan Daemgen
Sound recordist: Simone Antonioni
Key grip: Braden Harris
Production assistants:
Lea Hopp
Sinaida Michalskaja
Film locations: anorak and bplus.xyz, Berlin
Production manager: Johanna Markert

The performance Workers in Song at Mudam includes screenings of HEVN by P.Staff (2020), My Name is Oona by Gunvor Nelson (1969) and Studio Floor Rotation by Josh Tonsfeldt (2010).

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Exhibition

Sin Wai Kin

Portraits

Portraits transforms the Foyer of Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean into a space for the exploration of the possibilities of storytelling, and of perceived notions of reality. Enclosed within a white curtained structure are five moving image artworks from the series Portraits (2023 – ongoing) by artist Sin Wai Kin (b. 1991, Toronto). Hanging like in a traditional painting gallery, the works expand on the art historical pictorial tradition of portraiture through the chosen medium and their protagonists. Sin’s practice, which includes performance, moving images, writing and print, uses speculative fiction to dissolve assumptions around objective truths. The artist seeks to surpass gendered and normative approaches to identity, drawing attention to the construction of the physical body within the social body, meaning the representations, uses, habits and desires of bodies in society. Playing in a continuous loop on the screens, the characters that Sin personifies in this specific series reference iconic artworks and literary stories to explore impermanent identities and realities.

The embodiment of fantasy is central in the artist’s practice, wherein the external appearance of Sin’s figures, and the worlds they inhabit, are shaped by a myriad of sources, among which traditional Chinese dramaturgy, drag and science fiction. The Universe, with its floral face-paint, alludes to the mighty male Jing role in Cantonese opera. The video work directly references the painted rendition of the Taoist story ‘The Butterfly Dream’ made in circa 1550 by the Chinese painter, calligrapher, and poet Lù Zhì (b. 1496, Suzhou, China – d. 1576, China). The parable is a passage from the Zhuangzi, one of the two foundational texts of Taoism named after its traditional author, the philosopher Zhuang Zhou (b. circa 369 BC – d. circa 286 BC, China) written by him and others during the Warring States period (476 – 221 BC). In this story, Zhuangzi dreams of being a butterfly and, upon waking up, begins to wonder if he is a man who dreamed of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man. The story references notions of transformation and of subjective reality through the state of dreaming as a means to explore the idea of alternative worlds. Sin identifies with ‘The Butterfly Dream’ because it encapsulates how the artist’s world ‘seems like a made-up fantasy for some people’, and how ‘we are living in a world where many different realities coexist’.

Some of the protagonists have been previously used in other works by Sin Wai Kin. Wai King, the heartthrob in It’s Always You (2021), is reimagined in the guise of a hypermasculine version of Caravaggio’s (b. 1571, Milan – d. 1610, Porto Ercole) Narcissus (1597–1599). Witnessing his act of self-absorption is a reminder of our own perceived self-identity in relation to the perception of ourselves by others. With Change, the artist channels Frida Kahlo’s (b. 1907 – d. 1954, Mexico City) Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair (1940), adopting Kahlo’s penetrating outward gaze in this embracing of one’s masculine side. The Storyteller is a recurring character played by Sin Wai Kin, appearing in previous works like Today’s Top Stories (2020) and The Breaking Story (2022). Inspired by the authoritative figure of the newsreader, the character reports polarising perspectives and philosophical propositions on existence, consciousness, and identity. The figure in the Portraits video, set in a futuristic, arid, outer-space environment, stares at us as they adopt the pose from Leonardo da Vinci’s (b. 1452, Anchiano, Italy – d. 1519, Amboise, France) Mona Lisa (c. 1503–1506). In The Construct, which references Man Ray’s (b. 1890, Philadelphia – d. 1976, Paris) Surrealist photograph Noire et Blanche (1926), Sin directly confronts the idea of binaries versus multitudes contained within individuals, essential in understanding the construction of identity. In contrast to the other works, the artist sets Change and The Construct in an enveloping chroma- green space. The same colour is used in filmmaking for altering surroundings and contexts through post-production techniques, and it has been an integral part of all presentations of the Portraits thus far. Immersed in the same hue, the characters in these two works feel somewhat grounded in a space that feels closer to our real life, sparking reflections on our own ongoing, potential transformations.

The protagonists’ ever-changing evolution exemplifies the artist’s exploration of gender hybridity and their challenging of ideas around binarities, all the while being, as the artist posits, vehicles to work through personal aspects of their own complex identity. In their almost imperceptible movements, the living portraits push the limits of the pictorial tradition, and the subject’s capacity of displaying an awareness of the viewer’s gaze, sometimes powerfully holding it. Standing in front of the screens, viewers will see characters walk in, control the place they inhabit, and walk out – performing for us within this theatrical space. The faceless bust, with a character’s wig outside the boundaries of the video does not idly stand by to act as sculpture: it jolts the characters into our tangible world, remaining far, existing somewhere beyond the frame, inviting us into their world of new possibilities.

Biography:
Sin Wai Kin (b. 1991, Toronto) has held solo exhibitions and performances at Fondazione Memmo, Rome (2023); Somerset House, London (2022); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2022); Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2020) and Taipei Contemporary Art Centre, Taipei (2018). Their work has been presented within significant group surveys, including at the Doosan Art Center, Seoul (2022); Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2022); ICA, Los Angeles (2022); Shedhalle, Zurich (2021); Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2021) and Hayward Gallery, London (2019). Their work is held in several major collections, including those of the British Museum - Prints and Drawings Department, London; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York and M+ Museum, Hong Kong. Sin Wai Kin lives and works in London.

Curators:
Marie-Noëlle Farcy, assisted by Carlotta Pierleoni

Baloise Art Prize 2023:
The Baloise Art Prize is awarded annually at Art Basel to two artists exhibiting within the Statements section of the fair. Founded in 1999, the prize has focused its support on young artists reserving a part of the award to acquire and donate one or an ensemble of works by the artists to two of the partner museums. Mudam Luxembourg has been one of the partner museums for the Baloise Art Prize since 2015.

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Exhibition

Lawrence Abu Hamdan

Air Conditioning

Lawrence Abu Hamdan (b. 1985, Amman) is an experimental artist, a researcher- investigator and a self-described ‘Private Ear’ who has developed a unique body of work involving sound and listening, at the junction between photography, performance, writing, video, installation and audiovisual work. Questions of national identity, human rights, justice, and memory are among his recurring themes. Through his reflective practice, at the intersection of political, legal and social spheres, Abu Hamdan questions the use of sound and its presence in individual and collective memory.

Often produced in collaboration with scientists, activists, and linguists, his sound analysis have been presented on several occasions as advocacy for organisations such as Amnesty International (notably with the Forensic Architecture research laboratory) and Defence for Children International, or as evidence in judicial inquiries at the First-tier Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber in the UK.

Air Conditioning (2022) is a monumental work that has recently entered the Mudam Collection. Located on level -1 of Mudam and spanning over fifty-four metres, it wraps the walls of the museum’s East Gallery in silence. This installation is comprised of fifteen photographic panels, produced using a specialised animation software (Houdini), and a looping explanatory video lasting 2 minutes and 42 seconds.

The project was conceptualised between May 2020 and May 2021, when Abu Hamdan carried out extensive research and information collection as he examined the open-source data available on the United Nations Digital Library website. The artist mapped the instances of surveillance and violation of Lebanese airspace by Israeli military aircrafts over a fifteen-year period, from 2007 to 2021, following United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 in the wake of the July War of 2006 between Israel and Lebanon.

Concurrently, Abu Hamdan developed the website AirPressure.info in an effort to make information pertaining to Israeli incursions accessible through an interactive map (which reveals radar information on overflights – time of day, duration, type of aircraft, and trajectory), a reference library featuring sound and video files of citizen testimonies collected during a participative social media campaign, seventeen scientific articles describing the harmful physical and psychological impacts on the Lebanese population, as well as the 243 letters addressed to the United Nations Security Council.

The artist’s first task was to draw up a documented inventory of the Lebanese soundscape and to render an overview of the sequence and accumulation of over 22,111 events. By aggregating this data, he established that the average overflight duration was four hours and thirty-five minutes. Combined, the total duration of these incursions was 3,098 days, or eight and a half years.

How can we represent the unrepresentable? How can we think of sounds as images and how do we give them form? These are the contradictions Abu Hamdan attempts to resolve.

The resulting images are occupied by a horizon of smoke clouds, without beginning or end, like stills from a film where sound is now absent, as if destined to be forgotten. Two dimensions coexist: erasure and trace. Abu Hamdan invites us to take part in a meditative experience where we must take the time to observe and decipher to immerse ourselves in this fluctuating texture. Fragments of time come and go towards each other, intermingle, expand, and overlap, creating interplays between time and space. Abu Hamdan aims to make the density of time intelligible.

The video provides a preamble. Each 365 cm-long print represents a year, and each centimetre corresponds to a day. The height and thickness of the plume reflect the number of planes and the duration of their flights, respectively. In 2020, for instance, 1,797 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) (Hermes 450, IAI Heron TP) flew over Lebanon. August 2020 was a particularly eventful month: 405 UAVs were recorded flying over the country for a total 2,212 hours. Each aircraft type is arranged in the image according to the altitude it occupied. Finally, the sonic range of each vehicle – the ominous roar of fighter jets, the dull sound of UAVs and the persistent hum of quadcopter drones – is echoed by the tone and density of the clouds.

With Air Conditioning, Abu Hamdan captures the effects of a systematic and prolonged exposure to omnipresent noise pollution, and the trauma it can cause, constituting what he calls ‘atmospheric violence’. Speaking on this, he has said: ‘These images demonstrate the Lebanese atmosphere is a nexus of high pressure in a global weather system. The air is not a sovereign space but a volatile compound; of noise, carbon dioxide, monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and all the other toxic emissions of international militarism.’

This investigation has yielded other projects that complement and bring light to each other. The performative reading Daght Jawi (Air Pressure) focuses on one year, as does The diary of a sky (2023) the video installation that stems from it. Using a diaristic form, Abu Hamdan recites the raw data, blending in his research narrative, all of which is illustrated by sequences of images of the Lebanese sky crisscrossed by fighter planes and drones. Playing with the juxtaposition of the breaks and gaps in the speed and intensity of his cadence and breathing, and the deafening noise of the planes, Abu Hamdan renders this constant threat palpable. Illuminating the investigation in the present and the past, in Lebanon and elsewhere, he instils a sensitive memory of sounds.

Abu Hamdan has described his research as a ‘political ecology of noise’. To this end, the aesthetics of inquiry brings forth the noises to which we have ceased paying attention and allow for a reconstruction of narratives that are often excluded from our contemporary histories, both near and far.

Biography

Lawrence Abu Hamdan (b. 1985, Amman) has held solo exhibitions at the FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon (2023), Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (2023), Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2022), Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (2022); Spike Island, Bristol (2022); Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2021); Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin (2019); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2018) and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018). He received the Bill Douglas Award for International Short Film in 2023 and the Turner Prize, together with nominated artists Helen Cammock, Oscar Murillo and Tai Shani, in 2019. Abu Hamdan’s work is held in major collections including the Tate Modern, London; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musée national d'art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte, Reina Sofia, Madrid; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Arts Council Collection, London and Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah. He lives and works in Dubai.

Curator: Vanessa Lecomte

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Exhibition

A Model

Group exhibition

We all have ideas of what a contemporary art museum should be. Those who founded Mudam Luxembourg, for example, envisioned a museum that would encompass many aspects of contemporary culture, such as art, design and architecture. While one believes the museum to be a place for the presentation of modern art, others view it as a showcase for Luxembourgish creation. And some see Mudam as a space for collectivity, for openness, for events and an experimental approach.

In general, what a museum does is to assemble, examine and revise narratives about artworks, artists, times and places. In 2022, ICOM expanded the definition of a museum: ‘A museum is a nonprofit, permanent institution in the service of society that explores, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums promote diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering diverse experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.’

A Model is an exhibition that proposes a reflection on the role of the museum at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It reaffirms the need to think of the institution as a living place, sensitive and receptive to contemporary debates. A Model considers the possibilities that arise when museum collections are reimagined as active and performative environments. A Model brings together more than thirty artists, some to conceive new commissions, some inspired by and in dialogue with works from the collection. And A Model wants to start a conversation about the museum you would like Mudam to be.

The exhibition was inspired in part by artist and activist Palle Nielsen’s project The Model – A Model for a Qualitative Society. First presented at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1968, Nielsen’s exhibition wanted to open the museum by proposing an adventure playground open to all children.

This exhibition is the second chapter of A Model, a three-part project that unfolds from 1 December 2023 to 8 September 2024. It follows A Model: Prelude – Rayyane Tabet. Trilogy and will be concluded by A Model: Epilogue – Jason Dodge. Tomorrow, I walked to a dark black star.

Curator: Bettina Steinbrügge
Associate curators: Sarah Beaumont, Clément Minighetti and Joel Valabrega
Research team: Tess Mazuet, António Mendes, Carlotta Pierleoni, Jade Saber

Artists: Alvar Aalto, Sophia Al Maria, James Richmond Barthé, Nina Beier und Bob Kil, Tomaso Binga, Anna Boghiguian, Andrea Bowers, Robert Breer und Pontus Hultén, Matilde Cerruti Quara, Ali Cherri, Tony Cokes, Nayla Dabaji, Jason Dodge, Claire Fontaine, Matthew Angelo Harrison, General Idea, María Jerez und Edurne Rubio, Isaac Julien, Marysia Lewandowska, Hanne Lippard, Renzo Martens, Melvin Moti, Oscar Murillo, Palle Nielsen, Khandakar Ohida, Daniela Ortiz, Walid Raad, Finnegan Shannon, Krista Belle Stewart, SUPERFLEX, Rayyane Tabet, Su-Mei Tse, Nora Turato, Dardan Zhegrova

The exhibition is supported by: Banque Degroof Petercam Luxembourg
Thanks to: The Danish Arts Foundation, Carlsberg Foundation, Peintures CIN, Colors by Tectone

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Exhibition

Mudam Collection

The most important collection of contemporary art in Luxembourg

Resolutely international in its scope and ambition, the collection's holdings consist of close to 700 works of art in all media by artists from Luxembourg and around the world.

A small nucleus of the collection consists of fashion and design objects. Over 54 works are the result of commissions by Mudam for its distinctive architectural context. The constitution of the collection traces back to the first acquisitions for the museum in the 1990s, the creation of the Museum of Modern Art Grand-Duc Jean Foundation in 1998, and the opening of the Museum in 2006. While the decade of the 1960s serves as an historic point of reference for contemporary art, the majority of works in the collection date from 1989 to the present. An exception to this historical span is the ensemble of furniture for the Paimio Sanatorium, designed between 1931 and 1933 by the architect Alvar Aalto, and acquired in 2002.

Nancy Spector (Artistic director – Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in New York), Daniel Birnbaum (Director of Acute Art in London) and Adam Szymczyk (Artistic Director of documenta 14) were named members of the Mudam Collection Scientific Committee until 2020, with Mudam Board representative Paul di Felice. The committee is presided by Mudam director, Suzanne Cotter.

Works from the collection currently on show at Mudam

Stephan Balkenhol, Portaits de SS.AA.RR. Le Grand-Duc Jean et La Grande-Duchesse Joséphine-Charlotte
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Mudam Café
Thomas Hirschhorn. Flugplatz Welt/World Airport
Suki Seokyeong Kang
Michel Paysant, Nano-portraits de SS.AA.RR. le Grand-Duc Henri et la Grande-Duchesse Maria Teresa
Recent Donations and Long-Term Loans
Martin Szekely, Lobby
Bert Theis, Drifters
Su-Mei Tse, Many Spoken Words
Worlds in Motion
Works from the collection currently on show at Park Dräi Eechelen

Maria Anwander, The Present
Nairy Baghramian, Beliebte Stellen/Privileged Points
Andrea Blum, gardens + fountains + summer café
Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Bird Feeder
David Dubois, Chênavélos & Bancs-terre
Ian Hamilton Finlay, HUIUS SECULI CONSTANTIA ATQUE ORDO INCONSTANTIA POST ERITATIS A ST.J

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Online-Shop

Mudam Store

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3 Exhibition

Enfin seules

Photographs from the Archive of Modern Conflict

Enfin seules (alone at last) presents a selection of over two hundred images from the Archive of Modern Conflict. Established in London in 1992, the Archive describes itself as ‘a repository for the lost and forgotten stories that lie hidden in the photographic record’. Initially focusing on ‘conflict, it has grown into something more resembling a laboratory than a traditional archive’. Today it is one of the largest collections of photography in the world, comprising over eight million images and producing books and exhibitions that span a multitude of genres.

Presenting photographs from across several continents and a period spanning 140 years, Enfin seules offers a fresh look at the photography of the natural world, revelling in the diversity and individual character of its subjects. The exhibition reflects the eclectic interests of the Archive, drawing on images from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1970s to imagine a world where all animal and insect life has disappeared from Earth.

Conceived as an immersive environment organised around a central, cavernous space, the galleries will be wallpapered with photographs from the Archive. Images of flora, fungi, tree-trunks, ferns, roots, stalagmites and aurorae are enlarged to form a panorama of plants, rocks and light that provide the backdrop for an array of recent and historical prints. Spanning several generations of photography and encompassing various processes and techniques, images by renowned artists and photographers as well as figures from the history of botany, astronomy, mathematics and science are presented alongside those of amateur enthusiasts or unknown figures.

The Archive of Modern Conflict has held exhibitions at PHotoESPAÑA, Madrid (2018); Les Rencontres d’Arles (2017 and 2018); Tate Modern (2014), Hayward Gallery, London (2013), The Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto (2013) and Paris Photo (2012). Their award-winning imprint, AMC Books, has published over seventy books and regularly publishes the journal AMC2.

European Month of Photography (EMOP) is a network of photography festivals taking place every two years in Berlin, Lisbon, Luxembourg, Paris and Vienna. The collaboration seeks to strengthen the international photography scene by promoting partnerships, exchange and support for young artists. The European Month of Photography in Luxembourg is organised by Café-Crème asbl.

Including photographs by:
Anna Atkins (b. 1799, Tonbridge; d. 1871, Halstead), Paul Marcellin Berthier (b. 1822, Paris; d. 1912, Paris), Brassaï (b. 1899, Brașov; d. 1984, Beaulieu-sur-Mer), Adolphe Braun (b. 1812, Besançon; d. 1877, Dornach), Fred Payne Clatworthy (b. 1875, Dayton; d. 1953, Estes Park), Thomas Joshua Cooper (b. 1946, San Francisco), William Craven (b. 1809, London; d. 1866, Scarborough), Maxim Petrovich Dmitriev (b. 1858, Povalichino; d. 1948 Nizhny Novgorod), Henry John Elwes (b. 1846, Cheltenham; d. 1922, Cheltenham), Dmitri Yermakov (b. 1845, Tbilisi; d. 1916, Tbilisi), Amelia Elizabeth Gimingham (b. 1833, London; d. 1918, Axbridge), Fay Godwin (b. 1931, Berlin; d. 2005, Hastings), Dr. Conrad Theodore Green (b. 1863, Kirkburton; d. 1940, Birkenhead), Petr Helbich (b. 1929, Prague), John Karl Hillers (b. 1843, Hanover; d. 1925, Washington), Frederick Hollyer (b. 1838, London; d. 1933, Blewbury), Bertha Jaques (b. 1863, Covington; d. 1941, Chicago), Edward Dukinfield Jones (b. 1848, Derby; d. 1938, Los Angeles), August Kotzsch (b. 1836, Dresden; d. 1910, Dresden), Axel Lindahl (b. 1841, Mariestad; d. 1906, Södertälje), Lee Miller (b. 1907, Poughkeepsie; d. 1977, Chiddingly), Paul-Émile Miot (b. 1827, Trinidad; d. 1900, Paris), Charles Nègre (b. 1820, Grasse; d. 1880 Grasse), Ferdinand Quénisset (b. 1872, Paris; d. 1951, Juvisy-sur-Orge), Willy Ronis (b. 1910, Paris; d. 2009, Paris), Jaroslav Rössler (b. 1902, Smilov; d. 1990 Prague), José María Sert (b. 1874, Barcelona; d. 1945, Barcelona), Carlo Baldassare Simelli (b. 1811, Stroncone; d. after 1877), Fredrick Carl Størmer (b. 1874, Skien; d. 1957, Oslo), Josef Sudek (b. 1896, Kolín; d. 1976, Prague), Graham Sutherland (b. 1903, London; d. 1980, London), Eugen Wiškovský (b. 1888, Dvůr Králové nad Labem; d. 1964, Prague) and Shikanosuke Yagaki (b. 1897, Kyoto; d. 1966).

Exhibition Concept: Timothy Prus (Archive of Modern Conflict)

Curators:
Timothy Prus
Assisted by Ed Jones, Luce Lebart, Giulia Shah, and Michelle Wilson
Michelle Cotton
Assisted by Sarah Beaumont, and Christophe Gallois

Exhibition Design: Polaris Architects

The exhibition is conceived by the Archive of Modern Conflict for Mudam on the occasion of the European Month of Photography (EMOP).

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19.05.21, 23:32, KP Enfin seules heiß endlich allein

Die älteste Künstlerin dieser Ausstellung wurde 1799 geboren. Das ist insofern etwas Besonderes, weil es um Fotografie geht und die Fotografie erst um 1820 erfunden wurde. Enfin seules heiß endlich allein und ist der Name der Ausstellung mit Werken des Archive of Modern Conflict. Diese Archiev, dass sich zunehmend selbst zu einem Laboratorium rund um die Fotografie entwickelt, versteht sich selbst als “Aufbewahrungsort für die vergessenen und verborgenen Geschichten, die versteckt in seinem fotografischen Fundus liegen.” Und da liegt einiges wie diese Ausstellung im Rahmen des Europäischen Monats der Fotografie (EMOP) im Mudam Luxembourg Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxemburg stattfindet.

19.05.21, 23:32, KP Enfin seules heiß endlich allein

Die älteste Künstlerin dieser Ausstellung wurde 1799 geboren. Das ist insofern etwas Besonderes, weil es um Fotografie geht und die Fotografie erst um 1820 erfunden wurde. Enfin seules heiß endlich allein und ist der Name der Ausstellung mit Werken des Archive of Modern Conflict. Diese Archiev, dass sich zunehmend selbst zu einem Laboratorium rund um die Fotografie entwickelt, versteht sich selbst als “Aufbewahrungsort für die vergessenen und verborgenen Geschichten, die versteckt in seinem fotografischen Fundus liegen.” Und da liegt einiges wie diese Ausstellung im Rahmen des Europäischen Monats der Fotografie (EMOP) im Mudam Luxembourg Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxemburg stattfindet.

19.05.21, 23:32, KP Enfin seules heiß endlich allein

Die älteste Künstlerin dieser Ausstellung wurde 1799 geboren. Das ist insofern etwas Besonderes, weil es um Fotografie geht und die Fotografie erst um 1820 erfunden wurde. Enfin seules heiß endlich allein und ist der Name der Ausstellung mit Werken des Archive of Modern Conflict. Diese Archiev, dass sich zunehmend selbst zu einem Laboratorium rund um die Fotografie entwickelt, versteht sich selbst als “Aufbewahrungsort für die vergessenen und verborgenen Geschichten, die versteckt in seinem fotografischen Fundus liegen.” Und da liegt einiges wie diese Ausstellung im Rahmen des Europäischen Monats der Fotografie (EMOP) im Mudam Luxembourg Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean in Luxemburg stattfindet.

6

Mudam Luxembourg

Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean

Mudam is the foremost museum dedicated to contemporary art in Luxembourg, and strives to be attentive to every discipline and open to the whole world. Its collection and programme reflect current artistic trends and appreciate the emergence of new artistic practices on a national and international scale.

The building, by famous Sino-American architect Ieoh Ming Pei, is a marvellous dialogue between the natural and historical environment. Standing against the vestiges of Fort Thüngen, it follows the course of the former surrounding walls, and is rooted in the Park Dräi Eechelen (planned by landscapist, Michel Desvigne) which offers magnificent views onto the old town just a short walk from the European district of Kirchberg.

The simple volumes and generous spaces of the building show the mastery of the architectural language by the famous architect in combining stone and glass. The skillful play between interior and exterior, multiplying the selected views onto the park environment whilst opening onto the sky thanks to the audacious glass canopy, is highlighted through the use of the covering in Magny Doré, a honey-coloured limestone which assumes, at any time of the day and in all seasons, subtle nuances depending on the light which it reflects. The museum is spread over three levels of 4,500 m2 of surface area dedicated to the visits. Its construction was begun in January 1999 and it was inaugurated on 1 July 2006.

The cultural project of Mudam is based on a conception of art seen at a poetical distance from the world. Its key words are freedom, innovation, a critical mind, and all this, not devoid of humour. The programme favours every vector of expression while questioning our habits and our representations. It aims to capture not only a way of contemporary thinking, but also the aesthetic language of an age to come.

The Mudam Collection bares witness to contemporary creation in all its technical and aesthetic forms, while remaining open to every other artistic discipline: painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, as well as design, fashion, graphic design and new media are all put on show. Resolutely anchored in the contemporary, the collection endorses poetic variations from the great masters such as Bernd and Hilla Becher, Daniel Buren, Blinky Palermo or Cy Twombly. The museum’s interior and exterior furniture was entrusted to artists and designers such as Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec, Martin Szekely, Konstantin Grcic, Bert Theis, Andrea Blum or David Dubois). The Collection has been put together regarding the evolution of international creation while paying particular attention to the most significant national productions.

Mudam lives this adventure in relation with its public. The last-mentioned are invited to shed all preconceptions before entering the museum, to rid themselves of any prejudices and to apprehend art with a renewed look and in complete freedom. Numerous possibilities are offered in terms of the visit, from the most rigid to the most liberal, leaving a wide choice of exploration. A place for aesthetic discoveries, for reflection and contemplation, Mudam is also a place for conviviality in a restful environment (Mudam Café), and for finding treasures (Mudam Boutique).
OPENING HOURS
Wednesday to Friday: 11am – 8pm
Saturday to Monday: 11am – 6pm
Closed on Tuesday.

ENTRANCE FEES
Full price: 5€
Concessions: 3€
(18-26 years old, >60 years old, Amis des Musées, Groups from 15 people. Groups are kindly request to inform Mudam about their visit, phone: +352 45 37 85-1 or e-mail: visites@mudam.lu.)

Photos: © Pierre-Olivier Deschamps / Agence Vu, Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Architect: I.M. Pei

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