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Old is new again

Leading the pack this 11 July, Raymond van het Groenewoud never seems to go out of style

Almost 25 years ago, Raymond van het Groenewoud wrote the unofficial Flemish anthem, the slightly ironic ode “Vlaanderen Boven” (Flanders on Top). Ten years ago, on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the Battle of the Golden Spurs, he updated the lyrics, and the song became the official party hymn of the celebrations.

Now, in the summer of 2012, Van het Groenewoud (pictured) is inviting us all to join him in Brussels on 11 July for Flemish Community Day, with which he is now inextricably associated, his songs for years part of Flemish cultural heritage.

For sure, it will be a hectic day for the singer and songwriter, now 62. In the afternoon, he will play at Flagey with the Brussels Philharmonic. In the evening, he will sing his biggest hits for a major crowd on the Grote Markt, surrounded by colleagues such as Helmut Lotti, Hannelore Bedert and Flip Kowlier.

Tom Peeters
(July 4, 2012)

Play my name

An Pierlé is ringing out personalised melodies on the Ghent carillon
© TRACK / PieterBaert

You may have never wondered how your name would sound being played by a full carillon, but now that you can find out, it’s rather intriguing isn’t it? Go to the Crowd Track Gent website, fill in your name, and a programme will turn your name into a melody on the city’s tower bells. How? By using a new musical alphabet that converts the letters of your name into samples of notes on the carillon.

That’s not all: If singer-songwriter and Ghent city composer An Pierlé likes your melody, she’ll use it to compose a piece of music. This will be the first crowd-sourced carillon composition in the world, and is the 42nd artwork in TRACK, the contemporary art festival currently running across the city of Ghent.

Daan Bauwens
(June 27, 2012)

The tipping point

A non-profit with a business plan hopes to convince leaders to save the Brussels Royal Conservatory before it’s too late
© www.354.be

There are ceilings falling down, mould growing and pigeons nesting in the roof. Brussels Royal Conservatory falls more into ruin every year. One-third of the premises is now unusable, and the state of affairs doesn’t help with the recruitment of new students. A local organisation of music enthusiasts is trying to save one of the most unique conservatories in the world.

The bat was impossible to ignore. Round and round it flitted, mostly hugging the concert hall’s frosted glass ceiling but occasionally darting towards the singer on stage, a young woman who bravely continued as the audience ducked their heads. A semi-finalist at the Queen Elisabeth competition four years ago, she had come well prepared to cope with the stage fright, the treacherous programme, the ruthless jury. But no one, surely, had warned her about the bats.

Marie Dumont
(June 20, 2012)

Manifest destiny

Europe's only roving arts biennial opens in Genk
© Marcel Broodthaers

It’s the moment the arts community has been waiting for: the opening of Manifesta 9 in the old Waterschei mine site in Genk, Limburg province. One of the top three visual arts events in Europe, the nomadic biennial chose the region for its postindustrial cultural transitions and its rich coal-mining history.

In the 1950s, Greek labourer Spyros Roumeliotiso, like so many other southern Europeans, travelled to Genk to work in the coal mines. In his pocket was a photo – or rather, half a photo. He and his wife had torn apart a portrait of the two of them. He had the half with her image, and, back in Greece, she kept the half with his. When they were reunited in Genk, they sewed the two pieces of the photo back together with yarn.

Lisa Bradshaw
(June 12, 2012)

The clothes make the woman

Social history is revealed through women’s clothing at Antwerp’s Fashion Museum
©Ronald Stoops

In a world ruled by online access and influence, it’s easy to think that every phenomenon is a direct result of today’s society. It takes an inventive approach to history to show us that this is not the case. In the field of style and clothing, the Antwerp Fashion Museum’s latest exhibition proves that we might not be as original as we thought.

These are exciting times for fashion museums, that much is clear. There is not a self-respecting city in the world that isn’t trying to lure visitors with trendy fashion exhibitions. The best way to do that is to present the oeuvres of awe-inspiring designers: Focusing on the universe of these godlike creatures ensures headlines, visits from industry influentials and the respect of fashion aficionados.

Stéphanie Duval
(April 11, 2012)

Drawing the shapes of music

Philip Paquet turns the Brussels Jazz Orchestra into comic book characters

Antwerp illustrator, comic artist and painter Philip Paquet considers himself a storyteller first. And what’s better for a good story than a good soundtrack?

So the Brussels Jazz Orchestra (BJO), together with Flemish trumpeter Bert Joris, wrote a score to Paquet’s famous jazz stories. To return the favour, he drew a story about the renowned big band. The result is the live performance Graphicology: A Visual Jazz Score. Paquet, 38, lives in a neat apartment in the Berchem district of Antwerp. The distinctive mix of black and white with only an occasional blotch of colour that typifies his graphic novels is reflected in both his interior and his clothing style.

Tom Peeters
(April 4, 2012)

In with the new

Brussels’ avant-garde art centre Beursschouwburg is gearing up for a change of director
© Dieter Telemans

These are interesting times for art lovers in Brussels. Why? Cis Bierinckx, the much-applauded director of Beursschouwburg, is about to leave, and Tom Bonte, former programmer of performing arts at Ghent art centre Vooruit, is taking over from 1 April. We sat down with the two men to reflect on what has been, what is now and what will be in the future.

In the heart of the capital, metres from the Brussels Stock Exchange, lies one of the oldest centres of art in Belgium: the Beursschouwburg. It’s internationally known for its daring, visionary and rebellious character, and has always stayed up to date with everything that’s new in music, dance and performance. In 2006, internationally renowned art guru Cis Bierinckx became head of the venue. But he’s about to leave.

Daan Bauwens
(March 21, 2012)

The underworld and other places

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven mixes women, science and sleaze

Flemish artist Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven draws on a wide range of sources, but she has a particular fondness for re-claiming images of women from the sleazier end of mass media. Her latest work features pages from a 1950s American scandal sheet with the pungent headline: “Meet the Clip Joint Broads”. Underneath runs a story exposing a prostitution racket, accompanied by teasing pictures of the women involved.

As soon as she saw the magazine, the Antwerp-based artist knew she could work with it. But she had to wait for the right moment. “It’s being lying there for 10 or 12 years,” she tells me. “Sometimes you have an idea immediately, but I liked these so much that I couldn’t use them right away.”

When she was offered a large solo exhibition in Chicago, a city synonymous with gangsters, she felt the moment had come. “The images have an intimate connection with the underworld, and it was tantalising for me to do that. Maybe it was a bit confrontational as well.”

Ian Mundell
(March 14, 2012)

The boon of Boon

Flanders fetes one of its most famous writers during the centenary of his birth

Louis Paul Boon was one of Flanders’ most influential writers of the 20th century, though his name strikes a different chord with different people. Some call him unequivocally one of the most talented authors in the Dutch language who ever lived, while others find him an “issue author” – too nihilistic to be great. Those who know him only by media reports of the last couple of decades – and they are many – judge him by the controversy of Fenomenale Feminateek, a collection of erotic images he amassed and that make up one of the hundreds of events of the centenary festival Boon! 2012

On 15 March 1912, Louis Paul Boon sees the light of day in Aalst, in a world limping between sluggish continuation and the changes decades of labouring through the Second Industrial Revolution have brought about. Soon this world embarks on the War to End All Wars. A host of shattered lives and crushed illusions later, Private Boon finds himself in the middle of the Second World War, yet another manifestation of man’s destructive nature.

Bjorn Gabriels
(March 7, 2012)

The global pioneer

The work of the Fleming who charted the earth, the sea and the sky, comes to life in a new digital exhibition celebrating his 500th birthday

Gerardus Mercator was a geographer, cartographer, mathematician and maker of scientific instruments. His mapping technique, the Mercator projection, literally changed the way people saw the world. The quality of his maps was the envy of generations of mapmakers, and his legacy – a projection of the world globe on to a map – is still used today for navigation at sea, in the air and for GPS applications. And he was born in Flanders.

When Emerentia Kremer, wife of a humble shoemaker, gave birth to her seventh child on 5 March 1512 in St Johann hospice in Rupelmonde, little did she know the worldwide fame that baby Gerard would go on to enjoy.

Emerentia and her husband, Hubert, were actually in Rupelmonde, now part of the town of Kruibeke in East Flanders, by chance, having travelled from their home town of Gangelt in Germany to visit Hubert’s brother, Gisbert. A few weeks after Gerard’s birth, they returned to Gangelt but felt drawn back to Flanders in 1518 to make Rupelmonde their home.

Denzil Walton
(February 29, 2012)