Open Monumenten Dag

Last sunday we had “Open Monumenten Dag” here in Flanders (for those not familiar with Belgium: Flanders is the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). On “Open Monument Day” sites not normally accessible to the public are opened to visitors (like factories, historic buildings, private gardens/houses of interest etc), and locations which normally charge an entrance fee can be visited for free (like museums etc). Usually this occasion draws a huge crowd, and not being a crowd-person myself, I usually steer well clear of any of the advertised locations on that particular day.

But since it was a sunny and relatively warm day, and I had my son with me for the weekend, I thought it might actually be fun for him, and decided to take part for the first time. I let him choose the location (from a carefully narrowed-down shortlist of course), and with all the wisdom of his almost 4 years of age, he chose to visit a castle  – surprise! – so we went to visit the Castle of Gaasbeek. The castle was housing an exhibition of selected works by various contemporary artists, so it had both the castle-fun-and-excitement for my son, as well as some history and art for his dad to enjoy.

Because of it being a sunny day there was probably an even larger crowd than usual. In any case there were a lot more people than I expected, and I already expected the worst. But in spite of that, it actually turned out be great fun for the both of us. My son insisted on doing the tour of the interior of the castle twice – he just couldn’t get enough of all the winding corridors and staircases – and I was pleasantly surprised by the castle itself – really beautiful – and by the art on exhibition (which as a result of my son’s enthousiasm I also got to see twice )

On display were a number of individual pieces by various artists, and the Royal Blood series of photographs by photographer / graphic artist Erwin Olaf. If you don’t know his work, you can find it at www.erwinolaf.com, but be warned that it is at times explicit and often a bit shocking – not for the narrow-minded. I like the Royal Blood series, because of its combination of refined high-key grace with dark gory bloody effects – a perfect expression of the message it wants to convey. The photographs were very appropriately displayed along the walls of the staircase in the main tower of the Castle. Heard lots of reactions from the other visitors, ranging from chuckles to expressions of disgust. You like it or you don’t, but it doesn’t leave you cold.

Another work I really liked was Pang by Anouk de Clerq (unfortunately I didn’t find any website dedicated to her work), a photo animation with soundscape evoking the ideal image of women in the 19th century – as creatures who should be beautiful and refined, but who should not take part in public life (to be seen but not heard). It was displayed in the darkness of the attic of the main tower, with the few small windows covered by blue cellophane – giving an overall eerie effect. There was room to sit down and become immersed in the atmosphere of the work, but only a handful of visitors actually did – most came into the room, stared empty-eyed at the display for about 10 seconds, then turned around and left. They didn’t seem to have any reaction at all, not even curiosity about what was being communicated. They didn’t stop to think about what they saw. Shame. I must confess it wasn’t easy for me either – I really had to argue to convince my son to sit still for 5 minutes It struck me though that most visitors had the exact same reaction as my 4-year old son.

And that sort of sums up why I don’t usually participate in events such as Open Monument Day. Although it is of course a nice initiative to lure people out of their houses, most people taking part are really just killing time, they are not really interested in what they see. So it not only draws too large a crowd to be comfortable, it also draws people to events they would most probably not visit otherwise. The net result is you end up wading through a mass of people who are there but who are not really taking part. Too much physical presence and too little mental interest. I prefer to visit these places on other occasions, when there’s less people around, and when those that are there are there for the right reasons: to experience and enjoy.

G

Explore posts in the same categories: Art, Photography

Tags: Art, open monumenten dag, anouk de clercq, pang, erwin olaf, royal blood, gaasbeek, castle

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