Temporary exhibitions

Léon SPILLIAERT – The Picture’s Origin
In Dialogue with Drawings and Prints

The exhibition Léon Spilliaert – The Picture’s Origin shows how the creative process of sketching and drawing plays a supportive role in the creation of original prints and engravings in Spilliaert’s oeuvre.

As a young draughtsman Spilliaert contemplated emotions such as love and death, loneliness, desire and shame, and he cast an inspired glance at relationships between men and women and between individuals.

In addition, with small nuanced self-portraits in pencil and ink, like so many snapshots, he also illustrated the evolution of his own image. These critical, instantaneous and mostly very spontaneous impressions subtly represent the deeply intimate analysis of his inner, tormented soul.

For the first time, exceptional works from private collections are brought together here, which for many will mean a rediscovery of the artist’s work.

FRED BERVOETS – Usual unsual
Drawings and Prints

Few artists are as iconic and inextricably linked to Antwerp as Fred Bervoets.

In this milestone year, in which the artist celebrates his 80th birthday and MDR blows out five candles, the retrospective Usual Unusual, a synopsis of more than 60 years of being an artist, may therefore not come as a surprise.

The exhibition opens the doors wide on Bervoets’ fantasy and introduces the visitor to a world full of fantastic figures and grotesque characters, monumental scenes and intimate self-portraits.

A life full of art, encapsulated in the form of works on paper.