As part of the Summer of Photography 2012, an initiative of Bozar, the CENTRALE for Contemporary Art presents the exhibition “Mindscapes” or how to make the invisible visible?
This exhibition provides in several chapters a subjective and intuitive reading of the photographic depiction of the human being and the landscape.
Photographs of mediums, scenes of voodoo, evanescent bodies, materialisations, subjective landscapes, etc. are all exhibited as stages in a journey through the mystery of representation and perception.

© Arno Rafael MINKKINEN, Beach Pond, Connecticut, 1974

The CENTRALE for contemporary art will be the catalyst and relay of part of the young Moroccan arts scene. In a country dominated by the artwork framed or placed on a pedestal for interior decoration, these artists here opt for the freedom of form and medium. They practice the art sound installations, videos, performances or installations (often fabricated with basic materials).
Informed as they are of what is going on in the world of international art, their concern lies however with their immediate neighborhood and is in tune with current debates. They are connected to the social, economic and cultural realities, and respond with poetic and political art. In short, they are engaged artists closely communicating with the public on subjects like work, the right to work, human rights.
As part of DABA Maroc, Mustapha Akrim, Mohamed Arejdal, Younes Baba-Ali, Mohssin Harraki, Mohammed Laouli, Mohamed El Mahdaoui and Simohammed Fettaka, are invited to submit new productions refering to the City of Brussels and its urban environment.

© Arno Rafael MINKKINEN

Rediscover the history of Belgian art through a 100 works, the favourites from the heart by Claude Blondeel. The columnist, writer and art critic, at the origin of this jolly ‘Bazaar’, will guide you through his imaginary museum.
Remembering Arthur Rimbaud and his famous “One must be absolutely modern”,Blondeel decided with a whiff of “wild eclecticism”, so dear to him, to start his story of Belgian art with Félicien Rops. This very particular view, both sensitive and scholarly, of the history of art, includes the visual arts, film, photography, video, fashion, comics and advertising.
In his “Belgian Bazaar”, Alechinsky and De Bruyckere, Claus and Simenon, Gal and Geluck, Horta and van de Velde, Arno and Sax, Wéry and Tuerlinckx, Béjart and Storck, Permeke and Spillaert, la Monnaie and the Archiduc, … will be happily surprised of this get-together!

Through a selection of around 100 works from the Centre national des arts plastiques collection [French National centre for visual arts], with particular focus on the young French scene, the exhibition seeks to trace the source of creative thought and action.
The artist assumes the role of lucid observer of the world and artistic creation. He plays freely with the forms of historical avantgardes, casts a critical glance at the originality of forms and systems of thought, and seeks to cast off constraints and to affirm the primacy of chance and progressive effacement.
The mission of CNAP is to support and promote contemporary art in all its diversity, including among other the support for creation.
It also runs a national collection of over 93.000 works, the fonds national d’art contemporain [National Fund of Contemporary Art], which it enriches, preserves and makes known in France and abroad. This prospective collection, unique in its scope, is set out to be a reflection of the contemporary art scene.

© Mircea Cantor, Echoing Reconstitution, 2004

Inspired by the painters of Chennai (Madras), famed for their Bollywood cinema posters, Johan MUYLE developes since the 1990s monumental installations combining urban and popular expression. In the monographic exhibition INDIAN STUDIO, held as part of the Festival europalia.india, the CENTRALE presents, for the first time ever in Belgium, a series of these installations, which have already been exhibited throughout the world.
Johan MUYLE will also show a recent series of motorised sculptures made from objects brought back from his numerous trips to India.
Johan MUYLE’s work questions both our individual and our cultural identity. Be it his assemblages of mechanised objects or his monumental installations, the visual and formal paradoxes of Johan MUYLE’s work lead to a critical reading in the face of culture and society.
For this exhibition, the Fonds Mercator publishes the trilingual work Johan Muyle, Indian Studio (1995 -…). It is the first significant monograph dedicated to the artist’s Indian years and includes a critical contribution from the Belgian author Bernard MARCELIS.

© Johan Muyle