CONTOUR 7
A Moving Image Biennale
29 August–8 November 2015
Press preview: 26 August
Opening: 28 August
Mechelen
Belgium
Artists
AaBbPp / A Dog Republic and RAM Radioartemobile / Sander Breure and Witte van Hulzen / Andrea Büttner / Jan Fabre / Michael Fliri / Chiara Fumai / Johan Grimonprez / Fabrice Hyber / Rabih Mroué / Ana Prvacki / Michael Rakowitz / Gilad Ratman / Albert Serra / Slavs and Tatars / Nedko Solakov / Javier Téllez / Grazia Toderi / An van. Dienderen / Angel Vergara / Gilberto Zorio
Curator
Nicola Setari
Advisors
Chus Martìnez / W. J. T. Mitchell / Hilde Van Gelder
CONTOUR 7 muses over monsters, martyrs and media; but also over fools and utopias
“There was a parasite standing around, who liked to play the fool, and was so good at it that you could hardly tell him from the real thing.”
–Thomas More, Utopia
CONTOUR 7, a Moving Image Biennale, is set to open soon. The exhibition is organized around a theme, Monsters, Martyrs and Media, and a research project, Fooling Utopia. An international group of artists has engaged with both and is bringing new and existing works to historic and contemporary venues in the City of Mechelen. As part of the research project, there will also be a temporary library and salon focused on utopian literature and thinking. The first and third edition of Thomas More’s Utopia, respectively published in Leuven in 1516 and in Basel in 1518, will be presented in the exhibition.
CONTOUR 7 is dedicated to Thomas More and invokes his protection for the success of its undertakings. More was and is regarded by many as a martyr and by some as a monster, perhaps even as a philosopher or artist. Certainly he was a brilliant fool, well ahead of his time. No wonder Erasmus dedicated In Praise of Folly to him. It was while visiting Flanders in the summer of 1515 that More wrote the bulk of his book on the ideal commonwealth, the island of Utopia. A book full of playfulness and irony about a place sometimes too serious and dull to be taken literally.
With More’s guidance, and that of other acute makers and foolers of utopias—artists and philosophers especially—perhaps a poetic form of ascension from the dystopian media maelstroms that encircle us can be found. Were such a thing possible, maybe the monsters and martyrs that populate our imaginaries could settle their differences, at least for the time being, and bring us to the threshold of hope and good omens.
Press contact: Hannes Dereere, hannes [at] contourmechelen.be
Contour Mechelen vzw
Sint-Romboutskerkhof 2
2800 Mechelen
Belgium
