Artistic programme 2024

Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean announces the 2024 artistic programme, conceived by its Director Bettina Steinbrügge, and embarks on a new chapter of its history. 

The first exhibition, titled A Model, proposes a reflection on the role of museums at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It reaffirms the institution as a living place, sensitive and receptive to contemporary debates. A Model brings together more than a dozen artists who have been invited to conceive new commissions inspired by and in dialogue with works from the museum collection. Unfolding across three distinct periods, the exhibition series launched A Model: Prelude—Rayyane Tabet. Trilogy followed by the group exhibition A Model, which will encompass two entire floors of the museum and opens on February 9, 2024, and concludes with A Model: Epilogue—Jason Dodge: Tomorrow, I walked to a dark black star. The exhibition is accompanied by a public programme in which international curators, museum directors, researchers and artists interrogate and reconsider the role of museums in dialogue with Mudam, international and Luxembourg audiences.

Artistic research around new technologies lie at the heart of two exhibitions presented in 2024: Agnieszka Kurant will conceive a new installation for the Henry J. and Erna D. Leir Pavilion, and a group exhibition titled Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1966–1991 will survey the first three decades of digital art from a feminist perspective. 

Our 2024 programme also features two large scale monographic exhibitions. Cosima von Bonin, one of the most prolific German artists of her generation, will reunite works created over the past ten years alongside a new installation for Mudam's Grand Hall. The first retrospective of Alexander ‘Xanti’ Schawinsky outside of Switzerland will highlight the multidisciplinary dimension of his oeuvre, inspired by the spirit of Bauhaus where Schawinsky studied in the 1920s. It will include a new large-scale installation by Monster Chetwynd, designed as a contemporary counterpoint to Schawinsky’s oeuvre.

Performance is a major focus of our programme—co-produced with three European institutions (WIELS—Centre d’Art Contemporain in Brussels, Batalha Centro de Cinema in Porto and KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin), the installation Workers in Song by Billy Bultheel and James Richards will serve as the framework for a series of musical performances taking place at Mudam. As part of the red bridge project, the joint initiative between the Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, the Philharmonie and Mudam, the museum will become a place of possibilities through the integrative project The Manifestation by Samoan artist and choreographer Lemi Ponifasio.

The Mudam Collection, a keystone of the museum’s activities, will also play a vital role in the upcoming programme through the presentation of two recently acquired bodies of work: the installation Air Conditioning (2022) by Lawrence Abu Hamdan and four videos by Sin Wai Kin from the series Portraits (2023), which were the Baloise Art Prize in 2023. Both testify to the ways in which the Mudam Collection engages with questions at the forefront of contemporary society.

Finally, Mudam is proud to curate the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 60th International Art Exhibition—La Biennale di Venezia. The project, conceived by Luxembourgish artist and musician Andrea Mancini and the Brussels-based design collective Every Island, will approach the pavilion as a perpetually evolving site of musical experimentation.

A Model: December 1, 2023–September 8, 2024
A Model: Prelude—Rayyane Tabet. Trilogy, from December 1, 2023 to May 12, 2024
A Model, from February 9–September 8, 2024
A Model: Epilogue—Jason Dodge: Tomorrow, I walked to a dark black star, from May 4 to September 8, 2024
Artists Alvar Aalto, Sophia Al Maria, James Richmond Barthé, Nina Beier et Bob Kil, Tomaso Binga, Anna Boghiguian, Andrea Bowers, Robert Breer et Pontus Hultén, Matilde Cerruti Quara, Ali Cherri, Tony Cokes, Nayla Dabaji, Jason Dodge, Claire Fontaine, Matthew Angelo Harrison, General Idea, María Jerez et Edurne Rubio, Isaac Julien, Marysia Lewandowska, Hanne Lippard, Renzo Martens, Melvin Moti, Oscar Murillo, Palle Nielsen, Khandakar Ohida, Daniela Ortiz, Hila Peleg, Walid Raad, Finnegan Shannon, Krista Belle Stewart, SUPERFLEX, Rayyane Tabet, Su-Mei Tse, Nora Turato, Dardan Zhegrova, among others.

Mudam Collection
Lawrence Abu Hamdan—Air Conditioning, March 22–June 9, 2024
Sin Wai Kin—2023 Baloise Art Prize, March 22–June 9, 2024

Billy Bultheel and James Richards — Workers in Song, March 22–June 9, 2024
Agnieszka Kurant, June 7, 2024–January 5, 2025
Xanti Schawinsky: Play, Life, Illusion—a Retrospective, July 12, 2024–January 5, 2025
Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing. 1960–1991, September 20, 2024–February 2, 2025
Cosima von Bonin, October 11, 2024–March 2, 2025

Collaborations
Andrea Mancini & Every Island–A Comparative Dialogue Act, April 20–November 24, 2024
Luxembourg Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, Venice
Lemi Ponifasio—The Manifestation, participative parade and performance, June 29, 2024