Luxembourg 1499
Luxembourg
We are living through a period of profound change. Political, social, technological and ecological transformations are reshaping the world around us, often faster than we can fully understand them. A museum cannot provide simple answers to the questions of the present. It can, however, create a place to look closely, encounter different perspectives and think and experience together.
Mudam Luxembourg’s 2027 programme moves between past and future, the collection and new productions, visual art, performance, architecture, sound and music. Rather than defining a single theme, it brings different generations, geographies and artistic practices into relation, creating encounters from which new connections can emerge.
At the centre is the Mudam Collection. Throughout the year, works from the collection will appear across the museum, inviting audiences to look again at individual works, their architectural context and the ways we encounter art. History Otherwise, in three chapters, brings together Peter Friedl, Noel W. Anderson and Luke Willis Thompson around questions of images, history and possible futures. Many Ways of Speaking takes Su-Mei Tse’s Many Spoken Words (2009) as a starting point for an exploration of language in its spoken, written, visual and bodily forms. In the Grand Hall, Space Oddity and What’s Going On? approach the collection through questions of space, the body, nature and ecological change. The collection also forms a key point of departure for Mudam’s educational programme.
The exhibition programme expands these perspectives. Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s The Kuutar Garden combines virtual world-building, spatial sound and installation to explore relationships with living systems. Lotus L. Kang brings photography, sculpture, installation and moving image into dialogue with Mudam’s architecture. Pol Taburet draws on Caribbean mythology, art history and popular culture to create figures between the human and non-human, while Dan Lie considers decomposition, renewal and other-than-human forms of community.
History and representation are central to a major monographic exhibition devoted to Fabio Mauri, bringing together more than 100 works and archival materials. Marina Abramović’s exhibition forms part of red bridge project, a collaboration between Mudam, Philharmonie Luxembourg and les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg. At Mudam, it focuses on the head, bringing together works from the collection and works by other artists friends of hers. Álvaro Urbano will develop a site-specific installation conceived as a habitable diorama, bringing architecture, memory and fiction together.
Performance further transforms the museum into a place of action and encounter. Marina Abramović’s durational practice will activate the Grand Hall in a project curated by by the artist herself and the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI). Isabel Lewis explores social and political space, collective behaviour and the formation of shared beliefs. BULLYACHE brings dance, live music and ritual into a reflection on grief, consumerism, spectacle and survival, while Mel O’Callaghan’s First Sound, Last Soundtransforms the museum through the collective experience of sound.
Together, these projects reflect Mudam’s understanding of the museum as a place not only to look at art, but to spend time, listen, move, meet others and encounter the unexpected. Art can give pleasure and surprise; it can unsettle, provoke questions and stimulate the imagination. Mudam’s 2027 programme does not tell audiences what to think. It creates conditions for curiosity, attention and dialogue - and for art to open perspectives we may not have anticipated.
Exhibitions
March 19–October 10, 2027: Jakob Kudsk Steensen: The Kuutar Garden
March 19–August 15, 2027: Lotus L. Kang
April 30, 2027–January 23, 2028: Pol Taburet
April 30–August 15, 2027: Dan Lie
June 4, 2027–January 2028: Fabio Mauri: Works and Actions, 1942–2009
September 17, 2027–April 2028: Marina Abramović & MAI
red bridge project, with Philharmonie Luxembourg and Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg
November 12, 2027–April 2028: Álvaro Urbano
Mudam Collection
March 6–April 4, 2027: Space Oddity
March 6, 2027–April 30, 2028: Many Ways of Speaking
April 30, 2027–January 23, 2028: History Otherwise
December 11, 2027–January 23, 2028: What’s Going On?
Performances
March 20–21, 2027: Isabel Lewis
July 2027: BULLYACHE
November 6–28, 2027: Mel O’Callaghan: First Sound, Last Sound
