Open AccessObject Biographies and Museums: 100 X Congo in Antwerp, Exhibition at the Museum aan de Stroom, Antwerp, Belgium, 3 October 2020 - 12 September 2021
Author(s) -
Hugo DeBlock
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
museum and society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1479-8360
DOI - 10.29311/mas.v19i3.3783
Subject(s) - exhibition , museology , context (archaeology) , colonialism , art , art history , visual arts , object (grammar) , the arts , doors , history , archaeology , engineering , linguistics , philosophy , structural engineering
The Museum aan de Stroom (MAS) in Antwerp, Belgium, opened the doors of its long-anticipated exhibition, 100 X Congo, on 3 October 2020, highlighting the presence of a Congolese art collection that has been owned by the city for a hundred years (1920-2020). Tackling the often uneasy history of how these things ended up in museums in the colonial ‘motherland’, this exhibition signals a step forwards in museology in Belgium, away from mere aestheticism of Congolese and, by extension, African arts, towards, in contrast, a focus on provenance, context and cultural importance.