IN SITU programme

The IN SITU programme at M HKA offers medium-scale monographic exhibitions by significant early- and mid-career artists from around the world. It focuses on the commissioning of new works and experimental practices in what is M HKA’s largest and most atypical exhibition space. To date, the programme has presented exhibitions by Otobong Nkanga, Alexandre Estrela, Aslan Gaisumov, Michèle Matyn, Peter Wächtler, and the Lifepatch collective. The IN SITU programme is led by Nav Haq, Senior Curator, M HKA.

In 2018, the programme will present the following exhibitions:

Cevdet Erek
AAAAA
January 20–April 29, 2018

With works based on experience and perception, particularly of place, time and rhythm, Cevdet Erek’s practice might be considered an investigation into the politics of space. An artist with a background in architecture as well as music, Erek has often worked site-specifically in non-art spaces as part of his natural territory. His installation series Room of Rhythms which began in 2012 for Documenta 13 in a disused department store being a key example, followed more recently by his major project ÇIN for the Pavilion of Turkey at the Venice Biennale in 2017. For his exhibition at M HKA, Erek has developed an experimental project that takes the core facets of his practice into a new material investigation. Cevdet Erek is based in Istanbul.

SAHA provided support for the production of the new work by Cevdet Erek.

Thea Gvetadze
May 12–September 2, 2018
Official opening: June 2

Thea Gvetadze is an artist creating images of enigmatic scenarios, loaded with tension, emotion and symbolism. Experimenting with traditional techniques in clay and textile amongst other materials, Gvetadze’s practice speculates on different forms of image making. Her paintings in particular, often painted directly onto black velvet, are compositions unyielding to the pull of such a dark and cosmic ground. Her exhibition at M HKA will configure a selection of new and existing works in painting, ceramics and tapestry, presented alongside deeply loaded and personal artefacts. Thea Gvetadze is based in Tbilisi.

Haseeb Ahmed
September 15, 2018–January 6, 2019
Official opening: October 4

Haseeb Ahmed’s art practice integrates methodologies from the hard sciences towards a techno-poetics. His exhibition at M HKA unfolds his ongoing “Wind Egg” experiment. The concept of wind eggs postulates that animals and people can be fertilised by the wind – a belief held for millennia by ancient Egyptian, Arab, Indian and Chinese cultures. Ahmed has worked to realise this idea with state-of-the-art wind tunnel technology at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium. In the process, he blends art and aeronautics, myth and technology, reflecting the human capacity to project empathetic sensibilities onto inhuman things by seeking to give personification to the wind. A project that moves from antiquity to astrobiology, the exhibition will function as a test-site, imagining the possibilities for humans to reproduce without men and with the wind. Haseeb Ahmed is based in Brussels.

Supported by Swiss National Science Foundation at the Zurich University of the Arts, Saint Lucas Antwerp College of Art and Design, and the University of Antwerp.

M HKA, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, is an initiative of the Flemish Community and is supported by the City of Antwerp, Klara, H ART, De Morgen, De Olifant and Allen & Overy.