KMSKA continues artistic dialogue with What's the Story? II  

On 28 November, What's the Story? II will open at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA). The second part of an exhibition that revolves around the encounter between old and new. In three carefully selected ensembles, contemporary artists such as Kati Heck, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven and Rinus Van de Velde stand side by side with their historical predecessors from the museum's collection.

What’s the Story? II will guide visitors through three themed halls: Life and Death, Temptation and Storytelling. Curators Nico Van Hout and Erno Vroonen's presentation will show how the same motifs change over the centuries, and how artists expand on each other's work. What's the Story? invites you to discover the connections behind the ensembles.

In the first hall, Life and Death are diametrically opposed. Pure emotion and zest for life prevail by juxtaposing a mythological scene by Jacob Jordaens with contemporary, ceramic sculptures by Maen Florin. Simultaneously, Kati Heck's grotesque canvases juxtaposed with Jan Massijs' 16th-century Judit unmistakably allude to their inherent transience.

In the next hall, the focus shifts to the theme of Temptation. Here, Belgian artists Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Liliane Vertessen and Evelyne Axell combine their critical view of women as objects of desire. With colourful pop art, neon lights and video art, they deploy their own bodies or transgress the rules of existing art traditions, resulting in a powerful statement.

In the final hall, What's the Story? arrives at its essence. By having Rinus Van de Velde and Jozef Legrand enter into dialogue with Constant Permeke's The Man with the Jacket, the concept of Storytelling is approached from within. Permeke fills his entire canvas with a single figure of a labourer. Van de Velde and Legrand, on the other hand, tell their stories in their own unique way, through a charcoal drawing in which everything - like a ‘one-shot movie’ - comes together in a single image or in haunting visual sculptures. Here, it is the spectators who play the leading role. It will be up to them to unravel the plot.

Artists past and present influence our ideas about universal subjects. By showing their works jointly, they tell a shared story. Their interpretation, however, is not set in stone. Indeed, What's the Story? is inviting free association. Thus, you can establish your own associations between artists of today and their soulmates from the past. – Dr. Nico Van Hout, head of KMSKA collections