From today in M

The varied collection is built up around two major groups of objects. One is a unique collection of late-gothic paintings and sculptures. The second consists of 19th-century paintings and sculptures by various Flemish masters including Constantin Meunier, Jef Lambeaux and Georges Minne, to name only the most prominent.

This spring the films of Rottenberg (born in Buenos Aires in 1976, but now living in New York) receive their Belgian première in Leuven. Linking together often bizarre scenes, Rottenberg presents enigmatic working processes in which physical “waste materials” – such as blood, sweat and tears, or hair and nails – create new products, sometimes mixed up with salad or make-up. M exhibits about seven video installations by Rottenberg. This exhibition is a collaboration with De Appel in Amsterdam and is a part of Playground, a collaboration between M and Arts Center STUK Leuven.

At the crossroads of fiction and memory, of cheap sensation and horror, lies the dark world of American graphic novelist and illustrator Charles Burns (Seattle). His stories are populated by clichéd characters from comic books: know-it-all children, sinister scientists, tough-as-nails detectives and horny teenagers. Burns rearranges them into disturbing yet funny patterns.

Patrick Van Caeckenbergh (Aalst, °1960) attempts to reorder and redraw the world in a highly personal yet universal manner. He distances himself from the outside world and studies his own life and environment in a pseudo-scientific way. He creates imaginative collages and sculptures of figures by restructuring everyday objects. Using few materials, he produces artworks that stimulate our imaginations and remind us of fables and fairytales. Van Caeckenbergh is presenting a retrospective exhibition at M in which works from throughout his career, from the ‘80s until today, come together in a comprehensive, highly imaginative installation.

In his work Wannes Goetschalckx (1978, Zoersel) investigates the emotional versus the physical, or the ideological and the hypothetical in relation to the body and space. His oeuvre is a combination of videos, objects and performances in a sculptural setting which are occupied, explored and transformed by his interventions. In his performative installations, the limitations and possibilities of his body, hand-made objects and his own specific visual language play an important role. By imposing physical and mental challenges on his body and mind, he makes us think about our behaviour and place in the world.

Christoph Fink (Ghent, °1963) has been working on his 'Atlas of Movements’ for many years, exploring the borders of the human body and its interaction with its surroundings. This takes the form of detailed accounts of his travels, photographs, sound recordings, etc. which the artist then turns into experimental exhibitions such as space-filling cartographic and acoustic constructions consisting of drawings, diagrams, tables and layers of sound.

Wendingen was a groundbreaking art magazine published during the Interbellum and stands as a testament to the unbelievably creative energy of that period. This Dutch-language magazine, specialised in design and architecture, was essential to the development of modernism in the Low Countries, but it also had a clearly international perspective. Themed issues were published about Frank Lloyd Wright, Gustav Klimt and H. P. Berlage, among others. Both in terms of content and graphic art, the magazine was bursting with creative energy.

Stad en Architectuur is providing a collection of top architecture in the M Museum in Leuven with the Mies van der Rohe Award. It is the most prestigious award for contemporary architecture. An international jury has selected 45 buildings that have been realised in the past two years in Europe. M is the only place in the Benelux where this panorama of visionary and innovative architecture – on the basis of models, drawings and pictures – is brought together in the form of an exhibition. No less than seven projects of different Belgian bureaus are registered in this exhibition.

From May 2011 until January 2013, the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch is closing for an extensive expansion. The museum has offered M the opportunity to make a selection from its vast collections. For six months, M will host about 30 masterpieces from Den Bosch. Beautiful Late-Gothic woodcarvings, unique cityscapes dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and followers of Bosch, Rubens and Van Dijck seamlessly match twentieth-century works by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and James Ensor.

The American artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) is one of the most influential artists of the Minimal Art and Conceptual Art movements. LeWitt is best known for his geometric, modular sculptures and his architectural Wall Drawings, but has also produced drawings, photos and graphic works. M presents a selective overview of his Wall Drawings through about 25 examples that span his entire oeuvre. This is the very first time Sol LeWitt’s Wall Drawings can be seen on a large scale in Belgium. While M presents an overview of his Wall Drawings in colour, the Centre Pompidou in Metz is organising a parallel exhibition focusing on his black and white Wall Drawings.