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Knokke is not only a lovely seaside town. It is also an artistically oriented city with its numerous galleries and monumental works. The town is currently the scene of an exhibition by Belgian conceptual artist Koen Vanmechelen.
© Koen Vanmechelen & Ami Amis
The exhibition was announced with the installation of a marble sculpture, Walking Egg, outside of Knokke’s cultural centre, CC Scharpoord. The work of art weighs a whopping 900 kilograms. It’s at the Scharpoord Cultural Centre that visitors have the pleasure of experiencing Vanmechelen’s exhibition, which has been titled Cosmopolitan Renaissance.
The exhibition is multidisciplinary and meaningful, seeking an answer to the question how humans should move forward – one which the artist has been tackling ever since he started producing art.
With Cosmopolitan Renaissance, he does it through not only sculptures, but also drawings, paintings, installations and even videos inside the cultural centre. These are complemented by outdoor installations, performances and other events.
The exhibition is curated by art historian Jo Coucke, who has described Vanmechelen as “an exemplary artist of and for our time and world”. And the world has seen Koen Vanmechelen. He has had exhibitions all over, from the Uffizi gallery in Florence and the Biennial of Venice to places as exotic as Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, passing by Detroit and Miami just to name a few.
Your cultural excursion to Knokke to see the work of Koen Vanmechelen is also the perfect occasion to savour the legendary waffles of Marie Siska or to enjoy a ride on the longest tram line in the world.
