HISTORIES OF A PICTURE TO COME

Opening: Saturday 22.09.2018 // 18:00 - 21:00

One of Marx's most quoted and sarcastic statements said that Hegel remarked that all great world-historic facts and characters appear twice, but what Hegel forgot to add is that history comes first as a tragedy, the second time as a farce. It's hard to say nowadays whether history advances linearly and, if that is indeed the case, where it is heading. What is certain today is that the historical events that marked the last century came twice: first as a tragedy, then as a representation. Anyway, this cycle is an ever-recurring one. Thanks to the mass media—from newspapers, radio and television to the web—the account of events have reached a wider audience in the twentieth century than ever before.

Histories of a Picture to Come is the first of a series of exhibitions with works from the Argos collection that explores the dialectics between photographic and moving images. The exhibition examines how historical events are depicted, told and documented. First-hand or intimate experiences are linked to the Great History, different storytellings blur facts, documents are confronted with aesthetics practices, photographs fail to grasp and tell something about what has happened. However, the aim of the exhibition is neither to establish a hierarchy or inventory, nor to write a history of the twentieth century's massacres—it is meant as an investigation into how contemporary artists reflect on our recent past.

With works by Robert Capa, Sirah Foighel Brutmann & Eitan Efrat, Mekhitar Garabedian, Alfredo Jaar, Robert Lebeck, Xavier Lukomski, Miguel Peres dos Santos, Hermann Pitz, Marc Riboud, Walid Ra'ad, Sarah Vanagt & Katrien Vermeire, Roy Villevoye.

Related events

• Brussels Museums Nocturnes 2018
• Look at Me
• There all is order and beauty