This summer and autumn at M: exhibition and festival calendar
All the upcoming and ongoing exhibitions and festivals at M Leuven at a glance
Exhibitions
DIERIC BOUTS. Creator of images
Exhibition | Collection
20.10.23 - 14.01.24
In the autumn of 2023, M will present a major retrospective exhibition on Dieric Bouts as part of the 'New Horizons | Dieric Bouts Festival'. Never before have so many works by the Flemish master been brought together in his hometown. By radically confronting it with today's visual culture— we also bring a completely new perspective on work that is more than five centuries old.
HUMA BHABHA. LIVIN' THINGS
Exhibition
10.06.2023 - 29.10.2023
Huma Bhabha is known for her distinct visual language, which focuses on the human figure in all its expressive forms. She takes her inspiration from ancient sculpture, modernism as well as from contemporary popular imagery. Bhabha's monumental sculptures in striking combinations of material exist between the recognisable, human or animal and the otherworldly. In powerful and sometimes dark works, she explores themes of colonialism, war, displacement and memories.
Leen Voet
Exhibition
07.04.2023 - 10.09.2023
Leen Voet (born 1971) incorporates triggers from cultural, personal and historical contexts with subtle humour in programmatically designed series of paintings, installations and drawings. Often departing from (male) core figures such as the church, the family, the teacher-pupil relationship, the artistry, her work offers new perspectives on power relations, rules and expectations and on the artistic field. Leen Voet's style is characterised by vibrant colours and geometric shapes.
Jill Magid. The Migration of the Wings
Exhibition
07.04.2023 - 10.09.2023
M presents the first Belgian solo exhibition by American artist Jill Magid. In this exhibition, Magid explores themes of exile and diaspora, war and repatriation using sculptures, architectural elements as well as an audiovisual installation. The film follows the history of the 'Triptych of the Blessed Sacrament' 1464-8) by Dieric Bouts, which was commissioned for St Peter's Church in Leuven, where it can still be seen.
Festivals
M-IDZOMER
Music festival | performance
27.07.2023 - 30.07.2023
From Thursday 27 July to Sunday 30 July 2023, the quirky music and culture festival M-IDZOMER will take over M's courtyard garden and halls for its twelfth edition. Het Depot finds established and emerging names in music, M Leuven provides the arts programme. The musical headliners of M-IDZOMER have been know for a while and include Suzanne Vega, Thurston Moore Group, José González and DAAN. In the museum galleries, visitors will be able to enjoy exhibitions by Leen Voet, Jill Magid and Huma Bhabha, alongside the work of Olivia Hernaïz, Georgy Chtchevaev Clara Thomine, Onionfuzz and Daan Gielis.
Tickets are available via www.m-idzomer.be/tickets.
Playground
Live arts festival | performance
16.11.2023 -19.11.2023
For its seventeenth edition, Playground is once again offering artists who are not bound to one discipline but work at the interface between stage and visual arts a platform. Playground is a sanctuary for experimentation where performance, installation, image and movement merge into extraordinary presentations. More and more artists are breaking down the walls that traditionally separate the disciplines. They create new images that reflect on art, the world and the mediatisation of life.
On view continuously
Take your time
Exhibition | Collection
10.07.2020 - 31.03.2024
How long do you spend looking at a work of art in a museum? The average visitor spends 28.63 seconds. That includes taking selfies, obviously. With this collection presentation, we invite you to take your time and really look at art. To question the role of time in art. In what ways do artists actually represent time? Do you get to see the whole story presented in different scenes? Or does that one fleeting snapshot suggest the rest of the story? What does the work say about how the artist themselves look at time?
Museum in motion
Exhibition | Collection
04.03.2021 - 31.03.2024
M's collection is constantly evolving. Every year, we enrich our collection with unique pieces that tell an exceptional story. 'Museum in Motion’ gives around 20 of these acquisitions are given a place in the museum's galleries for the first time. For example, there is the 'Saint Arnulf of Metz', a late Gothic sculpture made of oak that we acquired in 2021 and there is also three paintings by Lebanese-Belgian artist Marie Zolamian (born in 1975).
The Ten
Exhibition | Collection
28.05.21 - 31.03.24
M worked with ten participants, M’s very own guinea pigs, on a collection presentation featuring artworks from the collection of M and Cera. The whole track was constructed as a digital experiment, in the form of a game with several episodes. Points could be earned per episode, which the guinea pigs then used to get their favourite artworks into the collection presentation. Each episode ended with a round of voting that resulted in works of arts being eliminated. The exhibition 'The Ten’ presents the final selection.
Form first
Exhibition | Collection
until 31.03.2024
The exhibition 'Form first' finds a home in the former splendour rooms of the Vanderkelen-Mertens home. Here, the couple received guests, held parties and displayed their opulence and curiosities. These spaces are ideal for exploring the residential and living culture of the bourgeoisie. Here you take a look at features, materials and techniques, and make comparisons between the past and the present. How was a windmill goblet used? What was a samovar used for? How long have we been eating with a fork? What messages could a lady send using a fan?
Moved
Exhibition | Collection
until 31.03.2024
Have you ever walked for hours behind a statue of a saint with a pair of wings tied to your back? Jesus dressed, rocked to sleep or laid down in his tomb? Or sacrificed your best jewellery to a bleeding host? Up until quite recently, religion played an important role in daily life in our regions. Church holidays and rituals defined the calendar and brought communities together. Pretty much everyone took part in it. Today, these traditions are much less familiar to us. But many of the objects that played a central role have survived. Some as part of the collection at M.
Nica Broucke