20 years of Museum Night

Choose an artwork from the collection and have a fragment of it applied to your skin as temporary face paint. While it is being applied, a museum worker briefly tells you about the work: a detail, a meaning or an unexpected anecdote. Image and skin meet. The work travels with you through the Museum Night.

Seven scarecrow figures, filled with straw and dressed in original designs by the Antwerp Six, form a work by artist Daniel Knorr. As a series, they stand between fashion, object, marketing and art. For Museum Night, the work is shown once again. Take a seat on a bed of straw on the rooftop terrace, referring to the material inside the figures. Together with a guide from MoMu, who gives daily tours of the current exhibition on the Antwerp Six, you will enter into conversation about canon, name and value, about what is visible and what remains unnamed.

In the spirit of ORLAN’s MesuRAGEs, you measure the site around the Court of Appeal using your own body as the unit of measurement. MesuRAGEs is a long-running series of performances by ORLAN, in which she measures public spaces and cultural institutions using her own body as a reference. She previously performed this work at the ICC, the predecessor of Muhka, and later also at Muhka itself. During Museum Night, you will not perform ORLAN’s performance, but will take part in an activity inspired by her work. Explore the site around the Court of Appeal – once the planned location for Muhka’s new building – and use your body as a measuring instrument. An invitation to experience a place through physicality, contact and direct presence. This activity is weather-dependent. In case of rain or strong wind, it cannot take place. You will be expected to lie down on the ground. Please bear in mind that you may get dirty.

Muhka is clearing out its archive with the collective AARS (Antwerp Artist Run School) and artists Idris Sevenans and Tomas Beaujean. What if waste becomes art again? In an ongoing performance, shredded pieces from the Muhka archive are mixed with plaster and reassembled into an artwork in public ownership.

Joris Van de Moortel creates a temporary place around tarot on the sixth floor, with live performance, a short documentary and a workshop in which you can work with tarot yourself. The space and documentary are accessible throughout the evening. Between 20.00 and 00.00, Joris alternates tarot readings with live music. You can also work with the cards yourself and formulate your own predictions and insights. The documentary on tarot was made by Joris Van de Moortel and Timo Vergauwen. Music performance: Joris, vocals and guitar; Zias, guitar and keyboards; Marlon, bass; Alfredo, drums. Documentary: Joris Van de Moortel and Timo Vergauwen.

On the kissing couch, a brief moment of proximity between bodies emerges without a fixed script. How close can an encounter between art and visitor become? Take a seat on the ‘Kissing Couch’ for an unplanned encounter: a kiss on the cheek, an unexpected moment that arises briefly between people and then disappears again. This action connects with the work of Nicola L., in which the body is not only represented but also questioned as object, surface and presence. In her practice, lips, eyes and body parts become both functional and vulnerable forms.

With a torch in hand, you move through Muhka’s collection labyrinth. You are taken on a guided tour through Muhka’s collection labyrinth. With a torch in hand and creaking doors in the background, you move through a collection revealed differently for one night. Some works emerge in the light, while others remain hidden in the shadows. A nocturnal experience in which darkness, sound and atmosphere offer a new perspective on the collection. The tour starts approximately every 20 minutes and lasts around 15–20 minutes. Groups are limited to 10 people. First come, first served.

Let loose to the flamboyant music of DJ All-Man in the M HKAFE.