MoMu Dream Visit: Masquerade, Makeup & Ensor

It is not so much the content that is at the heart of our 'Dream Visit', but the experience: learning to look and using your imagination, while focussing on materials and colours. Through play, we will explore the various garments and themes from the exhibition and the pupils will be invited to reflect, draw and actively participate.

Throughout history, people have viewed makeup with suspicion and compared it to wearing a mask, a mask behind which – in particular – a woman would hide. Today, makeup has become a multibillion-dollar industry that nonetheless confronts us with our physical impermanence, imagined imperfections and existential fears. But makeup is also a means of personal expression, artistic experimentation and freedom.

Masquerade, Makeup & Ensor presents work by makeup artists and visual artists who delve more deeply into such themes as the representation of women, physical and digital face filters, distorted body images and the ritual of making up.