MoMu Highlights: Spring-Summer

A MoMu guide will take you through the temporary exhibition MASQUERADE, MAKEUP & ENSOR and provide an insight into the collection presentation, which includes masterpieces by Martin Margiela, A.F. Vandevorst, Ann Demeulemeester, Raf Simons, … Afterwards, you will pay a short visit to the exhibition in the MoMu Gallery. The MoMu Library is also included in the programme.

The exhibition 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.

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.

MoMu’s collection presentation looks back at four decades of Belgian fashion, complemented by a selection from the museum’s historical collection. The exhibition gives an overview of the most important protagonists of Belgian fashion, based on the themes that characterise the distinctive nature of the MoMu Collection.

For the exhibition at the MoMu Gallery, Brandon Wen, artistic director of the Antwerp Fashion Academy, selected a number of exceptional silhouettes and drawings from the various undergraduate and graduate years for this exhibition. Celebrating and highlighting the students’ experimentation and research creates an interesting dialogue with the MoMu collection presentation, where silhouettes of many alumni are presented.