Mons is European Capital of Culture in 2015. An explosion in four stages of festive, artistic and cultural proposals of all kinds, including major international exhibitions devoted to European geniuses that the city has revealed to themselves, from Van Gogh to Verlaine, and a museum centre in full swing. Five new museums are being added to a convention center designed by the architect of Ground Zero in New York City and a futuristic train station under construction. International creation is being heated up, particularly by these new technologies that are revolutionizing the planet.
Art, according to Mons 2015, is also a celebration. It not only enriches the lively folklore of Mons; it transfigures it through the intervention of artists in the public space. And the culture thus challenged to reinvent its relationship to society. A similar participatory approach is used in projects in neighbouring regions where the inhabitants and the local associative fabric come together to reinvent their history. Proceeding in concentric circles, this shock wave then reaches all the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, Flanders and the North of France. 17 partner cities are thus associated with the cultural year. The result is pride, new governance and a powerful network that will perpetuate Mons 2015.
The metamorphosis has already begun!
DARE THE METAMORPHOSIS
In four steps. Belgian and international creations, dazzling festivals in the public space, citizen participation, digital technology and the deployment of infrastructures in Mons: the European Capital of Culture is upside down in 2015. She'll come out of it transformed. How about you?
In the beginning was "The Glare"
On January 24, 2015, the opening party will be a "big bang". Zero time for a matter explosion that will then aggregate for a year into a myriad of galaxies. In the Fine Arts department, this first step will be the Van Gogh exhibition. The first Van Gogh, the one who sketches a miner to better explain to his brother the misery of the Borinage, and who finally drops the rosary for the brush. 70 paintings, and the letter in question. Mons is definitely the city that reveals the creators to themselves. Thus "Mons Superstar" is a thousand portraits of those who have shaped the region. In the new home of Google and Microsoft, technology meets culture. It's Metro Europa, a digital art exhibition created on the screen of your smartphone. This is Café Europa, a connectivity space where you can handle 3D printers and communicate with the planet. The world, moreover, will give its thousand colours to the Maison Folie, an alternative and atmospheric place par excellence.
Spring's "big unpacking" event
No less than five new museums, of memory, heritage or creation, will soon be just as unmissable as the BAM since its famous Warhol exhibition. Thus the Artothèque will centralize all the collections from Mons and will show them on interactive digital supports. From the Water Machine to the war machines, there is only one step that the British will take, to remember the "der des ders" that swallowed up the first and last British soldier. Let's pinpoint the architectural blueprint that oversees the Neolithic quarries of Spiennes, and the Belfry, Doudou and Saint-Georges museums. In Mons, the dragon is also struck down with words: it is "The sentence", written in stencil on the walls and streets of the city, with verses from the most famous Mons plumitifs. Thus the City at stake(s) invites you to perform in the street.
All of us at "Hot Summer"
It's already the holidays, with systematic occupation of public space. Even for the Festival au Carré, in large format, artists create outside the walls, like Marco Martinelli, a genius animator, who takes 150 amateur actors on the paths of migrants and takes them on board these boat-people of hope that are stranded in Lampedusa. Lorent Wanson unveils a fragile installation after three years spent creating at the foot of the slag heaps. A mountain of pots and pans and a wealth of recipes, this is another challenge for the "Dimanche toqué" chefs. They treat thousands of gourmets in short pants (it's summer!) in the gardens of the Belfry. Not a day goes by without an appearance; not a week goes by without an artist's performance around the corner.
From "The Renaissance" to the revolution
Mons definitely reveals the artists cursed to themselves. After Van Gogh, the exhibition "Verlaine, cell n°252" narrates the Mons captivity of Rimbaud's tomb, before his luminous rebirth. Renaissance is the blessed time in Europe of Roland de Lassus, the most famous of the polyhonists. A Montois who knows how to cross in his clever melodic lines the new beauties of the people's language... when he doesn't pour into the strawberry song. What would he have thought of the "Grande clameur" that will be launched in his honour by 800 improvised choristers, joined by 100 accordionists on the Sainte-Waudru square? It will be worth the climb of the Car d'Or... where it is represented. Renaissance or revolution? Perhaps it will resemble the Battle of Saint George and the Dragon, the last major exhibition of the year. It's up to the young people of "Mons idéal" to choose the outcome. Decide to take their future into their own hands and make their honey from this unique cultural broth - artistic, architectural, political, economic and social. Mons 2015 is their chrysalis; Mons, in 2016, will be their flight.
Grand Huit and Grand Ouest in Mons 2015
Among the many participative projects of Mons 2015, Le Grand Huit redistributes the 19 former communes of Le Grand Mons into eight 8 festive territories. A long-term creative project, conceived with the inhabitants, which was then exported to the Great West of the 12 communes of the Borinage. Artists in the streets of Spiennes? Artistic bike rides on the paths of Ghlin? Decoration workshops in Flénu? Storybook readings in Harveng? Photographic portraits of the inhabitants of Boussu? There are still plenty of projects to imagine... We invite you to make them with us and celebrate them all together. Wake up the artist in you!
The exhibitions of Mons 2015
Van Gogh at the Borinage, the birth of an artist
From 25 January to 17 May 2015 / Au Bam (Museum of Fine Arts) / Rue Neuve - 7000 Mons
Verlaine, cell n°252. Poetic Turbulence
From October 17, 2015 to January 24, 2016/ Aux Anciens Abattoirs/ Place de la Grande Pêcherie - 7000 Mons
L'Homme, le dragon et la mort
October 2015 - January 2016 / MAC's (Musée des Arts Contemporains) / 82, Rue Sainte-Louise - 7301 Hornu
Mons Superstar! Small and big stories of an innovative
city From January 24th to April 12th 2015 /Aux anciens Abattoirs/ Rue de la Trouille, 17 - 7000 Mons
Atopolis
From June 13th to October 18th 2015 / Manège de Sury - Ecole Damoiseau / Rue des Droits de l'Homme - 7000 Mons
Contact: + 32 (0)65/36.2015 or [email protected]
www.mons2015.eu
