On Thursday 5 May 2022, S.M.A.K. and the other Ghent museums will keep their doors open until 10 pm. Come along for an evening visit to the current exhibitions, live music by Citadelic Jazz and the opening of the ABC of Subbacultcha.
Subbacultcha invited its community to make a collective encyclopaedia of the past year, with images and stories from their world. The result will be translated into a show in Hall 1 from Thursday 5 May to Thursday 2 June.
19:00: Nils Vermeulen Mingus.100
Nils Vermeulen celebrates 100 years of Charles Mingus "What is jazz? I don't know... and I don't care." Mingus continues to influence new generations of bassists, Nils Vermeulen is one of them. The way Charles Mingus approaches the bass, looking for new sounds and possibilities, and uses them within an improvisational harmonic and melodic context, inspired Nils since he started playing the bass.
With this solo double bass concert, Nils Vermeulen joins in the tradition of Mingus; playing the truth of what you are. Do not expect any imitations or even compositions by Mingus, but a personal and truthful tribute in honour of his 100th birthday.21:00: Augusto Pirodda's The Monkey and The Monk // Concert for Jazz Septet in Three Movements
Augusto Pirodda is one of those well-kept secrets of the Belgian jazz scene (cf. trio with Gary Peacock and Paul Motion). Central to Pirodda's career is the search for the greatest possible freedom of expression in music. Style and genre take second place. In the past, Pirodda found the way to his own musical language fastest in solo projects. The freedom of solo playing is infinite, and both melodic and formal development have no limits. For more than ten years, Pirodda has been playing with the idea of transposing this to a larger ensemble and started composing and arranging for septet, in which he could conduct the same experiment as in his solo projects. Thus was born a new repertoire that Pirodda considers to be by far the most personal and thoughtful work he has been able to create so far: "The Monkey and The Monk // Concert in three movements for Jazz Septet".
Each part consists of a series of three or four compositions, interrupted by short moments of solos, duos, trios. Sometimes these are completely free improvisations, other times the contours of the beginning and end are clearly defined and freedom is created in between. That duality stands for the fight in every human consciousness: between the playing child in the now and the thinking adult slipping away from that now. The project is strongly autobiographical, the struggle is personal.
You can discover 45 top works in POP ART from Warhol to Panamarenko From the Matthys-Colle & S.M.A.K. Collection. Popart emerged in the mid-1950s and experienced its heyday in the 1960s. This autumn, S.M.A.K. will be portraying this art movement that is more topical than ever, just think of the impact of the (mass) media, the consumer society and the abundance of manipulated images.
