Museumplein invites a different artist every five months to create work for the five gigantic flags in the flowerbed in front of S.M.A.K.
Jan Hoetplein connects several museums - S.M.A.K., MSK and GUM - and also breathes Ghent history: it is flanked on one side by the Ghent Botanical Garden, and embraced on the other by the Citadel Park.
Following the recent deaths of artist Peter Downsbrough, with whom S.M.A.K. had a close relationship, and of private collector Raymond Verbouwens, who with his wife donated Downsbrough's work 5.50 I 3.10, Two Pipes, OTHER/THE will fly on the museum square in the coming months to commemorate both of them.
In his work, Peter Downsbrough (1940, New Jersey - 2024, Brussels) invites the viewer to a different reading of space. Using simple geometric figures and short words, he probes the meaning of place and environment and the relationship between language and meaning.
Museumplein presents OTHER / THE , a 2020 flag work by Downsbrough. Each flag contains a fragmented image of a tilted rectangle with the words OTHER or THE. Depending on the viewpoint at which the spectators find themselves, they are given a new reading of the work that is co-determined by the environment of the museum, the park and the city.
In this play of whole and parts, THE and OTHER are clearly legible terms. THE OTHER refers to the other side, the rest, what is outside the norm - outside ourselves, outside the city, outside our society. We could see this work as an applause of this other. A society is in constant flux, constantly seeking a balance between ‘us’ and ‘the other’. When the other imposes itself and becomes the new standard, what is normal today can quickly become strange - which is why the concept of ‘the other’ sometimes evokes resistance. The artist did not create this work as a specific response to our society's difficulty in developing an inclusive character, but it can certainly be read that way within the current far-right political climate.
OTHER / THE was originally dedicated to Brussels architect Christian Kieckens, who died in 2020, with whom Peter Downsbrough regularly worked.
Museumplein is a project by artlead and S.M.A.K, supported by the City of Ghent.
