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 as the epicentre of the 1913 World Expo.
Every five months, the project presents new works of art on flags for S.M.A.K., with the works seeking a connection with the square, the park, the city and its residents. They make us think about the role of art in public space.
Over the coming months, Carlotta Bailly-Borg's flags will be flying on the museum square.
Carlotta Bailly-Borg’s work blends classical mythology, pop culture, sports imagery, and grotesque figures into a distinctive visual language. Moving across different media, she distorts bodies and layers meanings, creating scenes that feel both timeless and unsettling. Her twisting, elastic figures recall medieval manuscripts and ancient decorative motifs but with a bold, contemporary edge.
For Museumplein, Bailly-Borg presents a series of figures inspired by historical depictions of the wind, their distorted bodies charged with sensuality. Limbs intertwine, hands caress, and longing gazes connect—echoing Citadel Park as a cruising and meeting place for anonymous encounters. The colour palette makes the figures seem to dissolve into the sky, their intimate gestures only visible to those who look closely. Titled Leaning against the wind, after Virginia Woolf’s final diary entry, the work celebrates queerness and transformation, rejecting fixed identities in favor of fluidity and play.
Museumplein is a project by artlead and S.M.A.K, supported by the City of Ghent.
