A flower carpet for Antwerp
Position Paper | Year 2016
A flower carpet for Antwerp
Class of the Arts
Evenementen
This position paper is not a direct stance regarding the cultural policy
in our country. It is in the first place the presentation of a work of art
in the capacity of a viewpoint. The work of art itself, the flower carpet
realized by Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven in 2015 on the Antwerp market square,
is presented and interpreted as a stance regarding its urban and societal
context. Contrary to the usual Flemish flower carpets, the Antwerp one was
in no way a pastiche of an oriental carpet, executed with cut flowers. It
was an original modern painting made of living flowers en herbs. The
enormous painting showed a dynamic whirling of bright, mutually
contrasting colour planes hovering around the Brabo statue. The colour
planes themselves consisted in an interweaving of different colours which
reinforced each other by their very contrast. Carried out with living
material, the clustering of the vivid colour planes evoked the image of a
city plan, the plan of a multicoloured city whose districts and
neighbourhoods, though manifestly different, constitute a dynamic harmony:
unity in diversity based on
complementary contrast and mutual receptivity of each other’s carpet embodied an optimistic view of the city. It offered a cheerful image of urban society, partly utopian, partly a picture of the already existing situation.It conferred a new, exhilarating meaning to the ‘flower power’ concept of the sixties.
complementary contrast and mutual receptivity of each other’s carpet embodied an optimistic view of the city. It offered a cheerful image of urban society, partly utopian, partly a picture of the already existing situation.It conferred a new, exhilarating meaning to the ‘flower power’ concept of the sixties.
Available documents
Author
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Francis Strauven
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Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven
