Produktbeschreibung
During the night of August 25, 1914, a library holding 230,000 volumes went up in flames. It was the centenary of this incident - the destruction by German troops of the university library in Leuven - that prompted the exhibition "Ravaged: Art and Culture in Times of Conflict". The destruction of the centuries-old university in Leuven sent a shockwave around the world, heralding the new practice of deliberately destroying libraries and other cultural resources as a strategy of twentieth-century warfare. The exhibition “Ravaged: Art and Culture in Times of Conflict” at M–Museum Leuven (2014) moves from a cultural-historical perspective, focusing on five thematic clusters that recur throughout history in representations of crimes against culture: ravaged cities, ruins, targeted heritage, propaganda, and art theft. Parallel to a historical section, which covers the period up to the end of the First World War, ten contemporary artists (Adel Abdessemed, Lida Abdul, Sven Augustijnen, Fernando Bryce, Cai Guo-Qiang, Mona Hatoum, Emily Jacir, Lamia Joreige, Michael Rakowitz and Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor) have been invited to show work tying into the exhibition theme - including two new creations, especially commissioned for "Ravaged".
