The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium has inaugurated a new dedicated space for modern and contemporary art, launching the initiative with an innovative exhibition that pairs South African artist Bonolo Kavula's textile works with paintings by Belgian artist Georges Meurant. The inaugural exhibition, which opened on Monday, represents the first installment of the museum's new "Collection Meets" program, designed to create dialogue between the museum's internal collections and contemporary external artists.
For this groundbreaking exhibition, Kavula has created her own interpretation of Cape Town-made fabrics that echo and respond to Meurant's black-yellow-red paintings, which also incorporate blues, pinks, greens, and other vibrant colors. The South African artist's textile compositions are displayed alongside Meurant's abstract and chromatic framed works, creating a unique cross-cultural artistic conversation. These encounters between internal collections and external works will be renewed every six months, ensuring a constantly evolving dialogue between past and present artistic expressions.
The new space allows artworks to emerge from the shadows of storage reserves to engage in meaningful dialogue with invited contemporary artists. Born in 1992, Kavula works patiently with shweshwe fabrics, emblematic textiles of her home country that arrived in the luggage of European colonists around the 19th century. She methodically perforates these traditional fabrics, then reassembles the fabric confetti onto threads to create intricate sequences, working in series much like painter Georges Meurant (1948-2023) did with his compositions.
"Georges Meurant's work pushed me not to be afraid of color," explained Kavula, who created two colorful works specifically for this occasion: "Ode to Georges Meurant" and "Color Study." Like Meurant's paintings, her textile works can be appreciated both from close up and from a distance, revealing different layers of meaning and visual impact depending on the viewer's perspective. The artist's approach demonstrates how contemporary creators can draw inspiration from historical works while maintaining their own distinct artistic voice.
The connection between the two artists runs deeper than their shared appreciation for vibrant colors. Georges Meurant was himself a great connoisseur of Kasai embroideries from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and he recreated their motifs in his own work, according to Pierre-Yves Desaive, curator in charge of contemporary art at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts. "He wasn't just a collector," Desaive noted. "What interested him was understanding in order to propose something resolutely new. It was about inspiration, not appropriation."
Kavula echoes this sentiment about artistic inspiration and cultural exchange. "I would say he appreciated beauty," she smiled when speaking about Meurant's work. "Everything that is made constitutes an extension of what has already been done. Artists don't build themselves in isolation." Her perspective highlights the interconnected nature of artistic creation and the importance of cross-cultural dialogue in contemporary art.
Through this new "Collection Meets" initiative, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts aims to creatively address social issues and foster meaningful conversations about art, culture, and society. The program represents a fresh approach to museum curation, moving beyond traditional static displays to create dynamic interactions between historical and contemporary works. The encounters between internal collections and external artists will continue to be renewed every six months, ensuring that the space remains vibrant and relevant to current artistic and social discussions.
