ANTWERP.- On 20 March, FOMU opens four new exhibitions.

• Carrie Mae Weems - The Heart of the Matter: first major retrospective exhibition of this renowned American artist in Belgium. In her work, she poses pressing questions about race, gender, power and memory.

• Diane Severin Nguyen - IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS: Nguyen wraps her critique of power, nationalism, and cultural identity in a K-pop-style video installation.

• Families: discover historical photo albums and photographs by contemporary artists who challenge the traditional family portrait. All from the FOMU collection.

• Tenderly There - Tashattot Collective: this exhibition shows how artists from the SWANA region (South West Asia and North Africa) explore, commemorate and affirm queer intimacy.

CARRIE MAE WEEMS - The Heart of the Matter
​20.03.26 - 23.08.26

The Heart of the Matter is the first retrospective exhibition in Belgium of the influential American artist Carrie Mae Weems (1953). Through her poignant photographs and video installations, she explores themes such as race, gender, power and memory. Weems is often the subject, guide and muse in her photographs.
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​Her experiences as a black woman are the starting point for her research into “forgotten” histories. She shows places that often remain out of sight: from intimate kitchen tables to film sets, from African-American churches to former plantations. Weems weaves personal stories into her work to highlight the complexity and injustice in today's world.
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​Works and series on display
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​The exhibition comprises more than a hundred photographs and videos, including well-known series such as Museums (2006) and Kitchen Table Series (1990). Weems created the series Preach (2024), about the importance of faith, especially for this exhibition. Art and spirituality demonstrate their power as forms of resistance.
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​Carrie Mae Weems' work has been collected and/or exhibited worldwide, including at MoMA, Guggenheim (New York), Tate, Barbican (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Luma (Arles) and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam).

DIANE SEVERIN NGUYEN - IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS
​20.03.26 - 07.06.26

Diane Severin Nguyen is an American artist with Vietnamese roots. In her work, she explores how popular culture and politics are inextricably linked. Her work moves between music videos, performance and photography, and stimulates with images that are as seductive as they are disturbing.

Immersive video installation in K-pop style

IF REVOLUTION IS A SICKNESS is about finding your place in today's complex political world. In an immersive video installation, we follow a Vietnamese-Polish girl in Warsaw as she navigates a world full of conflicting expectations. Nguyen wraps her critique of power, nationalism and cultural identity in the recognisable, catchy aesthetics of K-pop. ​

The carefully selected photographs shown in the video installation depict moments when something is still in the making: an identity, an idea, a revolution.

What can a revolution mean today?

Nguyen makes us wonder what a revolution can mean today. Behind the coming-of-age story lies a sharp view of the contemporary world: a visual trip that invites you to dance and to think about how young people develop their identity in a complex world full of expectations. ​

This is the first solo exhibition in Belgium by this internationally renowned artist. Nguyen's work has previously been exhibited at MEP (Paris), SculptureCenter (New York) and The Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles).

FAMILIES
​20.03.26 - 23.05.27

Who do you call family? And how do you record your personal history? We all use photography to sketch a picture of our family and pass on stories to future generations. For the exhibition Families, we delve into the FOMU collection in search of family photographs.

You will discover historical photo albums and photographs by contemporary artists who challenge the traditional family portrait. These artists and photographers explore the complexity and sometimes discomfort of family relationships. They rewrite history and create intimate photographs that are often missing from the classic photo album. This creates a dialogue between the past and the present, between what we cherish and what we dare to question. ​

Niña Weijers writes personal texts on the theme of family.

Every year, FOMU invites an artist to reflect on the collection. Especially for this exhibition, author Niña Weijers has written ten personal texts on the theme of family. At a time when motherhood, the nuclear family and the idea of “chosen family” are being widely discussed, Families offers a surprising perspective on a theme that affects us all: family.

Participating artists

With more than 200 photographs from the FOMU collection by artists including: Hélène Amouzou, Emmy Andriesse, Diane Arbus, Cecil Beaton, Henri Becker, Henri Beng, Livinius Jacobus Beniest & Son, Léon Bovier, Camille Orso Caël, Tom Callemin, Julia Margaret Cameron, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lynn Cohen, Bieke Depoorter, Omar Viktor Diop & Lee Shulman, Mike Disfarmer, Robert Doisneau, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Mayara Ferrão, Charles Froelich, Seiichi Furuya & Christine Furuya-Gössler, Henri Geirland, Gustave Ghuys, Victor Guidalevitch, René Guiette, Sunil Gupta, Jitka Hanzlová, Eikoh Hosoe, Peter Hujar, Bernard Jacobs & Cie, Lebohang Kganye, William Klein, Mous Lamrabat, Youqine Lefèvre, Vuyo Mabheka, Diana Markosian, Amatus Harry Nevejans, Giulia Niccolai, Bernard Plossu, Emile Pochet, Jacques Joseph Prévot, Marc Riboud, Paul Sano, Jacob van Crewel (Jeune), Bertien van Manen, Léopold Vanderstraeten, Edward Walton (Fils), Edouard Wettstein, Carmen Winant, Ugo Woatzi…and all anonymous creators and families.

TENDERLY THERE - TASHATTOT COLLECTIVE
​20.03.26 - 10.05.26

Tenderly There shows how artists from the SWANA region (Southwest Asia and North Africa) explore, commemorate and affirm queer intimacy. The exhibition is curated by Tashattot, a Brussels-based collective that supports artists from the SWANA region who are currently displaced or living in Europe.

The exhibition displays archival photographs from the Arab Image Foundation collection alongside contemporary works by artists Jeanne et Moreau (Lara Tabet & Randa Mirza), Kader Attia and Mohamad Abdouni. The contrast between archives and the present takes you on a journey through time and shows how everyday activities and intimate moments are captured. ​