Pauline Curnier Jardin dresses to kill in Belgium

Pauline Curnier Jardin, an artist known for her revelatory work in film, performance, drawing and installations, has two exhibitions opening this month in Belgium. The Associations of Pauline Curnier Jardin opens at M HKA in Antwerp while Dress to Kill opens at NW in Aalst. Combined, these will be her first solo presentations in the country.

At M HKA visitors are presented with a living archive of nearly two decades of work by the artist, spanning from 2006 to 2024. Over the course of these two decades, Curnier Jardin has harbored a deep fascination with how narratives are constructed and their methods of transmission – either through the levers of state power, religion, patriarchal authority, or through collective memory. A collection of sculptural assemblages, scenographic environments, and over twenty films takes the viewer on a cathartic plunge into the depths of European cultural history.

At NW, Curnier Jardin contemplates the role of clothing in political expression and as a form of subversive play. A newly-commissioned film, Jeanet Film Adulte, will be screened at the exhibition. The work deals with the local festival in Aalst called Voil Jeanettenstoet, where questions of class, gender and tradition converge in ways that invert the established order.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, or M HKA, is the foremost art institution in the city and the oldest contemporary art museum in Belgium. The museum's collection contains regional and international contemporary art ranging from the 1960s to the present day. This week ARTnews reported that the Flemish government has made a controversial proposal to close the museum. The collection will be transferred to a planned new museum in Ghent to be called Flemish Museum of Contemporary and Current Art. This planned museum will evolve from the decades-old art institution S.M.A.K. in Ghent.

NW, Open House for Contemporary Art and Film in Aalst is a new art institution dedicated to contemporary art and film. Formerly known as Netwerk Aalst, NW opened in 2024 after a year of renovation. The institution's focus on film is predicated on its capacity to serve as a realm for the exchange of ideas, meaningful dialogue, and community building. NW is currently running a retrospective of the legendary Japanese master of cinema Akira Kurosawa, while it also has an exhibition on Gaza open in collaboration with The Palestinian Museum.

Pauline Curnier Jardin works between Berlin and Rome. Her practice spans a number of disciplines including film, installation, performance and drawing, treating a diverse range of subjects from Joan of Arc and the goddess Demeter to pagan and Catholic rites that originate from Central and Southern Europe. Describing herself as a “thwarted anthropologist”, Curnier Jardin draws her inspiration from festivals and carnivals, filtering European cultural traditions through a Rabelaisian lens. Her works have been exhibited at solo and group exhibitions at MACRO in Rome (2024), Centraal Museum in Utrecht (2023), Preis Der Nationalgalerie at Hamburger Bahnhof (2021) and at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017).

Curnier Jardin recently announced that she is preparing an exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, set to open in April 2026 and curated by Daria de Beauvais. The Associations of Pauline Curnier Jardin opens at M HKA on October 10. Dress to Kill opens at NW on October 31. For more information on the artist visit her site and her IG.