MAC's (Musée des Arts Contemporains)

Introduction

The Museum of Contemporary Arts (MAC's) located on the former colliery Grand Hornu in the Mons Borinage region is as a flagship cultural projects of the Federation Wallonia-Brussels. This space dedicated to contemporary art and designed by Pierre Hebbelinck, is one of the main actors of architectural renewal in Wallonia is a continuation of the conversion of the site launched in the late 80s by the Standing Deputy Claude Durieux. In the context of a policy of acquisitions and international exhibitions, artistic director of the museum was entrusted to Laurent Busine, project leader since 1991. Today is Denis Gielen successor. Ambitious in its mission to educate as many contemporary arts, the MAC's has since its inception supported by the Province of Hainaut, owner of the historic site of the Walloon Region and the European Union. Its location in the center of a motorway linking France to the Netherlands and Germany in fact a cultural relay more accessible.

The place

The former colliery Grand Hornu, chosen in 1991 to host the MAC's is one of the most beautiful industrial archeology sites in Europe. Neoclassical architecture refers to the utopian principle of "ideal workers 'city' as had imagined, France, Nicolas Ledoux. This is also to one of his followers, the Tournai architect Bruno Renard that its founder, the company captain Henri De Gorge entrusted the implementation of its visionary project. city ​​project incorporating an industrial mining complex, a working city and a residence for the directors, the Grand Hornu erected between 1810 and 1830 is with the Salines d'Arc and Senan in France, one of the most impressive testimonies of organization work by architecture. Converted in accordance with its history and identity of places together several human activities, it gradually became in the 90s a pole of tourism, culture and science. Alongside the CID (center for innovation and design) that welcomes visitors of the site and organizes various events - including exhibitions of applied arts and design - and Technocité, institution dedicated to the teaching of computing, the MAC's is a natural place.

the collection

The will of the Contemporary Arts Museum is to develop a humanist project in which the company and the individuals who constitute it are central. The aim of the collection is not to collect the centerpieces of a mythology of contemporary art which is already spending many European institutions. Through its acquisitions, universality aspired Museum is based on the ability of artists to evoke the diversity of the world in the singularity of their creation. Therefore, the Consultative of the MAC's Acquisition Committee, composed of Belgian and foreign specialists, was chosen as conductor son in connection with the Site history: memory, architecture and poetry. Just like its first acquisition, "The Records of the Grand Hornu" by French artist Christian Boltanski, who unearths the identities of minors who once worked on the site, museum policy is considered as a way foremost poetic inventory of the world. In addressing the current art, not as a class but as an activity embedded in the whole social body, the MAC's collection is understood as a cultural heritage accessible to all.

Grand-Hornu has developed a powerful tool to alert you to the best of its activities. You can register here: http://www.mac-s.be/contact.php