ART-PRESENTATION:Melancholia
The Greek physician Hippocrates incorporated the four temperaments into his medical theories as part of the ancient medical concept of humorism, that four bodily fluids affect human personality traits and behaviors. Four temperaments is a proto-psychological theory that suggests that there are four fundamental personality types, sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Boghossian Foundation Archive
Present since antiquity both in the East and West melancholy incessantly returns man to a lost origin and to the regret of a past world, which would take a painful charm. This temperament, which has historically been equated with both positive and negative feelings, has inspired some of the world’s greatest artists. The exhibition “Melancholia” covers more than 150 years of artistic representation and examines the origins and manifestations of this feeling, manifest in both the East and the West since ancient history – which unremittingly reminds us of a lost origin, and instills in us a sense of mourning for a past world. The exhibition presents 70 works by major artists from different parts of the world, and many installations specially designed for the Boghossian Foundation, such as Pascal Convert’s “library of crystallised books” or “Animitas” Christian Boltanski’s installation in the garden of the Villa Empain. The exhibition route follows six themes, titled: “Lost Paradise”, “Melancholia”, “Ruins”, “Passing Time”, “Solitude” and “Absence”, and invites the public to explore melancholy and its universal representations, through a dialogue between the works of modern and contemporary artists inspired by the nostalgia of an elsewhere or a before, and by representations of loneliness, ruins and passing time. Artists: Manal Al Dowayan, El Anatsui, Farah Atassi, Barbara Bloom, Joseph Beuys, Christian Boltanski, Pascal Convert, Eli Cortiñas, Giorgio De Chirico, Paul Delvaux, Marlene Dumas, Lionel Estève, Jef Geys, Alberto Giacometti, Geert Goiris, Mimmo Jodice, On Kawara, KRJST Studio, Martin Kippenberger, René Lalique, Marwan, Mathieu Mercier, Melik Ohanian, Claudio Parmiggiani, Giuseppe Penone, Constant Permeke, Félicien Rops, Marius-Ernest Sabino, Norbert Schwontowski, Kiki Smith, Léon Spilliaert, Tatiana Wolska, Samuel Yal, Rémy Zaugg, Lamia Ziadé.
Info: Curator: Louma Salamé, Boghossian Foundation, Villa Empain, Avenue Franklin Rooseveltlaan 67, Brussels, Duration: 15/3-19/8/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.villaempain.com
