Author Description

Tornado is Pascale Marthine Tayou's solo exhibition in Mu.ZEE. It is the conclusion of an intense collaboration that began in early 2018 with a 'prologue' entitled Ik ben Gentenaar. During this time - and in anticipation of the exhibition - an artwork was added at regular intervals to the collection presentations in Mu.ZEE. Tayou challenged the museum not to play it safe but to start working with him from day one. In this sense, Mu.ZEE functions as a laboratory, where a number of ideas can be tested spatially and reactions are quick. Under the guise of injecting movement into something rigid, the artist refers to activating what he calls the 'frustrated' museum space. The concept not only applies to the physical space as an exhibition gallery, but also for the mental space that is needed to build a bridge to our society. 'The museum should engage in self-observation, should get out of itself. Society needs a space... that constantly questions itself and that will analyse, in almost real time, social changes and human movements.' The traditional exhibition route is pushed aside, and the emphasis shifted towards being on the road. Movement is important and goes against the rusty museum systems. An intense collaboration with Pascale Marthine Tayou is akin to building on the path that Mu.ZEE has been treading for several years. The museum has consciously opted for long-term projects with artists working on social themes. Indirectly, these exhibition projects give oxygen to the museum debate on decolonisation, the decanonisation of the collections and the role of the museum in the 21st century. The prologue Ik ben Gentenaar comprises five proverbial 'chapters', which in the exhibition Tornado are rewritten and supplemented with an explosion of images, words, stories and emotions. Abundance is not strange to Pascale Marthine Tayou. He pursues aesthetic discoveries in which form, colour and light serve as raw materials for new sculptures, photographs, drawings, installati