During the seventies and the early eighties, the ICC was an intermediary between a progressive art praxis and the ill-at-ease public, as well as an alternative platform for the production and the presentation of –amongst other things- recent conceptual art, installations, video, happening and performance. A critical reflection on the function of this institution throws another (for ‘historical’) light on different contemporary problematic issues in the museum world as of today with regard to interdisciplinarity, production facilities, social positioning and dealing with the museum public. At the same time, the project suggests a possible interaction with and opening of an important body of archives which, at present, is still drifting in between archaeology and actuality. with works and/or documents by a.o. vito acconci, laurie anderson, alessandro, artworker foundation, ben, conny beckley, fred bervoets, guillaume bijl, guy bleus, marcel broodthaers, daniël buren, james lee byars, andré cadéré, jacques charlier, leo copers, cel crabeels, thierry de cordier, raoul de keyser, paul de vylder, daniël dewaele, luc deleu, denmark, yves de smet, robert devriendt, danny devos, michael druks, lili dujourie, benni efrat, pieter engels, filip francis, jonah friedman, jef geys, marc ghens, dan graham, michael harvey, pieter kortekaas, joseph kosuth, marie-jo lafontaine, jacques lennep, jacques lizène, bernd lohaus, lea lublin, brice marden, gordon matta-clark, danny matthys, guy mees, ludo mich, antonio muntadas, jacques louis nyst, orlan, ria pacquée, panamarenko, fabrizio plessi, reindeer werk, maurice roquet, guy rombouts, susan russell, jean-michel sanejouand, buky schwartz, sosnowski, narcisse tordoir, niele toroni, boy & erik stappaerts, nicolas uriburu, thé van bergen, patrick van caeckenbergh, hubert van es, johan van geluwe, anne-mie van kerckhoven, philippe vandenberg, frank van herck, raoul van den boom, wout vercammen, bill vazan, jan vercruysse, marc verstockt curator: johan pas

(the International Cultural Centre and contemporary art in Belgium 1970-1990)
The International Cultural Centre of Antwerp, founded in 1969 (in the afterbirth of museum contestation) and closed in 1998 (when museums of contemporary art had become an established fact) was the first institution of contemporary art in Flanders.

During the seventies and the early eighties, the ICC was an intermediary between a progressive art praxis and the ill-at-ease public, as well as an alternative platform for the production and the presentation of –amongst other things- recent conceptual art, installations, video, happening and performance.
A critical reflection on the function of this institution throws another (for ‘historical’) light on different contemporary problematic issues in the museum world as of today with regard to interdisciplinarity, production facilities, social positioning and dealing with the museum public. At the same time, the project suggests a possible interaction with and opening of an important body of archives which, at present, is still drifting in between archaeology and actuality.

The exhibition which contains both documents as works of art derives of the research by art historian Johan Pas who also is the author of an accompanying publication about the ICC. This book, being an edited version of his doctoral tract, will contain, in addition to a readily surveyable chronicle of all presentations at the ICC and activities with regard to visual arts in the period between 1970-1990, both text and illustrations and will, in this manner, also function as a reference work

the ICC and the history of the M HKA

exhibition folder