Curated by Jan Ceuleers, in collaboration with Ronny Van de Velde and the M HKA

New Art in Antwerp was dedicated to the artist movement G58. Antwerp 1958: alongside a world-class port that grew more every day, was a sleepy, old city where art and culture were not high on the agenda. The meeting between Lode Craeybeckx, Mayor who thinks outside the box, and a group of budding artists who were keen to show their work, led to the creation of G58 Hessen House.

The five episodes of New Art in Antwerp 1958-1962 evoked distinctive moments and characters. They formed a series of nuanced stories with questionable accents. Each episode was linked to a young Belgian artist whose work relates in content and form to what was then new art.

The fourth episode centre for contemporary artistic expression brought a selection of solo and group exhibitions from the period 1959-1961, and glanced at the broader functioning of the Hessen House that, in fact, was what we would now refer to as an art centre. This episode showed how the Hessen House was more - and at the same time less focused - than the reference moments which are always referenced these days. With an insert of contemporary artist Nadia Naveau (°1975, Bruges).

Nadia Naveau's modeling technique and sculptural power of depicting people are unsurpassed. Yet, she almost always takes an eclectic approach when composing her sculptures: sometimes by getting people and shapes from different worlds to meet (Bernini Meets The Simpsons), but mostly by adding heterogeneous elements or, at least during the first few years, materials.