Belgian offerings

(The Slovak Spectator; 40/2013; 25/11/2013; s.: 7,10; ZUZANA VILIKOVSKÁ ; Zaradenie: Business focus)

BY ZUZANA VILIKOVSKÁ Spectator staff

DURING KOŠICE’S year as the European Capital of Culture (ECOC), many cultural events in Slovakia have moved to the eastern-Slovak metropolis. One such event, the ISCM World New Music Days Festival, took place in Slovakia for the first time this year and featured, among many notable performances, a recital by Belgian pianist Daan Vandewalle. Vandewalle’s performance on November 6 in Košice’s Kunsthalle was part of a special event for the festival, now in its 90th year, which also featured many prominent Slovak and foreign names in classical music. Vandewalle mostly performs the music of famous 20th century composers, and for this specific concert he chose the works of John Cage, Frederic Rzewski (US), Beat Furrer (AT), and Ligeti (HU/AT). He also played part of Inner Cities, a series of concerts lasting six hours, which are the result of his life-long collaboration with US composer Alvin Curran.

See ART pg 10 Continued from pg 7

The main organiser of the festival, Ivan Šiller, was in fact “a student of Vandewalle at the Royal Conservatory in Ghent”, the Belgian Ambassador to Slovakia, Christian G. Lepage,disclosed.

More Belgian art to come

The Slovak capital will not come up short when it comes to Belgian culture. By the end of November, a long exhibition of a famous Belgian photographer will open at the BratislavaCityGallery(GMB). Kurt Stallaert, who began his career as a fashion and advertising photographer, “has developed a very personal style… and his continuous search for authentic and strong imagery in his professional work naturally led him to venture into artistic photography, where he most recently discovered a love for video and film”, the website of the Pavleye Art and Culture agencystates. Theupcomingexhibition, called Because Winter Lasts Longer than Summer, is his first international solo exhibition, and it consists of some of his early “bodybuilders” series as well as some of his most recentmovingstills, the Pavleye website states. The premises of the GMB’s Pálffy Palace on Panská Street “have been re-designed into a museum on a scale allowing the spectator to discover his work in a slow motion modus”, Veerle De Saeger wrote about theexhibition. The works, curated by Ladislav Babuščák, will be on display daily except for Mondays between 11:00 and 18:00 in the Pálffy Palace at Panská 19 until February 16. The opening of the exhibition – on November 28 at 18:30 – will be attended by the artist.

Daan Vandewalle in Košice. Photo: Lukáš Gál