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ALL THE COLOURS OF ANTWERP
Reviewed by ANDRE BEAUMONT
The Willemdok at dawn with the MAS reflected in the water
With plague followed by war we cannot expect the world to stay the same. The worst of the old order can be pushed aside but we have great responsibility to conserve the best.
Sometimes something we see, we hear, we read but once has such compelling imagery - but we do not know why - until the artistic city of Antwerp delivers its analogue in art or craft made for a different purpose, in a different time, with a different meaning and we understand.
So the foolishness of wonderful Victorian brickwork being potentially destroyed finds its opposite analogue in how to do it right, and keep it right, in the brickwork of Antwerp's Art Deco.
This is why we come back.
Napoleonic residence .... Napoleonic eagle?
A hawk that cannot fly grasping the rust, fingernails downs? - the founding image, the Antwerp hand
The diamonds of Antwerp
Here honed by Zaha Hadid
To reflect the water from the Schelde [1]
.... and we, like an ocean liner, prow ahead, keel down, sail on
No longer climbing the walls trying to understand
.... why the artist has to salute so many
whilst we wait for the washing machine music of spin, spin, spin, to die down for us to hear what the artist is saying
Here the narrow-vision, deception-first, stuck-in-the-old-world, spin freaks do not get in the way of making money and fun for all.
We'll be back, Antwerp.