The Bucolics. Allegories of the living

The title of the exhibition is taken from the collection Les Bucolics, written by the Latin poet Virgil (70-19 BC) between 42 and 37 BC. Through scenes from the life of a shepherd, Virgil indirectly evokes the political situation of his time and transposes the idyllic Arcadia to his native Roman countryside. It is also a nod to pastoral poetry, a literary genre in its own right that has been known since antiquity and that inspired porcelain in the 18th century.

Following a similar principle of transposition from one context to another, the works in this exhibition take us from the sometimes innocuous evocation of the natural world - of country life, flowers, trees, birds and animals, real or imaginary - to other realities in direct contact with the urban planning, political, social and environmental concerns that are as salient today as they were at the different times when pastoral poetry resurfaced. The works on display do not simply represent or imitate nature in the broadest sense, but transform it into a medium for metaphorical or symbolic representation.

Artists exhibiting: Marc Alberghina (FR 1959), Charlotte Coquen (FR 1982), Patrick Corillon (BE 1959), Corneille (Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo, dit, NL 1922- 2010), Olivier Cornil (BE 1970), Florence Chevallier (FR 1955), Johan Creten (BE 1963), Michael Dans (BE 1971- à confirmer), Georges François De Geetere (FR 1859-1929), Valérie Delarue (FR 1965), Maryna Handysh (UKR 1989), Elisabeth Lincot (FR 1992 - restitution de résidence à Keramis), Yves Malfliet (BE 1962), Kee-Tea Rha (FR/KR 1971), Coline Rosoux (FR 1984), Manuel Sanchez-Algora, (ES 1960), Carolein Smit (NL 1960), Roger Somville (BE 1923-2014) et Marie-Henriette Bataille (BE 1931-2014), Roland Topor (FR 1938-1997), Jan Van De Kerckhove (BE 1927), Clémence Van Lunen (BE 1959) et Arnaud Vérin (FR 1982).