The power of music? Silence reigns at Villa Empain (last days for ‘Music Palace’ exhibition)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

No plans for the weekend yet? Why not make it a bit posher by paying Villa Empain (Brussels, near Terkamerenbos/Bois de la Cambre) a visit; as tomorrow and Sunday are the last days you can visit Music Palace? The Villa is a difficult space for exhibitions, as the building itself tends to steal the show, but for one reason or the other Music Palace, the power of music seen by visual artists seems to fit in. More over: for once mixing works of art from the East and the West (Villa Empain calls itself a centre for art and dialogue between the cultures of East and West) doesn’t feel too contrived and you’ll be able to see a nice collection of works by Joachim Koester, Dan Graham, Allen Ruppersberg, Robert Longo, Pipilotti Rist and Belgian artist Joris van de Moortel. Folkert de Jong brought in the dancing girls, Ivan Navarro added a drum kit, and it’s impossible not to like Charlemagne Palestine’s piano. The strange thing though? The silence. Not what you would expect at an exhibition about the power of music. Quite the opposite of the current exhibition at Netwerk (Aalst), but more about that later.