photo @NR
An annual celebration and an art walk in the village of Tourinnes la Grosse in Belgium where Flemish and Wallonian regions meet with surprising hills for such a flat country. Hilly is Brussels, too, and Belgium is a land of paradox.
We walk bravely, after drinking one coffee and one beer at the Relais St. Martin, a classic old-style pub, reliable and welcoming, a Labrador of pubs. Each of us breathes through a certain kind of physical discomfort, but that does not stop us. The red part of exhibitions are jury-selected contemporary artists. The blue ones are artists exposing privately, the venues are village houses, so it is also a way of entering dozens of homes in one afternoon.
Taking a winding road lined with houses, orchards, and gardens we arrive at a transformed grange where posters and visuals of the 1972 Munich Olympics are displayed. A sober, purposeful form of art, in the centre of a big room a piano and singers standing around. They are singing a beautiful Ukrainian song, people watching are moved, some to tears. Another room opens to a veranda which is just ideal. If they dropped me there with a notebook and coffee, I could stay very long. Nowhere the tragic events of German olympics are mentioned, the bravery of people is put into the foreground, subtly. Again and again a chance to stand up to one´s own potential. Again and again we can forgive ourselves for the weak moments.
We also pop into a bungalow where a lady presents her paintings of mostly human hands and necks and throats, hyperrealist, hypersensitive, very delicate brush touches. The lady seems well in her world and with her art, which is all that counts. (Once I visited another expo in a tiny house where an angry woman was standing surrounded by her paintings of birds; beautiful, accomplished, but the artist radiated so much anger that I had to leave and laugh).
In a cow shed a man wrestles on a big screen – with himself. Titled Cain and Abel. Watching a bare foot man in a white shirt trying to knock down his enemy – the reflection of himself. The fact that the most acclaimed artists are presented in cow and pig barns, is provoking. The animals long gone, and their presence felt in every pore of the construction.
For some reason this year expo is called GAME OVER. The village is sinking into an early November dusk, we are tired, stimulated, saturated, and soaked in various energies. Impossible to visit everything in a day. I buy a bottle of apple juice from local orchards and from local boys. Their mother offers us a smile. We need food, and to rest the legs, unlock the car parked by the brook in a lengthy manoeuvre. A girl runs out of a nearby house asking if we manage all right, inviting us for a wardrobe exchange soirée. Tempting, I love second hand clothes very much, but too tired and hungry.
A village where French and Flemish are equally spoken. Three weeks of art filling houses, villas, yards.
An old St. Martin´s Church on the hill where performances are held. An old, paved road leading down, some views could trick me into thinking this is Austria, or Slovakia. Hamlets above the village, fields, horses, sparse woods.
A need to come here every year. Every year anew and forging into new trust.
From among 200 arstists presenting we brushed a handful. And here are some picks:
Or simply www.tourinnes.be and go and see next year. Worthwile.
