New Horizons | Dieric Bouts Festival

Dieric Bouts broadens your view

Bouts broadened your view for four months, all over Leuven. We explored new perspectives during the stunning opening week, the international Bouts exhibition at M Leuven, Belgium's first 4D music festival, groundbreaking performances, expos and so much more.

START!

We started the festival with a takeover of Leuven's streets and, together with 30CC, placed public space in a different perspective. Passersby got a slight distortion of reality with top international circus, eye-widening 3D street art, augmented reality, meeting and celebration.

DIERIC BOUTS. Image maker

Expo M Leuven

The big draw of the city festival was the international retrospective on Dieric Bouts. Never before had so many works by the Flemish Master come together in his hometown. Moreover, you got a totally new look at work of more than five centuries old - through a radical confrontation with today's visual culture.

Eye-opening exhibits

Knowledge on the chain | expo University Library

Dieric Bouts and fake news have more in common than you might think. Back then, people were already dealing with the (un)reliability of information.

Knowledge on the chain was a refreshing and contemporary exhibition concept with the voices of Rudi Vranckx, Yasmien Naciri and Michaël Opgenhaffen. What was, and is, the price of knowledge, past and present? Was fake news even around in 1500? The exhibition showed what role science played in an illuminating way, and manifested in the discussion about fake news, misleading information and (un)reliable sources.

Bouts and beyond | Leuven City Hall exhibition

In Bouts and beyond, you were introduced to Dieric Bouts and his special bond with Leuven's town hall. In the wake of Bouts you strolled through various historic rooms of the town hall. Authentic archive documents and audiovisual installations took you past stories, figures and perspectives from 1468 to the present.

A city-wide festival with lasting impact

Permanent murals by Leon Keer and Evert Debusschere

Leon Keer created a monumental 3D mural inspired by the work of Dieric Bouts especially for the city festival. Keer's work invites spectators to interact with their smartphones: via an "augmented reality" app, you bring the mural to life.

Young artist Evert Debusschere created a new mural near the site of Dieric Bouts' home and studio. Debusschere shares a fundamental common ground with Bouts, namely a focus on landscape.

Fringe | expo and performance

At various locations throughout the city, 11 organizations from different disciplines brought punishing work from under the radar, with Dieric Bouts as guide from the past. Unprecedented and new voices surprised during performances and in an impressive expo trail.

Ocean Of Sound | first 4DSOUND festival in Belgium

Ocean Of Sound was the first music festival in Belgium to use 4DSOUND technology. In a hall with 48 speakers, you were immersed an ocean of sound. Spatial live shows, intimate listening sessions in the dark and a four-dimensional club night: just as Bouts was a pioneer in perspective painting in his time, 4DSOUND provides new perspectives in musical experience today!

Bouts who?

Dieric Bouts (c. 1410-1475) may be mentioned in the same breath as Jan Van Eyck or Rogier Van der Weyden. He is one of the most important Flemish Masters. Even in his time he was already broadening his outlook by exploring new horizons. For example, he was one of the first artists from the Northern Netherlands to successfully apply the scientific line perspective. He was a crack at landscape compositions that take the viewer into the distance. They truly are new horizons, because Bouts builds unseen, imaginative worlds. The painter also capitalized on the success of devotional portraiture: a more personal religious experience in which the example of Christ serves as a life guide.

His works can be seen in top museums such as the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid, The National Gallery in London, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco and the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Two more of Bouts' masterpieces are on display in Leuven's St. Peter's Church. "The Last Supper" and "The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus". These two masterpieces temporarily move to M Leuven during the city festival for the major retrospective on Dieric Bouts.

Preparing for Leuven European Capital of Culture 2030

With the city festival themed New Horizons, our gaze is more than ever on the future. It is therefore an important stepping stone within Leuven's ambitions to become European Capital of Culture in 2030.

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