Engels:Ruimte Morguen Gallery Q175898

Morguen vzw was founded in 1979 following a street project with the residents of the Bleekhof neighborhood in Borgerhout, Antwerp. The initiative for this project was taken by several artists including Marc Schepers, Luc Tuymans, Leen Derks, and Jacques Sonck.

'Morguen' is a neologism, a contraction of two words: 'morgue' and 'morgen' (morning). It is based on the idea that the present lives on in the future only as a remnant or a cadaver. It views the relics of the present as a 'vanitas'. Consequently, movement and change over time became a fixed part of the program, resulting in a dialectical approach. A step in the development of this program was the establishment of a permanent exhibition space, Ruimte Morguen, in 1982. In their manifesto from that same year, they stated that the space was meant to be "against the impotence of art, its impossibility, its unsustainability, its elitism, and its subjugation to power." The space was initially located on Van der Keilenstraat in Borgerhout and later moved to Waalsekaai 21-22 in the Antwerp South.