MAASTRICHT.- The Bonnefantenmuseum presents two new exhibitions: BACA Projects: Aura - Hao Liang and floors & walls / from ground by Ton Boelhouwer.

BACA Projects: Aura – Hao Liang
How to look at art from China: a sequel
The project Aura has been developed by artist Hao Liang and writer Hu Fang in dialogue with the Bonnefantenmuseum and Van Eyck. In Aura, Hao Liang (1983, Chengdu, China) gives a cohesive presentation of his dedicated research into Chinese art history and the Bonnefantenmuseum's collection. He is exhibiting a new series of collotypes, a selection of artworks from the Bonnefantenmuseum's collection and work by the Van Eyck participants SulSolSal and Damon Zucconi. The project is accompanied by a publication created in collaboration with the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou (Paris) and Vitamin Creative Space (Guangzhou, China), containing essays by Catherine David (deputy director, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou), Hu Fang (author) and Stijn Huijts (director Bonnefantenmuseum).

BACA Projects: Aura is a collaboration between the Bonnefantenmuseum and Van Eyck, on the occasion of the Bonnefanten Award for Contemporary Art (BACA) 2016, presented to Cai Guo-Qiang (1957, Quanzhou, Fujian, China). Aura is also the second and final part of the project How to look at art from China, which has received financial support from the Mondriaan Fund and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ton Boelhouwer - floors & walls / from ground
The exhibition floors & walls / from ground introduces visitors to recent developments in the work of Ton Boelhouwer (1960, The Hague). Boelhouwer talks about his work as follows: 'Everything is broken open: there is no thing, there is no self, there is no identity, there is no image, there is no story, there is no meaning. There is only a rhythm of drawing together and breaking open'. Boelhouwer places his painted aluminium sheets at a slant to the wall, lays them flat on the floor or makes them hover in curved fan shapes over the room. Ton Boelhouwer lives and works in Maastricht and has taught at the Maastricht Academy of Fine Arts since 1994. He started his own studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, in Amsterdam, in 1979. During his studies, the artist was opposed to the penchant for conceptualism that prevailed at the academy. In his third year of the course, according to Boelhouwer, he made his first successful work: the shape of a vase; cut out, painted black and pinned to the wall. It turned out to be the basis for his subsequent art practice.

In presenting these exhibitions, the Bonnefantenmuseum is taking a new step in a direction that stands out in the Dutch museum landscape for the distinctive emphasis and priorities in its programming, with a clear focus on the 'secret canon'.