Melancholia: Boghossian Foundation - Brussels

"The exhibition examines the origins and manifestations of this feeling – manifest in both the East and the West since ancient history – which unremittingly reminds us of a lost origin, and instills in us a sense of mourning for a past world.

“Those who have been eminent in philosophy, politics, poetry, and the arts have all had tendencies toward melancholia.” states Aristotle. This feeling of melancholy remains at the heart of the problems we are confronted with today because the world we face is an inevitable cause for concern, especially given the irreversible climate change. The earth we know will never be the same – the digital revolution in the 2000s has marked the beginning of a form of dehumanisation of human relationships, questioning how a person can remain a unique and irreplaceable being.

Today’s and tomorrow’s children of Saturn remain inconsolable beings, haunted by existential problems. Works by modern and contemporary artists presented in the exhibition explore issues such as nostalgia for a bygone era; for the depiction of solitude, absence, and passing time.

The catalogue includes an anthology of quotes from modern and contemporary poets and writers, as well as photographs of the exhibition. Among others, it presents in situ installations, specially conceived for Melancholia, in the Villa and the Foundation’s garden."