Except for a dozen or so loans, all the pieces on display in the exhibition come from the MAS collection. The objects have been chosen for what they portray, their significance or their (historical) story.
CLOSED - "The corner shop" highlighted the colourful history of Antwerp's shops and shopkeepers in the MAS boulevard. MAS asked photographer Sanne De Wilde to find out more about the people who run local shops in the city today. The result was a colourful and diverse portrait series. Combined with old photos, the exhibition showed the human face behind the corner shops of the city since the Fifties.
For the exhibition "Glasses", Luc Tuymans looks back at his oeuvre thematically for the first time. It includes portraits, of ‘nameless people’ and historic figures, and other works. The leitmotiv is a ‘pair of glasses’.
The Eilandje was the place where people gathered on their way to the New World. The magnificent Red Star Line steamers moored on the quay just before the bend in the Scheldt River. When the steam whistle announced an impending departure, the quay swarmed with activity. The Eilandje is currently a sought after place in the city.
This necklace, a guild chain, comes from a German or northern Dutch marksmen's guild with St George as its patron saint. It belongs to the so-called guild silver, with objects from the guilds' environment.
The tile tableau from 1547 is a rare witness to early majolica production in Antwerp, a typical Renaissance phenomenon. The Saulus tableau is a piece of indispensable cultural heritage for Flanders.