Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor in Five Highlights

Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor approaches the work of this avant-garde artist from a contemporary perspective. Curator Elisa De Wyngaert walks you through five not-to-be-missed highlights.

From 1888, Ensor was using masks, apparel and accessories as ambiguous instruments to expose or literally unmask: it was a way of revealing the true, deeper feelings of his masked beings. Make-up and hair artists explore exactly that same tension in the interplay between concealing and revealing.

Ensor’s work invites us to think about universal questions. Why do we wear masks? How do we deal with ideals of beauty that are constantly changing? Why are we so afraid of visible ageing? This exhibition offered a great opportunity for us to focus on the painters of fashion: the craftsmanship and creativity of make-up and hair artists.

We selected thirteen paintings by James Ensor. These paintings are a consistent thread throughout the exhibition and engage in dialogue with the work of the artists of today, including Genieve Figgis, Issy Wood, Tschabalala Self and Cindy Sherman. These contemporary artists also explore the idea of self-image, identity, make-up and beauty, each in their own unique way.

It is a multimedia experience, in which painting, photography, film and installations come together in order to bring the themes of the exhibition to life. The video installations that we have produced in collaboration with the creative platform and magazine, Beauty Papers, are an absolute highlight. These videos show the work of a number of today’s most influential make-up artists and reveal how their work resonates with the ideas of James Ensor.

Inge Grognard met Martin Margiela when she was twelve. Later, they both moved from Genk to Antwerp, where Margiela studied fashion and Grognard followed a beauty course. Their friendship and their careers continued to intersect. Together with Margiela, Grognard was able to develop her signature and find her own distinctive voice within the make-up industry.

At the beginning of her career, she worked with the Antwerp Six. After that, she worked with the next generation of Belgian fashion designers, including Raf Simons, Veronique Branquinho, Jurgi Persoons, Haider Ackermann, A.F.Vandevorst and Wim Neels. Today she is working with younger designers, such as Demna, for Balenciaga, and Glenn Martens, for Y/Project and Diesel. Her work is a reaction to the world around her and is based on a feeling, an innate fervour. She explores the grotesque, and we recognize the same rawness and emotions in the work of James Ensor.

The exhibition offers a deeper insight into the work of James Ensor, but also the art of make-up. Make-up is so much more than just a way to look good: it is a form of self-expression, just like the fine art of painting.

Masquerade, Make-up & Ensor is on view through 2 February 2025. More info and tickets available here