Chipka.  The small-town museum
Publisher: Netwerk vzw
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Aalst
Language: eng
Number of pages: 240
ISBN-13: 9789081080040
Subjects: Modern Art; Exhibitions; Utopias in art
Other titles: Small-town museum.
Description: CHIPKA is an exhibition that focuses on the special resonance of a foreign-sounding word. People have to be familiar with the Flemish town of Aalst to know the origin of the word: Chipka is the name of an artificial island that came about in the 19th century, after the river Dender was straightened, as part of an extensive industrialisation drive in that area. The word was a corruption of 'Shipka', a forbidding Bulgarian mountain pass, where czarist Russia beat Ottoman armed forces in 1877-1878. In popular speech, the battle symbolised resistance (to the non-Christian occupying forces), but also chaos and destruction. The newspapers in those days used to cover the battle in great detail, and the name that was given to the island curiously compared the fear for the Ottomans to the threat emanating from the unstoppable advent of new economic and technological forces. In that sense, Chipka stands for early, unhibited capitalism.
Notes: Catalog of an exhibition held 13 February- 3 April 2010 at Netwerk, Aalst. The artists taking part include: Stijn Ank, Justin Bennett, Lode Geens, Susanne Kriemann, Matthew Miller, noumenon en Pierre de Gelder, Rachel Reupke, Michael Van den Abeele & Arnaud Hendrickx, Yoann Van Parys, Tamara Van San, Adriaan Verwée. Artists taking part in "The small town museum" are Adam Leech, Claire Stragier & Annelien Vermeir, Simona Denicolai & Ivo Provoost, Adriaan  Verwée, Louis Paul Boon.

Dutch, English and French.