Antwerp museum to celebrate rave culture

Rave culture will be at the centre of an exhibition in Belgium this summer.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp will work with the club Ampere to deliver Energy Flash, named after Joey Beltram's 1990 track of the same name on R&S Records.

Design, music, fashion, old footage, literature, criminal legislature and work by visual artists will all be exhibited from June 17 to September 25, according to The Vinyl Factory.

Away from the exhibition, three club nights will be taking place in collaboration with the museum, one of which sees Âme's Kristian Beyer play on June 18. The others are with Wolfgang Flür and Renaat Vandepapeliere on June 16 and K'Alexi Shelby and Paul Du Lac on June 17.

Citing the early rave period as the "densest period in history for the diversification of music", the curators explain that the exhibition will explore the political role it played.

"Energy Flash will look at rave as a highly politicised phenomenon. As a movement, it enacted a desire to be autonomous, with a belief in tolerance and experimental living, all built around the latent energy of electronic music."

[Photo: Gert van Rooij]

Dave Turner is Mixmag's Digital News Editor, follow him on Twitter