This section presents a selection of exhibitions curated by Didier Damiani, developed in collaboration with museums, art centres, cultural institutions, public bodies, and private partners in Luxembourg and abroad.
The projects featured here were conceived either in his capacity as an independent curator or, in certain cases, as manager of the Art Work Circle platform, dedicated to supporting and promoting contemporary artistic creation. Ranging from solo and group exhibitions to site-specific installations, public art projects, and international cultural initiatives, these exhibitions reflect a sustained commitment to fostering dialogue between artists, institutions, and diverse audiences.
Belval Plaz’art (2020)
Contemporary Art Exhibition at Belval Plaza 2020
Organisers: Belval Plaza and Art Work Circle
Belval Plaz’Art transformed the Belval Plaza Shopping Centre in Esch-Belval into an unexpected destination for contemporary art, bringing artistic creation into a vibrant public setting.
The project brought together 15 artists and featured more than 50 artworks, including installations, murals, and immersive artistic experiences. By integrating art into a commercial and everyday environment, the exhibition challenged the conventions of traditional gallery spaces and encouraged new forms of engagement between artists and the public.
Designed as an accessible and dynamic cultural platform, Belval Plaz’Art invited visitors to encounter contemporary art in their daily lives, fostering dialogue, curiosity, and discovery beyond the walls of museums and galleries. The project demonstrated how art can enrich public spaces and reach diverse audiences in innovative and meaningful ways.
Art on the Street (2018-2019)
Art Exhibitions in Shop Windows and Vacant Commercial Spaces October 2018 – February 2019
Organisers: City of Luxembourg and the Luxembourg City Traders’ Association In collaboration with: Local retailers and the Art Work Circle platform
Art on the Street is an initiative that transforms vacant commercial premises in Luxembourg City into temporary exhibition spaces. During periods of vacancy, artworks are displayed in shop windows, bringing art into the public realm and enhancing the urban environment.
The project may also be extended to active retail spaces, allowing artworks to be exhibited in shop windows or inside operating businesses upon request from participating retailers. Through this collaboration between artists, property owners, and local businesses, Art on the Street aims to increase the visibility of contemporary art while contributing to the vitality and attractiveness of the city centre.
New Painting Luxembourg (2018-2019)
Contemporary Luxembourgish Painting at Neimënster November 2018 – February 2019
Organisers: Neimënster and Art Work Circle
New Painting Luxembourg offered a significant overview of contemporary painting in Luxembourg, highlighting the richness and diversity of the country’s artistic creation. The exhibition brought together 23 recent works by nine artists, showcasing a wide range of artistic approaches and visual languages.
The selection featured abstract, expressive, figurative, and narrative paintings, while exploring themes such as the history of Luxembourg, feminism, the individual’s place in society, the relationship between reality and fiction, the dialogue between painting and photography, portraiture, and the reinvention of everyday life and ordinary objects. Animals, architecture, travel, and nature also played an important role throughout the exhibition.
By presenting works deeply rooted in the concerns and aesthetics of the 21st century, New Painting Luxembourg celebrated the vitality and relevance of contemporary Luxembourgish painting.
Armand Strainchamps – Freeze Frames (2016)
Exhibition of New Paintings by Armand Strainchamps September – November 2016
Organisers: House17 and Art Work Circle
Freeze Frames presented a selection of recent paintings by Luxembourgish artist Armand Strainchamps, offering visitors an insight into his ongoing exploration of images and visual culture.
Drawing inspiration from diverse sources, Strainchamps’ work moves between representations of the real world, Copy Art, manipulated imagery, street photography, and cinematic aesthetics. His paintings capture fleeting moments and transform them into carefully composed visual narratives, questioning the nature of perception, memory, and image-making.
Through this exhibition, visitors were invited to discover a body of work that blurs the boundaries between documentation and fiction, photography and painting, while reflecting on the omnipresence of images in contemporary society.
House Mix (2016)
Group Exhibition at House 17 March 4 – May 15, 2016
Organisers: House 17 and Art Work Circle
House Mix brought together a curated selection of artworks from the Luxembourg-based digital platform Art Work Circle (artworkcircle.lu), which was founded in December 2015 with the mission of promoting and supporting emerging artists.
The exhibition marked an important step for Art Work Circle, allowing the platform to move beyond the digital sphere and present artworks in a physical exhibition setting at House 17. By creating this dialogue between online visibility and real-world encounters, House Mix offered artists an opportunity to engage directly with audiences and showcase their work in a dedicated cultural space.
The exhibition featured works by Frank Jons, Remera, Françoise Ley, Ben Carter, and Mik Muhlen, highlighting a variety of artistic approaches and perspectives representative of Luxembourg’s contemporary creative scene.
Mik Muhlen – The Shrine
Site-Specific Installation in a Former Newsstand December 2012 – March 2013
Organiser: AICA Luxembourg – International Association of Art Critics
The Shrine was a site-specific installation created by Luxembourgish artist Mik Muhlen for the AICA Kiosk, a former newsstand repurposed as an exhibition space in Luxembourg City.
Invited by AICA Luxembourg, Muhlen transformed the modest structure into a contemplative environment inspired by the tradition of vanitas and the concept of memento mori. Through this immersive intervention, the artist explored themes of mortality, the fragility of the human condition, and the passage of time.
By reimagining the newsstand as a place of reflection and quasi-worship, The Shrine challenged visitors to consider the transient nature of life and the symbolic power of everyday spaces. The installation demonstrated Muhlen’s ability to transform a familiar urban structure into a thought-provoking artistic experience that blurred the boundaries between public space, ritual, and contemporary art.
Invisible More Visible More Invisible (2012-2013)
Solo Exhibition by Marco Godinho July 2012 – May 2013
Co-curated with: Kevin Muhlen, Artistic Director of Casino Luxembourg Organisers: Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’Art Contemporain, Neuer Kunstverein Aschaffenburg, and Faux Mouvement – Centre d’Art Contemporain, Metz
Invisible More Visible More Invisible was a major solo exhibition by Luxembourgish artist Marco Godinho, conceived as a travelling and evolving project across three European art institutions.
The exhibition unfolded in successive stages, beginning at Neuer Kunstverein Aschaffenburg in Germany, continuing at Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’Art Contemporain, and concluding at Faux Mouvement – Centre d’Art Contemporain in Metz, France. Rather than remaining fixed, the project evolved through each presentation, embracing a nomadic and flexible curatorial approach that reflected the artist’s interest in movement, displacement, and transformation.
Through a body of poetic, philosophical, and conceptually driven works, Godinho explored questions of borders, identity, memory, and cultural exchange. The exhibition challenged established political and cultural structures, inviting viewers to reconsider notions of visibility and invisibility, presence and absence, as well as the ways in which individuals navigate contemporary social and geographic realities.
By adapting to different institutional contexts and audiences, Invisible More Visible More Invisible became both an exhibition and an ongoing process, embodying the fluid and transnational nature of Godinho’s artistic practice.
Plateaux (2011)
Plateaux marked the 50th anniversary of the Kirchberg development with a bold contemporary art intervention in public space.
Set within Parc Central on the Kirchberg Plateau, a district in Luxembourg City, the exhibition brought together seven artists from Luxembourg and the international scene, including Marco Godinho, Sophie Krier, The Plug, Pedro Barateiro, Hugo Canoilas, Leni Hoffmann, and Claude Lévêque, creating a powerful dialogue between art and urban space.
Site-specific works entered the landscape and became part of the evolving identity of Kirchberg.
Organized by the Fonds d’Aménagement et d’Urbanisation du Plateau de Kirchberg and Art Contemporain.lu Asbl.
Realfictions (2011–2012)
REALFICTIONS explored the shifting boundaries between fiction and reality through contemporary art.
Presented at Galerie l’Indépendance in Luxembourg, the exhibition brought together loaned works from private collections and major institutions, including the Centre national de l’Audiovisuel (CNA) in Dudelange, 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine in Metz, and B.P.S.22 in Charleroi.
Featuring 17 Luxembourgish and international artists, the exhibition offered a layered reflection on perception, narrative, and the constructed nature of reality through art.
Organized by Banque Internationale à Luxembourg (BIL).
Moving Worlds (2009-2010)
MOVING WORLDS – Triennale Jeune Création explored the theme of movement through the lens of contemporary artistic creation.
Presented at Carré Rotondes in Luxembourg, the exhibition brought together 33 artists from Luxembourg and the Greater Region (Germany, Belgium, and France), reflecting the mobility of artists and the dispersion of creative worlds in a globalized context.
In collaboration with institutions such as Centre Pompidou Metz, AICA Luxembourg, Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, and B.P.S.22 Charleroi, the project also led to acquisitions for the collection of the Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM).
Organized by Carré Rotondes.
4th European–Chinese Cultural Dialogue(2011)
A Platform for Dialogue: Exploring Inspiring Cooperation 26–28 October 2011
Organisers: Neumünster Abbey Cultural Exchange Centre (CCRN), EUNIC, CNAA, with the support of Broadcasting Center Europe
The 4th European–Chinese Cultural Dialogue brought together more than 130 experts, cultural professionals, academics, and decision-makers from Europe and China to foster exchange, cooperation, and mutual understanding in the cultural sector.
Designed as a forum for sharing experiences and best practices, the event welcomed leading figures from the People’s Republic of China, including directors of art foundations, architects, museum and gallery representatives, scholars, cultural policymakers, media executives, and investors. Participants represented some of China’s most influential cultural institutions, ranging from the National Art Museum of China to the renowned 798 Art District in Beijing.
Combining plenary sessions, workshops, and exhibitions, the programme focused on a central theme: the preservation of cultural heritage and the contribution of artists to the development of the modern city. Through interdisciplinary discussions and international perspectives, the dialogue explored the relationship between culture, urban transformation, and sustainable development, highlighting the essential role of artistic and cultural initiatives in shaping contemporary societies.
The event served as a significant platform for strengthening cultural ties between Europe and China while encouraging long-term collaboration across artistic, institutional, and academic fields.
D’Gëlle Fra
Exhibition on Luxembourg’s National Symbol December 2010 – January 2011
Organiser: Agence Luxembourgeoise d’Action Culturelle (ALAC) Partner: Ville de Bascharage, Hall 75
D’Gëlle Fra was an exhibition dedicated to exploring the history, symbolism, and critical reception of one of Luxembourg’s most iconic national monuments. By examining the evolving meanings associated with the monument, the exhibition offered a multifaceted perspective on its cultural, historical, and political significance.
Alongside historical documentation and contextual material, the exhibition presented newly commissioned works by Luxembourgish artists Jerry Frantz, Marco Godinho, and Filip Markiewicz, each offering a personal and contemporary interpretation of the national symbol. These artistic interventions encouraged reflection on questions of identity, memory, representation, and collective heritage.
The exhibition also featured Lady Rosa, the internationally acclaimed project by artist Sanja Iveković, whose reinterpretation of the monument sparked significant public debate and contributed to a broader discussion about public memory, gender, and national narratives.
By bringing together historical research and contemporary artistic responses, D’Gëlle Fra highlighted the continuing relevance of cultural symbols and their capacity to generate dialogue within society. Several artworks presented in the exhibition were subsequently acquired for the Government’s public art collection, underscoring the project’s cultural significance and lasting impact.
Gilles Pegel – Memory Cloud (2010)
Site-Specific Installation in a Former Newsstand June – August 2010
Organisers: Carré Rotondes and AICA Luxembourg – International Association of Art Critics
Memory Cloud was a site-specific installation by artist Gilles Pegel, presented in a former newsstand transformed into an experimental exhibition space.
The work brought together hundreds of fragments of personal memory materialised through approximately one hundred hard disk platters acquired from second-hand devices sourced around the world. By assembling these remnants of digital storage into a sculptural cloud-like form, Pegel explored the traces left behind by anonymous individuals and the increasingly fragile boundaries between private and public information.
Through this poetic yet critical intervention, the artist attempted to reconstruct an imagined collective memory from discarded technological artefacts. At the same time, the project questioned the circulation of personal data in the digital age, highlighting how information abandoned, sold, or exchanged through online marketplaces can unexpectedly enter the public sphere.
Addressing issues of privacy, surveillance, and digital identity, Memory Cloud invited visitors to reflect on the vulnerability of personal data and the implications of contemporary social and commercial networks. The installation transformed a familiar urban structure into a space for contemplating the relationship between memory, technology, and collective experience.
ROBERT SCHUMAN ART PRIZE
Selection of Artists Representing the City of Luxembourg November 2009 – January 2010
Organisers: Cities of Luxembourg, Metz, Saarbrücken, and Trier
Artists: Paul Kirps, Pasha Rafiy, Stina Fish, and Filip Markiewicz
As part of the Robert Schuman Art Prize, four artists were selected to represent the City of Luxembourg in this prestigious cross-border cultural initiative, which promotes contemporary artistic creation within the Greater Region.
The selected artists—Paul Kirps, Pasha Rafiy, Stina Fish, and Filip Markiewicz—were chosen for the diversity of their artistic practices and the originality of their creative approaches. Their work encompassed a broad range of media, including graphic design, photography, drawing, and multimedia installation, reflecting the richness and dynamism of Luxembourg’s contemporary art scene.
By bringing together artists with distinct visual languages and conceptual concerns, the selection highlighted the plurality of contemporary artistic expression in Luxembourg. The project provided an opportunity to showcase emerging and established talents within an international framework, fostering cultural exchange and dialogue among the participating cities.
Through their individual practices, the artists offered complementary perspectives on contemporary society and visual culture, demonstrating the vitality, innovation, and diversity that characterise Luxembourgish contemporary art.
COLOPHON INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE SYMPOSIUM
International Symposium on the Magazine Publishing Industry 13–15 March 2009
Organiser: Mike Koedinger
Partners: City of Luxembourg, Ministry of Communications, Casino Luxembourg, MUDAM, Philharmonie, Carré Rotondes, AICA Luxembourg, Neumünster Abbey Cultural Exchange Centre, Luxembourg City Cinémathèque, Foundation of Architecture and Engineering, Konschthaus beim Engel, Luxembourg City History Museum, and numerous art galleries.
The Colophon International Magazine Symposium brought together leading professionals from the international magazine publishing industry for a major multidisciplinary event in Luxembourg.
Over the course of three days, editors, art directors, graphic designers, journalists, photographers, publishers, and media professionals from around the world gathered to discuss the challenges, innovations, and future directions of magazine publishing. The symposium provided a unique platform for exchange and networking among some of the most influential figures in contemporary editorial culture.
The programme combined conferences, panel discussions, exhibitions, presentations, and cultural events hosted across a range of prestigious venues throughout Luxembourg City. By connecting the worlds of publishing, design, photography, visual arts, and communication, the symposium highlighted the magazine as a powerful medium at the intersection of culture, creativity, and information.
As an international meeting point for professionals and creative practitioners, the Colophon International Magazine Symposium contributed to positioning Luxembourg as a hub for cultural dialogue and innovation within the global publishing and media landscape.
CONTEMPORARY ART IN EUROPE
Selection of Two Artists Representing Luxembourg 2008–2009
Organisers: Domaine Pommery, Reims, and Beaux Arts Magazine
Contemporary Art in Europe was a major international exhibition dedicated to showcasing the diversity and vitality of contemporary artistic creation across Europe. Hosted at the prestigious Domaine Pommery in Reims, the project brought together artists representing a wide range of countries, perspectives, and artistic practices.
As part of Luxembourg’s participation, artists Su-Mei Tse and Marco Godinho were selected to represent the country. Chosen for the originality and international relevance of their work, both artists contributed newly commissioned artworks created specifically for the exhibition.
The project offered a unique opportunity to present Luxembourg’s contemporary art scene within a broader European context, highlighting the country’s contribution to current artistic discourse. Through their distinct practices, Su-Mei Tse and Marco Godinho explored themes related to identity, memory, space, and cultural exchange, reflecting the openness and diversity of contemporary artistic production in Luxembourg.
By bringing together leading artists from across Europe, Contemporary Art in Europe fostered dialogue between different cultural perspectives while celebrating the richness and innovation of contemporary art on a continental scale.
RÉSONANCES
Dialogues Between Contemporary Art and Archaeology October – November 2008
Organiser: Musée de la Cour d’Or, Metz
Résonances explored the relationship between contemporary artistic creation and archaeological heritage through a series of dialogues between contemporary artworks and historical artefacts from the collections of the Musée de la Cour d’Or in Metz.
The exhibition featured works by five Luxembourgish and international artists—Grégory Durviaux, Martine Feipel, Florence Paradeis, Étienne Pressager, and Jean-Christophe Roelens—whose creations were presented alongside ancient objects and archaeological remains. By bringing together works from different periods, the exhibition encouraged visitors to consider the connections between past and present, memory and interpretation, preservation and reinvention.
Through a range of artistic approaches, Résonances examined themes such as the traces of history, the construction of cultural memory, the legacy of Antiquity, and the ways in which contemporary artists engage with historical narratives. The juxtaposition of contemporary works and archaeological artefacts created unexpected correspondences, revealing how artistic concerns can transcend time and resonate across centuries.
By fostering a dialogue between contemporary art and the material remains of the past, Résonances offered a fresh perspective on both disciplines, highlighting the enduring relevance of history within contemporary cultural and artistic practice.
VERA KOX – URBAN PHENOMENOLOGY
Site-Specific Installation in a Former Newsstand June – September 2008
Organiser: AICA Luxembourg – International Association of Art Critics
Urban Phenomenology was a site-specific installation by Luxembourgish artist Vera Kox, created for the AICA Kiosk, a former newsstand transformed into an experimental exhibition space in the urban landscape of Luxembourg City.
Invited by AICA Luxembourg, Kox developed an evocative intervention in which umbrellas appeared to float above the asphalt, creating a striking visual metaphor suspended between nature and the built environment. The installation evoked the image of dying leaves trapped in the polluted air of modern metropolises, suggesting fragile biophysical processes caught in a state of transition.
Through this poetic and immersive work, the artist reflected on the relationship between urbanisation, environmental degradation, and the rhythms of natural life. The suspended forms embodied a sense of tension between decay and transformation, their imagined slow combustion culminating in bursts of luminous energy within the public space.
By transforming an everyday urban structure into a contemplative environment, Urban Phenomenology invited passers-by to reconsider their surroundings and reflect on the often invisible ecological dynamics shaping contemporary cities. The project exemplified Vera Kox’s interest in materiality, spatial intervention, and the complex interactions between nature and the urban condition.
MARTINE FEIPEL – THE BOX
Site-Specific Installation in a Former Newsstand April – September 2007
Co-curated with: Danièle Wagener Organiser: AICA Luxembourg – International Association of Art Critics
The Box was a site-specific installation by Luxembourgish artist Martine Feipel, created for the AICA Kiosk project, which transformed a former newsstand into a platform for contemporary artistic experimentation in public space.
Drawing inspiration from the myth of Pandora’s Box, Feipel imagined the kiosk as a symbolic container from which the fears, mysteries, and hidden forces of humanity are released into the city. Animal figures, serving as metaphors for plagues, curses, and catastrophic scenarios, emerged from the installation as if reclaiming their freedom and infiltrating the urban environment.
Through this dramatic intervention, the former newsstand became a “black box” opened within the cityscape, revealing unseen energies and narratives. Positioned at the intersection of vegetation and architecture—between bushes, trees, the kiosk itself, and the surrounding urban infrastructure—the installation created a theatrical and enigmatic setting that blurred the boundaries between myth, reality, and imagination.
Combining elements of sculpture, storytelling, and spatial intervention, The Box invited viewers to engage with the symbolic dimensions of public space and to reflect on the hidden forces that shape collective fears, memories, and cultural narratives. The project transformed an ordinary urban structure into a mystical stage where mythology and contemporary life converged.
Didier Damiani 