Robert Montgomery at Mons en Lumiere, Mons: January 25 – 28 and February 1 – 4, 2024
Commissioned by the BAM, Mons, Scottish artist Robert Montgomery will be showing five large-scale light poems and a fire poem at Mons en Lumiere, the first ever light festival in the historic Belgian city, which will celebrate 100 years since the birth of surrealism. He will also be unveiling his first major permanent installation in the city’s Place Leopold. Montgomery has been hugely influenced by surrealist poetry, admitting that it “changed the course of my work” and led him to use text in his art. His works reference and pay tribute to three Belgian surrealist poets – Paul Nougé, Paul Colinet and Fernand Dumont but also honour the architecture of Mons. “I want my works to weave into the architecture of this very special place as almost a ghost voice, the ghost voice of poetry,” he says.