Lars von Trier is a voice that contemporary culture really listens to, with ever-apprehensive enjoyment. What might he say and do next? His unpredictability is a crucial part of our enjoyment. Now, for the first time in more than twenty years, he presents a new work conceived for an exhibition context.

The first documentary von Trier made at film school was about diamonds, and the fascination with these stones has stayed with him ever since. A few years ago, he launched the idea to ‘execute re-workings of carefully selected diamonds that thematically each spring from one of my films’.

M HKA, the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, is delighted to present ‘Melancholia: The Diamond’ in collaboration with von Trier himself, with Marianne Slot and with Leonid Ogarev, who initiated and supported this exhibition project, which we daresay is something new – certainly for M HKA but also for von Trier. Both exhibition and event, both thought-image and self- professed monument, ‘Melancholia: The Diamond’ subverts and reformats our understanding of entertainment, interactivity, artistic experimentation and critical reflection – the stuff that museums of contemporary art are made of.