Press Release

A Belgian Exhibition

The 7 Flemish artists in this exhibition enact the terms of an ambiguous and divided culture. Through an art that questions the identity of the sign, both material and linguistic, most of them can be associated to the Belgian tradition of Marcel Broodthaers and Rene Magritte. Yet each artist affirms himself as an individual and the group result is no less than a Baroque theatre of objects, words, and self-conscious sets.

Guillaume Bijl, in the words of Jan Hoet in his catalog essay for the 1987 Venice Biennale, “…sustains a stage-management where action is just finished or still has to begin, a scenery that is excitingly true, alienated by itself.”

Leo Copers’ drawings and sculptures set the stage for a confrontation between danger and beauty using primary elements like fire, water, minerals, etc.

Trained as an architect, Luc Deleu questions the manner in which space is used, distorted, and manipulated. Guy Rombouts’ obsessional, groping alphabet and Patrick van Caeckenbergh’s idiosyncratic collage push the limits of classification to absurd heights.

Marc Goethals small-format works deploy representation and sign in playful dissaccoiations.

Walter Swennen’s paintings embodies both irony and disenchantment of the Flemish land.

To say that art in this show is “national” would deny the highly subjective localness of the different artists works; to say that it is “local” would deny the critical awareness these artists have of the language of art and culture.