ART-TRIBUTE:The Collection (I)-Highlights for a Future,Part I

The S.M.A.K. Collection is one of the largest collections of contemporary art in Belgium. On the occasion of its 20th Anniversary, S.M.A.K. is presenting “The Collection (I): Highlights for a Future”. This exhibition includes about 200 works from the collection and, like the opening in 1999, it occupies the whole Museum. The exhibition is intended to make use of art history of the S.M.A.K. Collection as an undercurrent in gauging how the Museum and art position themselves in today’s social reality and art scene (Part II).

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: S.M.A.K. Archive

“The Collection (I): Highlights for a Future” starts out expressly from the present-day conclusion that it is currently impossible to capture the social reality and the art world in one overarching linear storyline or concept. Inspired partly by the architecture of the S.M.A.K. building, the exhibition has been divided into seven sub-presentations, each of which spotlights a number of current trends in society and/or the art world and illustrates them with works from the museum collection. The works are not displayed chronologically and are not shown only for their possible iconic significance. Well-known classics, outstanding newer works and also recent additions to the collection are to be used to show the position of the museum and of art in contemporary reality and to make new links with other, sometimes surprising and less well-known works in the collection. Under the title “MSK & S.M.A.K., Back & forth”, three key works from the S.M.A.K. collection are temporarily returned to the place for which they were created or first exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent (MSK. Panamarenko’s “The Aeromodeller” is shown in the hemicycle of the MSK, where it was presented in 1980 as part of the seminal exhibition “Art in Europe after ‘68”. “The Aeromodeller”, one of the most legendary of all Panamarenko’s airships, consists, just like his later zeppelin prototypes, of three parts: a balloon-shaped floating body, made of long strips of PVC glued together; a construction with propellers and engines for propulsion and control; and a gondola, conceived as a ‘living space’, made of flexible reeds sprayed in silver. Panamarenko took the name of the airship from an English magazine for model builders and made it sound official with the addition 00-1PL (‘00’ for the legal identification of Belgian aircraft, and “1PL” for “1st Panamarenko Luchtschip”; the Dutch word luchtschip translates as airship). Several test flights failed, if they were not already banned. In 1972, the awe-inspiring “The Aeromodeller” was exhibited at Documenta 5 in Kassel, the exhibition that definitively put Panamarenko on the map of international contemporary art. “Wirtschaftswerte” returns to the gallery for which Joseph Beuys originally conceived the work, also as part of the aforementioned exhibition. “Wirtschaftswerte” (or “economic values”) is a social sculpture that Beuys made for Jan Hoet’s 1980 exhibition “Art in Europe after ’68”. The work consists of metal racks on which food from former East Germany is displayed, 19^th Century paintings and a block of plaster. The arrangement confronts us with the partition between communist East and capitalist West Germany of the time. The faded packages stand in stark contrast to the brightly colored packages we know in the West. The 19^th Century bourgeois paintings that line the shelves reinforce the contrast between the “rich” West and the “poor” East. There is a massive block of plaster in front of the racks (in Beuys’ oeuvre this symbolizes ‘rational thought ‘). The corners of it became damaged and were ‘restored’ by the artist with soft butter (or in the symbolism of the oeuvre ‘intuitively’ so). “Le Décor et son double” by Daniel Buren is shown where it was first exhibited in 1986. On the first Thursday of every month, both S.M.A.K. and the MSK will hold a joint museum nocturne and stay open late. The private part of Buren’s “Le Décor et son double”, which belongs to the Herbert Foundation collection, will be open to the public one Thursday a month during the exhibition. In response to Jan Hoet’s controversial extramural exhibition “Chambres d’Amis” (1986), Buren applied his well-known motif to the guest room of Annick and Anton Herbert. “Le Décor et son Double” was conceived as a work in two parts. Buren had in fact also provided a reconstruction of the room to exhibit in the museum. With this conceptual démarche, Buren posed explicit questions around Jan Hoet’s idea of exhibiting contemporary art in private homes, which is how the “Chambres d’Amis” exhibition was structured. With “Le Décor et son Double” Buren also questions the relationship between a model and a copy. The Herberts have preserved this intervention in their guest room. The copy for the museum was not retained, but the public half of the work was reconstructed in S.M.A.K. in 2011 and incorporated into the museum’s collection. Lastly, the underlying dimension of the exhibition is – as the title suggests – the need to create a proper building for contemporary art in Ghent so that the Collection can be permanently displayed and housed under the best circumstances both in the museum and the reserves. In this sense, this exhibition in the present museum building is a bridge between the past – with the presentation of three works in the MSK – and the future; a new, full-fledged accommodation for these highlights of the S.M.A.K. collection both old and new.

With works by: Allora & Calzadilla, Francis Alÿs, Harold Ancart, Carl Andre, Giovanni Anselmo, Art & Language, Richard Artschwager, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Salam Atta Sabri, Kader Attia, Sven Augustijnen, Francis Bacon, Nairy Baghramian, John Baldessari, Miroslaw Balka, Artur Barrio, Massimo Bartolini, Gaston Bertrand, Joseph Beuys, Guillaume Bijl, Johanna Billing, Dara Birnbaum, Pierre Bismuth, Marinus Boezem, Michaël Borremans, Charbel-joseph H. Boutros, Ricardo Brey, Marcel Broodthaers, stanley brouwn, Daniel Buren, Kathe Burkhart, Nina Canell, Chuck Close, Leo Copers, N. Dash, Franky D.C, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Thierry De Cordier, Raoul De Keyser, Johan De Wilde, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Luc Deleu, Wim Delvoye, Nikolaas Demoen, Jim Dine, Peter Downsbrough, Rein Dufait, Lili Dujourie, Marlene Dumas, Sam Durant, Joana Escoval, Jan Fabre, Belu-Simion Fainaru, Christoph Fink, Mekhitar Garabedian, Tatjana Gerhard, Jef Geys, Vincent Geyskens, Joris Ghekiere, Adrian Ghenie, Robert Gober, Zvi Goldstein, Raymond Hains, András Halász, Hamza Halloubi, David Hammons, Karin Hanssen, Heide Hinrichs, David Hockney, Ann Veronica Janssens, Joachim Koester, Surasi Kusolwong, Annika Larsson, Louise Lawler, Lee Kit, Jac Leirner, Bernd Lohaus, Jorge Macchi, Mark Manders, Werner Mannaers, Danny Matthys, Bjarne Melgaard, Henri Michaux, François Morellet, Oscar Murillo, Bruce Nauman, Carsten Nicolai, Sophie Nys, Oswald Oberhuber, Saskia Olde Wolbers, Henrik Olesen, Meret Oppenheim, Panamarenko, Manfred Pernice, Urs Pfannenmüller, Nicolas Provost, Royden Rabinowitch, Jean Pierre Raynaud, Gerhard Richter, Meggy Rustamova, Anri Sala, Wilhelm Sasnal, Michael E. Smith, Nedko Solakov, Bart Stolle, Tove Storch, Walter Swennen, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Javier Téllez, Robert Therrien, Sven ‘t Jolle, Narcisse Tordoir & Vincent Geyskens, Luc Tuymans, Adam Vackar, Englebert Van Anderlecht, Rinus Van de Velde, Koen van den Broek, Jan Van Imschoot, Herman Van Ingelgem, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Philippe Van Snick, Richard Venlet, Verlust der Mitte, Henk Visch, Wolf Vostell, Lois Weinberger, James Welling, Jordan Wolfson, Zhang Peili and Gilberto Zorio.

Info: S.M.A.K.-Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art, Jan Hoetplein 1, Gent, Duration: 16/3-29/9/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 9:30-17:30, Sat-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://smak.be/en , Museum of Fine Arts Ghent, Fernand Scribedreef 1, Gent (opposite S.M.A.K.), www.mskgent.be and Herbert Foundation, Coupure Links 627a, Gent, https://herbertfoundation.org