ART CITIES: Brussels-Pierre Alechinsky

Pierre Alechinsky, is renowned for his works that straddle the line between lyrical abstraction and expressionism. Alechinsky is also recognized for his affiliation with the CoBrA group, an avant-garde artistic movement that revitalized European art in the post-war years. His career, spanning over seven decades, reflects a prolific creativity that draws from diverse sources, ranging from Asian art to calligraphy and poetry.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Boghossian Foundation Archive

The exhibition “Alechinsky, pinceau voyageur” is an invitation to journey through the remarkable body of Pierre Alechinsky’s works and brings together an exceptional collection of around a hundred works and numerous archival documents, gathered over the past seventy years. “Alechinsky, pinceau voyageur”, is an ode to travel, which explores notably this remarkable artist’s fascination with artistic practices and traditions in Japan and China, which have respectively inspired him. An ode to freedom, the exhibition highlights the artist’s freedom of experimentation, alternating between different techniques and mediums since 1947: canvases, inks, with or without embossing, etchings, lithographs, enameled lava, porcelain books, and even a harpsichord painted in 1986, displayed in the grand hall of Boghossian Foundation. An ode to friendship, the exhibition presents works created in collaboration with artists like Jiří Kolář, Hans Spinner, or to accompany the works of authors such as Salah Stétié, Amos Kenan, or Joyce Mansour. Pierre Alechinsky was born on 19 October 1927 in Brussels. His father was Russian, his mother was Walloon and both were doctors. A painter, engraver and artist, he has lived and worked in France since 1951. Between 1944 and 1948 he studied typography and the illustration of books at the l’École nationale supérieure d’Architecture et des Arts décoratifs (La Cambre, Brussels). At the same time, he started painting and joined the group of young Belgian painters (Jeune Peinture Belge) in 1947. In 1949, after meeting the poet Christian Dotremont, he joined the CoBrA (Copenhagen / Brussels / Amsterdam) group. In Brussels, on behalf of CoBrA, he founded a Research Centre in a communal house, the Ateliers du Marais. In addition, he was involved in the eponymous magazine created by the group. In 1951, the year the movement was dissolved, he organised the second and final Cobra international exhibition of experimental art at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Liège. After this, he left Brussels and moved to Paris where he perfected his etching technique at Atelier 17. In 1955, a transformative trip to Japan led Alechinsky to immerse himself in the art of calligraphy. Fascinated by the aesthetics and techniques of the East, he incorporated this world into his own artistic approach. His encounter with Japanese master calligraphers had a decisive impact on his work, particularly in the importance placed on gesture and improvisation. From then on, the use of ink became predominant in his creations, a medium he manipulated with fluidity and expressiveness. The connection between writing and painting became central to his work, not only in the materiality of the line but also in the symbolic aspect of the gesture, akin to visual poetry. Alechinsky’s works often resemble pictorial poems, where each line and shape carries an organic and mysterious significance. Alechinsky’s monumental oil painting the “Last Day” (1964) forms the climax of his membership of Cobra and is also a homage to James Ensor; the figures in the picture are scattered over the surface like pieces of thread, colorful and fresh. In 1965, André Breton chose his work “Central Park” (1965) for L’écart absolu, XIe Exposition internationale du Surréalisme at the Galerie de l’Œil, in Paris. This work was a turning point in his artistic career: it was his first acrylic painting with remarks in the margin, and represented an aerial view of Central Park interpreted by the artist with the appearance of a monster. Alechinsky gradually abandoned oils for this new medium which he used on paper mounted on canvas. From 1972 Alechinsky began to use ink in the centre, reserving color for the edges. The use of paper, brushes and ink or quick-drying acrylic paint enabled him to render his images spontaneously one next to the other, almost at random. His pictures contain volcanic eruptions flowing into one another, monsters, deep rifts, grotesque snakes, waterfalls, lively clouds and birds. He often used pieces of paper that had previously served some other purpose, such as legal documents, invoices and bonds, on which he left his marks. Alechinsky was fascinated by anything related to printmaking and continually experimented with new ideas; in “Seismographic Armful” (1972) he collaborated with Dotremont, who created the logogram which Alechinsky surrounded with a characteristic border. From 1979, Pierre Alechinsky was represented by Galerie Maeght, which became Galerie Lelong (and is now Lelong & Co.). In 1982, he reversed the method used for “Central Park”. The central subject would be painted in black, while the margins, which until now had been used for drawings within its boundaries, would become a colorful border. He produced monumental works to order: The Reception room at the French Ministry of Culture (1985), the rotunda linking Hotel de Lassay with the French National Assembly (1993), or vast walls of enamelled lava (Belgium, Denmark). Over the decades, Alechinsky developed a unique and immediately recognizable visual language. His works, often populated with organic shapes, imaginary creatures, and dynamic intertwinings, offer a deeply poetic and dreamlike vision of the world. Alechinsky’s art defies rigid classification, oscillating between abstraction and figuration, between raw emotion and technical mastery. Alechinsky has always resisted dogmas and conventions. His work is marked by great formal and intellectual freedom, which has earned him international recognition.

Photo: Pierre Alechinsky, Lieu-dit, 1994-2024, Ink and acrylic on paper laid on canvas, © Pierre Alechinsky, Courtesy Boghossian Foundation

Info: Curator: Catherine de Braekeleer, Boghossian Foundation, Villa Empain, Centre for art and dialogue between Eastern and Western cultures Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 67, Brussels, Belgium, Duration: 26/9/2024-16/3/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, https://villaempain.com/en/