I Belgi. Barbari e Poeti explores and promotes the unclassifiable, coarse, ironic and yet poetic aspects of the works of Belgium’s 20th and 21st century artists. More broadly, it seeks to present the originality and unusualness of Belgian culture and art, so unlike that of its neighbours.
Jan Fabre presents the work Messengers of Death Decapitated from 2006. With this work he brings to memory the tradition of the old flemish masters where the owl haunted the paintings of Bosch and Breughel. The messenger of death and sorrow look with cold, human eyes at the spectator, evoking the passage between life and death.
Rome is the perfect city to inaugurate this exhibition. In Roman Antiquity, did Caesar not maintain that the Belgians were the most fearless of all the people of Gaul?
In the introduction to his book De Bello Gallico (The Gallic War), Caesar described the Belgians with these words: Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae. In other words, ‘Of all these, the Belgians are the bravest.’ In reality, for Caesar, ‘fortissimi’ meant the most ‘violent’ (or savage, barbaric) warriors.
Over time and with each invasion, this intrepidness, deeply rooted in the region, seeped into Belgian culture. Alongside this ‘barbaric’ dimension, there is nothing like the poetry of the Belgian soul freed from convention and stifling classifications. Dreams and stories are major elements in the art of certain Belgian artists. Self-derision and sarcasm are certainly present, for example in the works of Jacques Charlier whose paintings mocks academic, religious and political art. This freedom has also resulted in the original use of unusual and puzzling materials. For instance, Marcel Broodthaers’ mussel shells where the object becomes the medium and a pretext for derision. The combination of beauty and ugliness, also blatant in James Ensor’s work, reveals a great deal of extraordinary poetry. The exhibition seeks to leave an impression and bring to light the subtlety that is specific to Belgian art and so little known to the general public.
Through the artists who have revolutionised Belgian art, like Spilliaert, Magritte, Delvaux, Broodthaers and Permeke, and also contemporaries like Panamarenko, Lennep, Delvoye and Muyle, the exhibition reveals the continuity of this barbaric and poetic tradition.
I Belgi. Barbari e Poeti will, via culture, be something of a cultural, economic and political calling card for Belgium, promoting its specific qualities and extending its brand image beyond its borders.
OPENING HOURS
Tuesday – Saturday: 10:30 a.m. – 7 p.m.
INFORMATIONS
+32 2 333 20 15
info@ibelgi.org
website
I Belgi. Barbari e Poeti explores and promotes the unclassifiable, coarse, ironic and yet poetic aspects of the works of Belgium’s 20th and 21st century artists. More broadly, it seeks to present the originality and unusualness of Belgian culture and art, so unlike that of its neighbours.
Jan Fabre presents the work Messengers of Death Decapitated from 2006. With this work he brings to memory the tradition of the old flemish masters where the owl haunted the paintings of Bosch and Breughel. The messenger of death and sorrow look with cold, human eyes at the spectator, evoking the passage between life and death.
Over time and with each invasion, this intrepidness, deeply rooted in the region, seeped into Belgian culture. Alongside this ‘barbaric’ dimension, there is nothing like the poetry of the Belgian soul freed from convention and stifling classifications. Dreams and stories are major elements in the art of certain Belgian artists. Self-derision and sarcasm are certainly present, for example in the works of Jacques Charlier whose paintings mocks academic, religious and political art. This freedom has also resulted in the original use of unusual and puzzling materials. For instance, Marcel Broodthaers’ mussel shells where the object becomes the medium and a pretext for derision. The combination of beauty and ugliness, also blatant in James Ensor’s work, reveals a great deal of extraordinary poetry. The exhibition seeks to leave an impression and bring to light the subtlety that is specific to Belgian art and so little known to the general public.
Through the artists who have revolutionised Belgian art, like Spilliaert, Magritte, Delvaux, Broodthaers and Permeke, and also contemporaries like Panamarenko, Lennep, Delvoye and Muyle, the exhibition reveals the continuity of this barbaric and poetic tradition.
I Belgi. Barbari e Poeti will, via culture, be something of a cultural, economic and political calling card for Belgium, promoting its specific qualities and extending its brand image beyond its borders.
OPENINGHOURS
Tuesday – Sunday: 11 a.m. – 7 p.m.
INFORMATIONS
+32 2 333 20 15
info@ibelgi.org