Painting is alive and well and living in... Belgium and the USA
An exhibition in Brussels dispels all rumours that painting as a mode of creative expression is long dead
The school of hard knocks
Painting’s troubles began with the advent of photography in the 19th century and came to a head almost exactly 100 years ago when Marcel Duchamp put down the paintbrush and championed the ready-made. Since then, concept art, ‘happenings’ and video and digital technology have all challenged the time-honoured practice of smearing pigment on a flat surface.
But the practice survived by carefully navigating the critical currents of the day. It steered a course through the Gestalt theory of mid-century Modernism and, more recently, the aesthetic free-for-all of postmodernism. This last passage was a turbulent one.
Painting After Postmodernism presents the work of 16 contemporary artists – eight Belgian and eight American – who are helping to reconstruct the art form after decades of deconstruction, during which Warholian kitsch was king. Each painter takes a different approach to the task, while respecting the autonomy and history of the medium.
The exhibition is curated by eminent American art historian Barbara Rose and organised by the Roberto Polo Gallery in collaboration with the City of Brussels and Cinéma Galeries. The bulk of the 256 canvases are shown across six floors of the historic Vanderborght building, itself a marvel of modernist architecture.
The rest is displayed in Galeries’ basement space, the Underground. Upstairs, the cinema hosts a series of film screenings on the subject. Several of the films, including a survey of American art in the 1960s, are written and directed by Rose.
Until 13 November, Vanderborght & Cinéma Galeries, Brussels
Photo: “The Refuge” by Flemish artist Jan Vanriet
