21 april 2023, Flor Linckens
An ode to the New Flemish School in Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery
Until 30 April, Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery in Antwerp presents a group exhibition with artists from the New Flemish School. Recently, the art world has been paying more and more attention to artists' collectives and artists' groups and other forms of collaboration between creative minds.
Where for centuries, the emphasis was on the individual genius of the artist, new perspectives offer more insight into the context and environments that these artists worked in. The artists often inspired each other in a direct way: in terms of style or ideas.
Guy Vandenbranden, Composition, 1960, Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, interesting cross-pollinations took place in the city of Antwerp. The art group G58, which later took the historic Hessenhuis as its base, formed a reaction to the 1958 world exhibition. A group of Belgian abstract artists was quite disappointed by the insignificant presence of contemporary Belgian art at the international exhibition — which was held in Brussels that year, of all places. The famous Atomium was built especially for the occasion. At the world exhibition, there had been particular attention for foreign artists and more established pre-war Belgian artists.
Jef Verheyen, Compostion, 1957, Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery
G58 aimed for more attention for a different kind of art, a different artistic vision. However, dissatisfaction within the art group led to the establishment of a new platform: the New Flemish School (1959-1965). The plans for this group originated with artists Jef Verheyen and Englebert Van Anderlecht, who discussed it in the hotel of their Swiss art collector friend Hans Liechti, who would end up building a significant collection of (among other things) abstract Belgian art. Part of his collection is currently on show in the exhibition at Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery.
The artists of the New Flemish School considered themselves and their work primarily Flemish, rather than Belgian. At the same time, the success of the avant-garde group is largely related to the fact that Jef Verheyen in particular had a significant international network, which resulted in the several leading exhibitions abroad; in Milan, Düsseldorf, Geneva and the US, among others. Verheyen was friends with famous artists such as Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni, Otto Piene and Günther Uecker. The New Flemish School was a provocation of the G58. Not just because many members of the G58 joined the new group, but also because the opening of their first exhibition took place on the very same day that the G58 opened their third exhibition.
Jan Dries, Meditation Stones, 1962, Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery
In their exhibition, Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery shows work by Paul Van Hoeydonck, Guy Vandenbranden, Walter Leblanc, Mark Verstockt, Wout Vercammen, Englebert Van Anderlecht, Jef Verheyen, Jan Dries, Mark Claus, Wannes Van de Velde, Vic Gentils, Bram Bogart and Guy Mees.
