The "anti-anti-painting" exhibition at château Malou: ten young Belgian painters of the new generation

The "anti-anti-painting" exhibition at château Malou: ten young Belgian painters of the new generation Mon De Rijck, director and organiser of the artwork lending gallery at château Malou, in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, has brought together in a single exhibition ten artists, ten easel painters, whom he places among the best representatives of young Belgian painting. Open from now until 18 April, this "L'anti-anti-peinture" exhibition is neither a revolt against academic conventions nor one more piece of non-conformism. It is quite simply, but not without ambition, the expression of a shared will among these young artists to practise an original yet genuine art, painting of quality. In 1972, at château Malou, at Mon De Rijck's initiative and with the support of the municipal authorities, an artwork lending gallery opened: an original undertaking which has since developed remarkably and inspired similar creations across the country. Its operating formula is simple: artists lend the gallery one or more of their works, which are then rented out to the gallery's clients, private individuals but also companies. For a 250 F registration fee and a rent of 100 F per work per month, these clients keep the works for a minimum of one month and a maximum of three, with the option of buying them at very attractive prices, which many do after a few rentals. The formula has been so successful that Mon De Rijck now estimates that only 20 per cent of his clientele comes from the capital, with 80 per cent coming from the various Walloon and Flemish provinces. But the promoter of this idea, whose aim is to make art accessible to all, has also pursued his action in other directions, multiplying promising initiatives. Truc-troc (exchanging objects for works of art), 500-5000 (works exhibited with prices between 500 and 5,000 F), art-hall, a travelling exhibition in the Woluwe-Saint-Lambert park, exhibitions in the setting of château Malou. One of his projects is a "safari" in the château's park, a harmless safari whose point is not to hunt the artist but to turn the visit of an exhibition, transposed into an exotic setting, into a game. The current exhibition, entitled "L'anti-anti-peinture", presents a selection of about a hundred canvases, chosen by their authors as the most representative, by ten Belgian painters whom Mon De Rijck considers the greatest of the young generation: D.E.S.Y., Camille de Taeye, Guy Leclercq, Frank Liefooghe, André Naessens, Reinold Poot, Stam Raemdonck, Christian Roldt, Herman Van den Broecke and Lionel Vinche. Ten painters who can hardly be called prolific, since each shows barely a dozen paintings a year, but who champion quality over quantity. Most have already entered museums of modern art, and many of the works shown at château Malou belong to private collections. What is anti-anti-painting? Anti-anti-painting does not appear as a conservative reaction to the most sophisticated artistic currents of the moment - perhaps also the poorest and most denatured, opponents of hyperrealism or conceptual art would say - nor is it a new pictorial genre, nor one of those more or less ephemeral artistic circles in which everyone's approach proceeds from a common theory. No doubt anti-anti-painting stands, as one of the exhibiting painters sketched it, against that summary art of the drawing pin, the nail in the wall and the typed sheet. That anti-painting which made no revolution but was, on the contrary, quickly absorbed. But it defines itself essentially as an act of rehabilitation of quality painting, renouncing the easy and the superficial through a refined technique that fully exploits the inherence of its themes. Anti-anti-painting, however, will found no school, for it will live only for the duration of this brief encounter between a few artists in search, beyond their styles and their dreams, of their own personalities.