Mécénat Démocratique: arte para todos

Democratising art was the fight of Mon De Rijck's life, and Mécénat Démocratique was its first battlefield. Alongside Charline Mahy, he founded this non-profit with a simple conviction: art must not remain the property of the rich. The flyer "Art belongs to you" offered the public a 25 F support card: by acquiring it, anyone supported Belgian artists and could receive an original work at home.

The project had social ambition: shared workshops between artists and young people, fighting bad taste, and returning painting and sculpture to public ownership. In 1971, the association counted 243 artists and 8,000 works redistributed according to an original formula; some 500 artists would join it. Its office was at Centre International Rogier, office 302, 1000 Brussels.

That fight never stopped: after Mécénat Démocratique came the art-lending gallery at Château Malou, the Truc-Troc, the Art-Pool foundation – his fourth attempt to democratise the ownership of art – and finally the "Tabula-rasa" exhibition, where he decided to give away all his works through a clever raffle. Thirty years of initiatives for one single idea: art belongs to everyone.

Fuentes: Flyer Mécénat Démocratique, vers 1970