Mon De Rijck · Mon De Rijck, padre de Carl
Concepto: arte por trueque
On 14 June 1975, Mon De Rijck and Charline Mahy presented the first Truc-Troc at Château Malou in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert: around two hundred artists exhibited works exchangeable for any object or service, never for money. The press hailed it as a "world first".
To react against speculation on art, the magazine Spécial wrote, the Galerie de Prêts d'œuvres d'art (nine hundred works in stock, three hundred artists) organised the operation: "Returning to barter means laying the foundations for an upheaval of society. The artist sets the example."
The rules of the "exchange market" fit into eight articles: no financial transaction in any form, an unlimited number of proposals, a definitive exchange upon mutual agreement, each proposal discussed with the artist, no official price rating taken into account, works exchanged as they stand with transport at the buyer's expense. Each visitor filled in a form and dropped it into the ballot box: "the Gallery does the rest".
Among the offers received: a trip for two to Japan, a stay in Corsica, a Skoda car, a violin offered by Lola Bobesco, a bicycle from Eddy Merckx.
The following year, from 7 to 27 October 1976, the Château Malou artwork lending gallery repeated the operation: sixty artists and some two hundred selected paintings and sculptures, exchangeable for the most heterogeneous objects with the artists' agreement.
Fuentes: Spécial n° 545 (10 septembre 1975) · Claude Muyls (1975) · coupures de presse 1976