BRUSSELS.- For its triple anniversary - 100 years since the sale of the Horta House by Horta himself, 50 years of the opening of the museum, 30 years of its restauration – the Horta Museum (Saint-Gilles) reveals three extraordinary exhibitions that focus on a rather unknown aspect of the architect: Victor Horta as a collector. The three exhibitions happen simultaneously from March 15 until June 30, 2019 in the three buildings of the museum, which has never been done before: the Horta house, the studio and the extension.

The exhibition, which deals with the notion of the collection, sheds a different light on each of the three museum spaces. In the extension (which has been recently added to the museum) one can discover art works from private collections in a “mise en abyme” by the artist Elisabeth Horth. In Victor Horta’s studio, a particular collection is united by the young Brussels collector Jonathan Mangelinckx, with important works by Serrurier-Bovy, Paul Hankar and other adherents of Art nouveau. The setting of the veranda and the music room have been reconstituted like it used to be with oriental objects Victor Horta used to collect. Something never done before!

THE THREE EXHIBITIONS

1. THE EXTENSION // Elisabeth Horth in dialogue with Art Nouveau works
At the Horta Museum, Elisabeth Horth is exhibiting an embroidered work featuring each of the twelve collectors that have been the focus of her interest over many years. Also included are studies on the particular qualities that set this group of twelve apart. In exchange, as it were, the collectors in question lent the Museum various works from the Art Nouveau period (including a large number of items of furniture by Gustave Serrurier-Bovy) and these are being displayed in an arrangement created by the guest artist.

Relocated from their collectors’ interiors, the Art Nouveau works are in dialogue with their embroidered alter egos. Chairs, vases, and sculptures, patiently recreated stitch by stitch, weave themselves into a huge web of resonances, riddles, and surprises. Visitors can choose either to untangle the different strands of the enigmatic compositions or simply immerse themselves in the mesh of words, motifs, and numbers questing to solve the mystery of collection.

Elisabeth Horth is an embroidery artist and has been working for a number of years on the theme of collectors and collections (her exhibitions include ‘Portrait de Collections’ at the Van Buuren Museum and ‘Etude d’une douzaine de collections’ at the Deletaille Gallery).

2. THE HOUSE // Immersion in the atmosphere of 1905
The second part of the exhibition shows Victor Horta’s passion for objects and works he collected from the Middle-East. By means of an identical reconstruction of the veranda and other objects, the public can discover his fascination for the Middle-East. Thanks to a meticulous job based on old photographs in the house, the visitor is emerged in a journey in time and the peculiar atmosphere of the house around 1905.

Victor Horta was himself a collector of Eastern objects and works of art. Although his collection was largely broken up at auction, the Museum did, fortunately, manage to acquire a number of items at the time of the sale. These were subsequently restored to their original locations in the house. Horta also owned a unique and rather curious collection of samples of marble. It was donated to the Museum of Natural Sciences in Brussels by Horta’s widow but is on loan for the duration of the exhibition.

Also on loan, from the Art and History Museum in Brussels, are a number of works of prestigious provenance, having once been owned by major collectors of Japanese art of Horta’s day—Edmond Michotte being one such. In an eclectic setting, and one that evokes the arts of collection and decoration as practised in Horta’s time, visitors will thus become acquainted with the sorts of works that featured in the fin-de-siècle mania for collection—a joyous mix of rare items and bazaar souvenirs. Lastly, a piano from the end of the XIXth century has been generously borrowed by the company Pianos Maene. Exactly 100 years after the departure of Horta, there is again a piano in its original place in the music room. This exhibition could not have taken place without the exceptional support of the Art & History Museum and its generous loan of 45 works of Japanese art.

3. THE STUDIO // Rearrangement of the studio with the collection furniture from a private collection that was never shown to the public before
The first floor of the Horta Studio has been emptied of its contents to make room for a display of furniture from a private collection that was never shown before. The young Brussels collector behind this ensemble—Jonathan Mangelinckx—has managed to bring together a remarkable collection of pieces designed by Paul Hankar, Henry van de Velde, Victor Horta, and Gustave Serrurier-Bovy. In collaboration with Borys Delobbe, he is currently preparing a series of scholarly publications on the collection, with texts by a wide range of specialists, from Belgium and elsewhere. In an exclusive event, the Horta Museum hosts a carefully chosen selection of items from this unique collection, gathered together under the rubric ‘Belgian Art Nouveau belge’. In the first of the Studio rooms, visitors will be able to admire a display of four chairs, armchairs, and stools by Horta, Hankar, van de Velde, and Serrurier-Bovy. In Horta’s office, by contrast, they will face a more practical challenge: identifying the distinctive styles of Horta and other designers in five other, unmarked, pieces.