BRUSSELS.- Opening today through to 19 May 2024, WIELS presents an ambitious large-scale survey exhibition of the work of Jef Geys, titled ‘You don’t see what you think you see' in Brussels. With this presentation of over 200 objects and documents, accompanied by the first survey publication of the artist’s work, WIELS wants to contribute to art historical research on Jef Geys, as well as to the understanding and appreciation of the artist and his multifaceted practice for local and international audiences.

Art critics commonly describe Jef Geys’ work as “unruly, and impossible to categorize in conventional art-historical categories.” Despite Geys’ subversive and critical attitude towards the art world, the exhibition at WIELS shows that his work is not only deeply engaged and socially critical, but also funny and sensory.

As Geys writes in 1991, “Is what one sees really what one thinks one sees? And what can one do with what one sees?” Our perception of things is shaped by assumptions, beliefs and habits, which in turn are influenced by education, mainstream media and advertising. Always critical of image and language, Geys aims to expose “the hidden, what one thinks one sees,” and encourages self-reflection and scepticism. This aim is the starting point of this survey of Geys’ heterogeneous work, enriched by previously unpublished and exceptional documents from the artist's archives.

From the early 1960s, Jef Geys compiled an archive, with the titles of everything he considered part of his artistic practice on his List of Works as its index. With a total of 844 entries, the List of Works opens with photographs and drawings from Geys’ school days at the Brothers of Charity, followed by a wide range of creative projects spanning six decades of artistic practice. Avant-garde drawings and paintings, lacquered puppets, sensual fruit reliefs, performances and actions, conceptual photography, ‘open’ texts, and instructional films all make the list. But so do Geys’ observations of a first-time cyclist, his botanical studies for self-medication, his novel methods of teaching his students, as well as the local community meetings for direct democracy he helped to organise. Jef Geys’ List of Works clearly demonstrates his versatility and broader interests as an artist, and as a precursor of interdisciplinary practice by integrating other disciplines such as biology, architecture, sociology, and anthropology within visual arts.

“For me, the main thing is to express my problems as clearly as possible, in a form and in a manner that feels obvious. Whether it’s an object, a project, or a painting, it doesn’t matter. I try to gain insight into things, and sometimes, to gain insight, I have to make something, and sometimes I have to write it down, and sometimes I have to blow up the museum to do it. To gain insight into things for myself. This is the self-study I'm working on.”

Jef Geys

Jef Geys’ work can be considered a lifelong learning experience. Between entry 1 and 844, he accumulated knowledge and sought answers to the questions and problems he faced. In doing so, he involved many groups of people, including students, village residents, museum visitors, family members, and bar managers, not just within but especially from outside the traditional academic art environments.

Curators: Dirk Snauwaert & Charlotte Friling
Assisted by Liska Brams, Oriana Lemmens & Kaat Obbels
In close collaboration with the Jef Geys Estate/Kazini

SURVEY EXHIBITION

Globally renowned Belgian artists Marcel Broodthaers, Panamarenko and Jef Geys are often cited as the leading Belgian artists of their generation, but only Geys' work has not yet been properly assessed, despite three major international exhibitions during his lifetime (2005-2007-2009), and two international surveys since his death (Bergen, Bern). Geys’ work inspires many, through its deliberate 'off the grid' peripheral existence in small town Balen rather than a trend-setting metropolis. This aspect of Geys' 'rural' and critical attitude and work has appealed to both public opinion and specialists since the 1960s. Geys had a great aversion to the retrospective as an art-historical institutional format, and he refused to submit to academic timelines and stylistic categorisation. His infamous proposal, 'Blowing up the Museum', was his response in 1970 to an invitation to a first retrospective exhibition at KMSKA. It is a decisive argument of Geys', and of many artists-since-Dada, to break with the institution of 'art' and its need to historicise. Geys also sought to dissolve the boundaries between disciplines and any hierarchies in art and society. He stretched the idea and definition of what a work of art could be, redefining artistry not as a career or as a skill but as a way of life, a practice, a 'life project'. An overview of Geys' work is therefore closer to mapping a continent than to classifying and selecting within a classical oeuvre. Geys also explored and entered a number of environments other than those usually associated with art institutions: the school, cafés, the strike committee and neighbourhood committees, the Kempens Informatieblad, and his own archive, among others. He does this from a personal, singular, rebellious and unconventional attitude that tirelessly pursues as its foundation a searching, experimental practice.

This larger survey, bringing together over 200 works, aims to provide much-needed information, and offer better insights in Geys’ work.