Although I have not been posting as frequently as normal, we have not been sitting still as curators of the Montevideo exhibition at the M HKA. Two weeks ago we have been interviewing Annie Gentils, Win Van den Abbeele and Johan Pas for the “talking heads” that will make up a great part of our exhibition. Today we will interview Guy Rombouts, Guillaume Bijl, Ria Pacquée, Luc Deleu and Marc Holthof. Chloé Dierckx has been helping us with the recording of the interviews and will do the editing as well. Jasper, Tirsa and Shana have been working on the publication of a booklet that will be sold for a small price during the exhibition. This will include a foreword, an introduction, a timeline of the Montevideo and our personal experiences of the curating process. When the interviews are finished, we have some final things to do for the exhibition – such as arranging the artworks we will display, finishing up the publication and meet with the designer of the M HKA – and then the exhibition will be opened at 16th June.
For the exhibition we have been tracking down the chronology of exhibitions and events at Montevideo in the 1980s. Based on the interviews we already held with Win, Annie and Johan and the guest lectures during our classes, I already have a broad idea of the atmosphere in Antwerp and the avant-garde art scene during those years. For this blog, however, I wanted to add more to my knowledge of the 1980s in Antwerp and I did some research for newspaper articles, literature and online resources concerning those years. I want to retrieve the context in which Montevideo was able to arise and provide such success.
To start with ‘Het Eilandje’, the city area where Montevideo was located. Nowadays this area has been subject to gentrification and is popular among young people and is packed with galleries, high-end restaurants and vibrant bars. The area of the Kattendijkdok – including the harbor house where Montevideo was located – was built in the nineteenth century under the directions of Napoleon, to expand the harbor area. When the harbor activities move more to the North in the twentieth century, the Kattendijkdok area starts to dilapidate. The city of Antwerp decides to combat dilapidation in the 1980s and therefore Annie was able to rent such a vast space for a very small price.
View of the Kattendijksluis with the harbor houses where the Montevideo was located on the right.
During the 1960s the early avant-garde is taking shape in Antwerp, with public happenings by artists at the squares of Antwerp and new platforms for avant-garde provided by galleries such as Wide White Space and De Zwarte Panter. At the end of the 1960s artists from Antwerp unite in collectives and alternative presentation platforms. Around mid-1970s this dynamic within the Antwerp art scene seems to fade and various avant-garde initiatives quit. The arrival of the punk scene in the 1970s revitalizes artistic playgrounds and public acts of performance art in Antwerp. The tone for new art initiatives is set and especially among the art scene in Antwerp people are more open to alternative approaches of art. I think Montevideo perfectly connects to this new tendency during those years. A similar initiative to Montevideo which I had not heard from before was located in an old silo near the river. Luc Deleu (ping!), Guy Rombouts (ping!), Wilfred Huet and Paul De Vylder transformed this building into a temporary space for contemporary art. Nowadays, the silo is the residence of the M HKA (ping!). It is very interesting to see how many names connected to Montevideo recur in my search for the cultural scene in Antwerp during the 1980s. It is clear that a fairly limited group of people has been responsible for such a revitalization of the general art scene and art initiatives in Antwerp. Although Montevideo had its own style – and certainly a very high artistic standard – it is intriguing to see how it fits in with the flow of artistic initiatives during those days.
In his article on art initiatives in Antwerp Johan Pas explains the tendency of experimental art in Antwerp during the 1970s begins to diminish after Flor Bex, the director of the ICC, is fired. The performances and avant-garde in Antwerp’s art program are replaced by traditional arts such as painting and sculptures. However, in line with the former art program of the ICC, several young artists from Antwerp start organizations and exhibition spaces of their own in which there is room for interdisciplinary art. Pas states that the avant-garde of the 1980s is therefore strongly rooted in the 1970s. Montevideo, again, suits the zeitgeist of Antwerp of this time. Brute art, performances, music and group expositions all came together in the space of Montevideo.
Some of the artists that were active within Montevideo also began initiatives of their own. For instance Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, who started a noise-performance duo and the organization Club Moral with Danny Devos. Club Moral, similar to Montevideo, also quickly acquired an international reputation. In addition it was equally located in an unconventional space: an abandoned industrial plant. Some more examples of art initiatives in Antwerp were Cintrik by Win Van Den Abeele, Zeno X Gallery by Frank Demaegd and Galerie Blanco by Guy Dierckx and Marleen Smets.
As I sensed during the interviews, Montevideo was not unique in its radical, unconventional and renewing character. Antwerp during the 1970s and 1980s had many cracks and holes that could be filled when it came to art. As a reaction many young art lovers, artists and alternative thinkers took the chance to do what they liked with little material. I think this is also why all people that were active during those days seem to know each other, they needed each other for inspiration and to preserve the avant-garde character of the 1980s.
References:
'T Eilandje. (N.D.). Hoe het was. Retrieved from http://www.antwerpseilandje.be/t-eilandje/verleden/
Pas, J. (2008, February 14).
Bezette stad. Kunstenaarsinitiatieven en interdisciplinariteit in Antwerpen (Courant #84). Retrieved from http://www.bamart.be/pages/detail/nl/1752
