MARTIN DOUVEN LEOPOLDSBURG JEF GEYS - M HKA

MARTIN DOUVEN
LEOPOLDSBURG
JEF GEYS
09.09 > 31.12.11

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INDEx
EXHIBITION 03
(texts by Griet Wynants / Joris Note)
PuBlIcaTION / mulTIPlE / cOlOurING BOOk / 3D-PrINT) 06
THE EXHIBITION vIsually 15
vIsuals 19
THE arTIsT 22
alsO IN THE m Hka 23
m Hka EXPEcTs 25
m Hka PracTIcal 26
m Hka ParTNErs 27

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1.
ExhIBITION
TExT BY GRIET WYNANTS
The activities of martin Douven (1898-1973), a self-taught artist from
leopoldsburg, provide the starting point of the exhibition.
Douven began selling his own paintings as a young man in 1928 in furniture
shops. as soon has his nine children were old enough, he got them painting
also. according to the method of the “painter’s chain” each child took care
of a part of the canvas (blue sky, cloud, tree...), and the father would
finish it off. later he would train young employees from the neighbourhood
in the technique of production-line painting. after the second World War his
business grew to be a painting factory and a frame factory, because besides
‘golden fingers’ Douven had developed a shrewd business sense: he realised
all too well that there was a lot more money to be made from the canvases
if he could deliver them framed. From the mid 1950s onwards the painting
was only carried out by home-painters, who delivered more than 5000 works
a week with all manner of subjects (floral pieces, landscapes, sea views,
portraits...). an american journalist called martin Douven ‘the Henry Ford
of oil painting’.
apart from the frames the factory took care of worldwide distribution,
and in time framed photographs and reproductions also became part of the
line. During the 1960s the firm had 200 employees and a sister firm in aachen.
In the early 1970s, because of a need for capital, an american industrial
partner was courted: Intercraft Industries corporation took over the
Douven company completely in 1975 and ended all activity in 1977. The lucasshops
that sell all manner of drawing and painting materials are a remnant
of Douven’s company.
(Source: Gert Douven)

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In the 1950s the family Douven went to live in Leopoldsburg along the Kopslaan, whereas
the young Jef Geys was living in the nearby Faytlaan. Jef Geys and François Douven were
born in the same year and were at school together at the Brothers of Love. When Jef would
visit his friend’s house, he witnessed the factory nearby in full productivity.
Jef Geys says that he had to defend his own reputation as a ‘drawer’ in the first school
year by drawing an African and a palm tree. Later he did a variation on this theme by drawing
a scene of the comic strip characters Robbedoes and Piet Kwabbernoot who are sitting in a
giant cauldron under the watchful eye of a few fellow black brothers, under the pseudonym of
‘Mister x’.
It was the free and easy time just after the war. Çois became part of his ingenious
father Martin’s family team – and Jef mourned his first unhappy love story, with Monique C.,
to whom he had attempted to explain on a cold winter’s day that he had nothing to offer her.
In those days Leopoldsburg was famed for its internationally oriented mercantile spirit. In
addition to 10.000 inhabitants there were about 100.000 soldiers stationed there during their
encampment days; and then there were the wagon loads of adventurers who came to ‘assist’
the ‘Camp’ population in their attempts to earn a few pennies extra during those glittering,
cosmopolitan days. While father Douven was running his global company, father Geys, after
an imposed adventure at eighteen in the First World War, and after a military career, had
ended up as a ‘guard’ in Beringen at the mine.
Jef did not succeed in getting into cadet school, but did spend four long years as a
professional volunteer with the air force and then returned empty-handed to Leopoldsburg.
his parents, his brother (who had helped occupy Germany with the Piron Brigade) and his
youngest sister continued to support him.
Jef Geys then decided to fulfil his greatest dream and decided to enrol in the Academy
of Antwerp. he ended up in Piet Serneels’ class and at night followed the art history lessons of
Professor Van der Brempt. In Serneels’ class for the first few days he sat beside Wannes van de
Velde, who greeted him as a new-comer by passing him a drawing of a stylised coffee pot, with
the words: ‘Take good care of that, I’m going to be famous!’
Jef sees his dream take shape thanks to teachers like Serneels, Maclot, Dolphyn and
Strebelle, but certainly also thanks to the paternal guards in a bluish policeman’s uniform
and the open door policy of the fabulous library. In the morning he takes the earliest train to
Antwerp and returns home with the latest one, until he can rent a two-roomed house in the
Vlaaikensgang for 40 francs a month. The evening classes in French literature and Strebelle’s
silver Porsche ‘décapotable’ provide the spice that keep him going.
Serneels and inspector Van Looy make it possible for Jef to work for the company Signa
Expo ’58: he has to stick the press pavilion full of cork letters and hands that indicate directions.
New horizons open for him when in the United States pavilion he becomes acquainted
with both ice cream and Saul Steinberg for the first time.
After the academy days are over he goes with his friend Jef Van Dijck (who came from
Studio herman Teirlinck) to the recently founded department of visual arts in the state school
of hasselt: they have to obtain a diploma there if they are to be allowed to work in the state
schools. At the end of the study Jef Geys – in part thanks to the intervention of the principal
Corijn – is able to start work as a teacher in Sint-Lambrechts-Woluwe. he starts to undergo a
whole series of mutations that ends at the state middle school of Balen; here he would stay for
many years. After a series of fusions with a school in Mol and a disagreement with the new
principal, he goes into a sort of early retirement. From the manner in which Jef speaks about
his period in Balen you can tell that this was a ‘great time’ for him and his students.
Balen is his wife Mia’s hometown, whom he met in 1958. Mia’s father, son of a cattle
trader, was sent to the Saint Victor School in Turnhout before the Second World War, for his
intellectual education, only to follow in his father’s footsteps. Fik Dammen – a calm, goodlooking,
clever man – can live with the fact that his daughter has a boyfriend who is a somewhat
older ex-academy student who is going to teach.
And now there is a new connection with Martin Douven. Father Dammen, who meets
his companions, on a professional basis in the café The Colourful Ox, deals in cattle but also

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does deals on the side in all manner of curiosities: a Greek temple with a built-in radio, a vase
from 1900 with stuccoed animals on it of which one has lost its head, and... a painting, without
a frame, with a romantic little lake and two swans. That painting is from Douven’s workshop.
Jef was wrestling then, just as he still does now, with one question: what is real and
what is pseudo real and what is abstraction? he attempts to find the strong lines in paintings,
as taught to him at the Academy for the old masters, to identify the most important attributes.
What makes an image ‘attractive’ and for whom, and how? Why does an image ‘work’? And
so, in 1959, thanks to Fik Dammen, the ‘black painting with swans’ came to be, the first in a
long range of black paintings on which Jef marks the key points geometrically (circle, triangle...).
It is also the start of research into (see the ‘hundred model paintings’) painting itself:
ground, material, subject, examples, followers, helpers, schools, signature... The history of the
family Douven is the leitmotif in this research.
And finally, Jef Geys not only confronts himself with Douven. he also find all kinds of
parallels between his business and large studios like that of Rubens, where group work was
still the order of the day.

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2.
JEF GEYS
OR SOMEBODY ELSE
TExT BY JORIS NOTE, SUMMER 2010
FOrEPlay, Far aWay FrOm HOmE
In 1955 a friendly polemic took place between the poet-politician from Martinique,
Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) and the younger haitian poet René Depestre (1926). Both were
Communists at the time, but it did not show in Césaire’s work; his poetic revolt tended far
more towards Surrealism.
Louis Aragon, a former Surrealist and by then a Communist Party bigwig, had elaborated
in a series of articles which direction, according to him, ‘national poetry’ needed to take.
he was of the opinion that classical ‘French’ forms should be wielded, whereas ‘individualistic’
free verse was to be frowned upon. Depestre had devotedly adopted this view, although he did
however wish to allow his African roots to play some part. In the periodical Présence Africaine
Césaire retorted with an angry poem and an equally angry piece of prose. Depestre made a
riposte in turn, and other black authors also mingled in the debate.
It is possible that both texts by Césaire have something else to teach us, despite the fact
that he vitalistically calls upon his African ‘blood’. his poem ‘Réponse à Depestre poète haïtien’
reminds the young poet of the thunderbolt revolution out of which his country was born,
and encourages him to lay down his servility to Western standards.
Depestre I indict the bad manners of our blood
is it our fault
if the squall hits
suddenly unteaching us to count on our fingers
to circle three times and bow
Metrical feet are among those things you can count on your fingers. Césaire mocks the return
to bound verses and associates the polished sonnets with the sweet juice that is mechanically
‘salivated’ by the sugar factories in the Caribbean. he also compares the old forms to beetles
that eat up the young shoots in spring. Come on, comrade Depestre, let us both flee the faultfinders,
‘just as we used to flee our masters with their whips’:
marronnons-les Depestre marronnons-les
Comme jadis nous marronnions nos maîtres à fouet
The neologism ‘marronner’ is derived from marron, a runaway slave. Marrons lived in unbridled
freedom and sometimes organised themselves in gangs that attacked the plantations.
With Césaire the term is about dissidence, and a cheerfully detached attitude (‘rions buvons et
marronnons’). We recognise no master, we have our own say.
In the second text Césaire accuses Depestre of formalism (in sticking to previously

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established forms) and of ‘assimilationism’ (adaptation to, imitation of, the West), and he says
poetry’s domain is rooted in the ‘authentic’, the personal experience. The latter is somewhat
romantic, but it does not indicate mere spontaneous outbursts of moods. (Césaire was someone
who worked and reworked his verses at length.) At the conclusion of his plea he states that
the poets from the periphery are great enough to go their own way, and that their work can
only exist if they maintain their ‘right to initiative’.
Does the preceding have anything at all to do with Jef Geys? Barely. Or does it?
Wasn’t it Geys who suddenly untaught us (Kleurboek voor volwassenen, 1963–1965,
‘Colouring Book for Adults’) that Great Britain and Vietnam are not neighbours on the map?
Isn’t all his work also about the right to initiative of whomever? Doesn’t he frequently lead
us to understand that the universal can only be attained by means of the individual characteristic
and the local? Isn’t authenticity also something that is essential to him? Doesn’t
Césaire’s critique of factory-like sonnets remind us of Geys’s fascination with assembly lines
and routine – and of his distrust towards forms, artistic, polished and other? Can Geys’s tense
relationship vis à vis the official art circuit (and society) not be seen as a kind of marronnage?
The identification with the marron has something compelling about it; it is intoxicating,
but, for precisely that reason, it is also somewhat dubious. With some later, less exalted
Antillean authors, that valiant figure had to make way for the djobeurs, those insignificant personages
who do not stand opposite the social order but find themselves in its periphery and
make their daily move of resistance right there, in the shadows. The ‘vertical’ marron stands
out above the others but also stands apart from them, contrary to the ‘horizontal’ djobeurs,
who remain part of the community.
In the end Jef Geys is more of a djobeur than a marron. he does not run away; he stays
with us. Even if he is not seen very often.
For whomever is interested: Césaire already left the Communist party in 1956 but
remained a man of the left his whole life. Depestre engaged himself from 1959 in Cuba, breaking
with Marxism at the end of the Seventies, when he became a fervent anti-communist and
sought his writer’s salvation in erotic prose.
What does it actually mean to be radical in art, in literature? That is an interesting
question to which I do not have an answer.
Is That It?
When Jef Geys exhibited at the Brussels Palace of Fine Arts (1992), there was an exhibition running
simultaneously, by David hockney. Friends of mine, friends with whom I have shared a lot
and who were greatly involved with art, looked at hockney with great pleasure but did an aboutturn
at Geys after one quick, initial glimpse; what they had seen did not attract them at all.
What do people imagine about art? What do they expect from it? Expressions such as
‘is that (still) art?’ and ‘that is not art (anymore)’ cannot always be interpreted easily. Leaving
unwillingness and hostility aside for a moment (and where do those dynamics come from,
incidentally?): a lack of knowledge and information is most likely an essential factor. People
think for example (because they have learnt it that way) that art should involve particularly
beautiful, more or less instantly pleasing and appealing images; objects that ‘you would like
to have in your living room’, or images that strikingly convey certain feelings or points of view.
This isn’t art? I can find two motives. On the one hand: this is not art, because not
enough skill has informed it; there is not enough craft. So it resonates with: ‘my kid could do
that.’
On the other hand: ‘This isn’t art’, because it is something other than art. In this vein,
you could claim of Jef Geys that he is concerned with matters that do not belong to the realm
of art; that he is working beyond his competency. A newspaper remarked in a quasi-neutral
fashion on Quadra Medicinale (Venice, 2009): ‘the strictly-scientific approach of the Belgian
pavilion is not to everyone’s liking’. Several decades earlier the council of Eindhoven stumbled
over Political Aspect of an Emotion (1972): ‘Mayor and councillors are of the opinion that such an
investigation does not fall under the tasks of the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum. [In their opinion]
such investigations belong in the domain of the sciences such as psychology, sociology
and sexology.’ In 1990 the Winkler Prins Encyclopedia rejected an image of Architectuur als begrenzing
(‘Architecture as Boundary’, the project for São Paulo), because it was not art. In 1968

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Geys wished to improve the geographical knowledge of his students with the aid of a drawing
of an immense world map on the playground – and immediately the geography teacher felt
‘threatened in his profession’: he felt that the art teacher had nothing to do with politics and
even less with geography’.
And that is not even mentioning Geys’ gardening activities.
Everyone should stick to their trade and mind their own business. Jef Geys breaks through the
‘normal’ division of competencies; he makes it into a theme, and allows others to surpass their
authority or usual working terrain. he does not know his place and encourages others to not
know their places either.
In the duo exhibition with Gijs Van Doorn (Duinbergen, 1989) he placed models by a
fourteen-year-old boy on the same ‘level’ as his. With the young children at school, curious
after their responses, he brought in original works by famous contemporary artists. On the occasion
of his mother’s ninetieth birthday (1986) he placed his congratulations and her photograph
on the front page of a newspaper, where world news usually belongs; and afterwards he
reported how the old woman had relativised this norm-breaking act by asking: ‘Is that it?’
There are also the Vrouwenvragen? (‘Women’s Questions?’ 1960–), that formed the
starting point of new questions and classroom discussions. The words that Geys added to a
random Damesroman (Ladies’ Novel, 1965): What would the characters say or think if they
weren’t completely damaged and mutilated? The old museum guard in Middelburg, who had
interpreted the work of Beuys: ‘The power of that human resistance’ for Geys held the same
‘intensity’ as the exbibited drawings by the famous German. In 1975–1976 Geys asked a foreign
student at the end of every lesson to teach the teacher and fellow students a few terms of their
distant tongue.
In these last examples people who are often objectified are given the status of subject.
The film Geys produced, Bolivian Workshops, by Ina Vandebroek (part of the exhibition
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, 2010) also meanders along that line: alongside regular medics
traditional healers speak here, whose knowledge and position of trust within their own community
are thereby rendered useful.
Time and again the artist grants those subjects their own voices, their unembellished
authenticity. he does not determine what they should say or do, he does not impose his thinking
on them, nor does he adapt their vision to his own – not even to his emancipatory attitude.
In this same spirit the Casa (a reduced replica of the Villa Wintermans in Balen, left on the
grounds of a school by Geys in 1991 in São Paulo) has no predetermined purpose: the members
of the community were to determine themselves what they did with the ‘definitive temporary’
construction. These very people were then able to report themselves how that developed in a
film by Inge Godelaine (exhibited in Antwerp, 2009).
And of course: we too, who encounter the work of Geys, obtain the freedom to interpret
it; we are free to think about it whatever we wish and, if we should so desire, take it along
with us in our manner on our way. Let us therefore take that freedom, and not grumble when
something seems dark. It is clear that simply looking is not going to suffice, but make no mistake:
many of the works are visually also truly ‘beautiful’.
From all of this emerges a non-hierarchical way of thinking, an idea of equality –
equality between art and other practices, between the artist and other people, and more
generally between so-called creatives and non-creatives, or ‘white and blue-collar workers’.
Everyone has the right to speak; everyone has a say. (Freedom of expression, but then with a
lot more veracity than the common media-speak about it.)
That idea is also expressed through other forms of equality: those between different techniques
and materials (see the brown wrapping paper, the felt tip pen, the photocopy...), between
letters (handwriting) and other images, between weeds and serious plants or serious medicines,
between all the photographs a person makes during their lifetime... The choice for equality is not
to be seen separately from the thought that everything is connected to everything else, and that
all elements are necessary to the whole; that nothing or nobody can be missed. I am also thinking
of the ‘packet of seeds’, a mundane object that is lifted from its mundanity and self-evidence
by Geys and promoted to a problematic emblem that says a lot about art and society.
The breakthrough of competencies and the deconstruction of hierarchies refer to

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a different history (‘a history of the common people’ we would have said at one time) and
simultaneously they are precursors of a different, hoped-for future. In those transgressions
undoubtedly the most political element of Geys’ work resides; it is an indirect, ‘non-political’
type of political practice, but it is for that very reason meaningful in an enduring way in the
ultra conservative climate of today. During the 60s and 70s, when many believed in thorough
societal reform, other options for critical artists were also possible (and the actions surrounding
Vieille Montagne in 1971 showed an example of this).
It is often justly emphasised that Jef Geys has been working consistently for fifty years;
which also means to say that he has withstood the disastrous political turn-around of the
political and cultural climate. Such a thing can only be said of very few people.
Jef Geys’ local perspective, too, has something to do with egalitarianism: the village of
his birth, Leopoldsburg, and the place where he lives, Balen, and the region, the Kempen,
where a number of people come from, who pop up in his work now and then (Walter van
den Broeck, Jef Sleeckx, Gijs Van Doorn...). It is not without significance that those Kempen
were until quite recently associated with folklore and local art and literature (related to
the land: bodemgebonden: Jakob Smits, Dirk Baksteen, Armand Preud’homme, Emiel van
hemeldonck...), and for that reason also with a certain kind of limited view and sluggishness.
With Geys the essence lies in the immediate connection between local (provincial,
regional) and international; between the particular and the universal; between here and
the world. And thus a new, generally accepted division is dissolved, a dominant perspective
undermined, a recognized competency drawn into question. Because, while the artistic circuit
appears to be a quintessentially urban phenomenon (where, after all, do you find museums
and galleries?), Geys shows that you do not by definition have to look at art, let alone the
world, from the viewpoint of the city. The tiniest place is worth as much as the metropolis.
That is delightfully envisioned in the combinations of the title Kempens Informatieblad met
speciale editie São Paulo (Kempens information bulletin with São Paulo special edition, or Pori
special edition; but it can also of course be special edition Mol(a town in the Kempen).
Every edition of the newspaper is a special edition; there are exclusively special editions,
and no, that is really not a lame joke.
Wherever in the world Geys exhibits, he makes a special edition not only of his paper
but also of the work itself. It is preceded/accompanied/followed by a study of and interventions
in the local context. To put it somewhat broader, the work is involved, in some way or
another, in the place where it is to be seen. The artist ‘commits himself’ to these places; he
engages in a connection with them. Vacuous generality is avoided.
But that commitment or that intervention should not be overestimated: the importance
of the artwork should not be overestimated. It cannot change reality in a profound
way. Something similar also goes for the particular things that Geys did as a teacher (‘what
remains of that you never really know’). And if you read or hear the interviews by Inge
Godelaine with the inhabitants the community surrounding the Casa in São Paulo, you could
conclude that it ended up in quite poorly; that it meant little – in any case, when you consider
that Geys had taken it upon himself to Improve the Fate of those people. That is an all to heroic
vision of artisthood.
In the end this artist is also but a viewer, a viewer such as we are, who looks at his work
and at reality; but he looks differently and gives us suggestions for looking differently. But you
must realise that the viewer is not someone who sits there with their arms folded; that he can
and should do more than register impassively and unstirred. I laughed when someone wrote
on the Venice project: ‘Jef Geys doesn’t choose sides.’
FIrsT PErsONs
A while ago in France and in Belgium the theme of identity was de rigeur. Striking in our part
of the world, is that someone can well feel Flemish, Belgian and/or European, but that the
levels Balen/the world (which find themselves at either end of the spectrum) are mentioned but
seldom– even if both the neighbourhood meeting and globalisation are commended. Which
gives food for thought.

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Eitherway, identity is a precarious, highly charged subject for discussion. The French philosopher
Jean-Luc Nancy writes:
‘Being a Frenchman’ is no empty expression for me, but I always also understand something
of ‘proletarians of the world by it...’ (all the more because we know even better than
Marx that the super rich of the world understand each other as thief and accomplice).
‘Identity’ does indicate a characteristic of the being, but I do not forget that ‘I is
another’ [Rimbaud] and that that other also belongs to the being.
If we are speaking of the identity of an individual, we can only – also separately from nationalities
great and small – mean something that is fragmented: everything that ‘determines’ a
person, all his qualities and roles – and always he or she is also another. Multiplication of the person,
times 362.880. Jef Geys, artist: draughtsman, painter, sculptor, set-builder... But also, Jef Geys:
army man, teacher, publisher, writer, cycling coach, photographer, builder, gardener, bar-owner,
film producer... And of course: husband, son, brother, father, friend... You spontaneously think of
his empty Ik-vormen (‘First Persons’, 1966), which are based on the contour sketches that remain
on the street after an accident (‘a negative in the truest meaning of the word’).
In Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (‘The Man without Qualities’) Robert Musil says that the
inhabitant of a country has at least nine ‘characters’ (based on profession, class, nationality...):
he unites these in himself, but they dissolve him and actually he is nothing more than a small
hollow, washed out by all those small streams, where they seep in and then stream out again,
in order to fill another hollow together with other streams. This is why every inhabitant of the
world also has a tenth character, and that is none other than the passive fantasy of unfilled
spaces; it allows man everything, except for that one thing: to take seriously what his at least
nine other characters are doing and what happens to them; so in other words, precisely not
that which should fill him.
The person Jef Geys is present in and with his art. he provides documentation with the work,
is visible on many photographs, and reveals biographical elements that are relevant to a work
or a set-up. That’s logical enough: because for him everything is interrelated, aspects of his life
and environment cannot remain invisible.
At the same time he is emphatically absent. he never or rarely appears at his own
openings, rarely gives ordinary press interviews and does not explain his work either. The
biographical elements do not grow into a biography; they do not gel and interlink: they always
remain somewhat unintelligible. he withdraws; slips away. There is a tendency towards anonymity.
(Compare: how the names of family and acquaintances are sometimes mentioned, as
a matter of course, with almost self-evidence: with them there is no explanation either. And
there is the confusing game with names in Lapin rose robe bleu(e).)
A symbol of this dualism is the handwriting, that consists of printed capital letters,
but is immediately recognisable, or vice versa. To hide and to reveal. Nobody writes as Jef Geys
does, but Jef Geys writes like a non-person.
here too, the idea of equality is at stake. The master is absent, in the end, because there
is no master.
‘It all starts in Leopoldsburg...’ Somebody should try and piece together the biographical
elements, especially the memories of youth – and see how (in)coherent the collection turns
out to be. It is sometimes about significant insignificant details: the absence of “chic bourgeois
fruit bowls” in the parental home, or: coming home from school and having to turn on
the light, ‘because the washing was hanging out to dry inside the house’. But also: the warm
references to the mother. The admired brother, and the father, who have both been soldiers,
and so are more or less directly linked to the military camp. (The least you can say is that
Leopoldsburg was a somewhat unusual place to grow up). The sharpness of the soldier. The
Nazis in the camp, during the war; the ambivalent relationship to that fact. his own choice for
the army, out of ‘an empty, unhappy feeling’. The feeling of social inferiority. The whores of
Leopoldsburg (‘in the end we’re all prostitutes’), the sullen gunpowder factory in Balen, like a

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‘concentration camp’ (‘in which we are, after all, all imprisoned’).
What I write here may seem somewhat sombre or unpleasant, whereas the art of Jef
Geys comes across as both vital and awake. But perhaps there is no other way, and this kind
of art can only be made by somebody who has experienced the negative strongly enough; by
someone who has known the deepest discomfort.
how anonymous can an artist be?
Positive associations do not easily adhere to serial work or the assembly line, and especially
where art is concerned; art appears to be related to the unique item and would therefore
be incompatible with mass production.
But we should not forget that the “undertakings” such as Geys’ Cultuurcentrale (‘Culture
Plant’, 1969), or (originally) that of Martin Douven, are also collective, and therefore inhere a
very valuable aspect, more or less hidden – and that they are genuinely related to Rubens’ studio.
Jef Geys once (1979) pleaded for ‘as much communal knowledge as possible’: ‘It has become
impossible for the individual to find solutions. You start to realise that people have to group
together.’ Assembly line work or factory work can be seen as a caricature of society, but also as
its undesired and inglorious prefiguration. Quadra Medicinale and Woodward Avenue provide
group work at another level.
We also remember that as an art student Geys chose the study of Publicity, ‘the most
commercial and kitsch options that were then available’, and ‘which therefore concerned the
masses’. Again, in a different way, there is a connection with the collective. Advertising does
not justify the assembly line any more than the collective dimension, but because of that it is
more than worth rescuing and using.
According to a famous statement by Berthold Brecht, for an alternative practice, you
don’t have to make connections with the good and the old, but the with the present and the
bad. I think Geys has done that often.
THE HEarT OF THE maTTEr
In articles about Jef Geys you can read that for him, art is never separated from ‘life’: ‘ordinary
life’ as it is sometimes called, or ‘real life’, ‘life itself’. It is more or less clear what the authors
mean by that, but it does not go beyond ‘more or less’, because ‘life’ is such an extremely vague
word. All of life or human life? Art in life or alongside it? Biological life, daily life, societal life?
Moreover, if we wish to understand and emphasise Geys’s critical stance towards the art
world, we have to search for formulations that do not land him in the same realm as demagogues
who, by definition, see all recognised contemporary art as lifeless, as estranged from
the life of ordinary people, as empty games…
(‘Life’: I think, in this context, has been abused too frequently and is therefore an unusable
word. True, full life! As it is! Ah, ‘authenticity’ is just as much devalued, but for now I
cannot not go without the term.)
There is, shall we say, the shape, and opposite that, the shapeless: that which is shaped
by this shape, that which the shape is filled by and which perhaps surpasses it, that which
is suppressed by the shape but will soon destroy it, that which precedes the shape or will be
there after the shape has gone, that which escapes the shape and is impossible to shape; that
which is embellished by the shape or abused by it…
The truth that we know or approach is always somewhat shaped, subdivided, structured,
and, especially: captured by language. Reality is always already ‘fiction’, in the etymological
sense: made, kneaded… that even counts for the so-called naked facts. The shapes
therefore make the real accessible, but at the same time they veil it, to greater or lesser extent
– we always receive but an appearance, and therefore semblance. The limited nature or the
duplicitous nature of that semblance can be voluntary or involuntary.
Art and literature, which themselves consist of complex shapes, during the twentieth
century often applied themselves to criticism of artistic and societal norms; on anti-illusionism:
by searching for purer forms, and for what lies behind the shapes or forms, behind the
semblance. That often comes down to art that identifies itself as art, as something that does
not coincide with the real and does not adequately ‘represent’ it. Alain Badiou speaks of a
passion du réel, which in his view have typified the art, politics and science of the last cen-

12
tury; the art in question ‘is a reflexive art, an art that wishes to show its process [...]. Showing
the distance between the artificial and the real becomes the main goal of the artificial.’ The
Verfremdung by Bertold Brecht, that wishes to create distance towards theatre and towards
society, can be considered to be a very fundamental procedure.
But these artistic practices have no end point. We can never lead ourselves to believe
that we have arrived; the real as such is not attainable: indeed, we can only indicate the distance
between the semblance and the real.
Maybe from this context something can be clarified about Geys, who is always interested ‘the
heart of the matter’. In any case he seems to be a thoroughly twentieth century artist, without
affinity for the restorative climate of the past years, in which every alternative to the existing
shapes and structures tends to get swatted away as unrealistic and even dangerous. I will
attempt to illustrate this with a few works. Again what is at stake here is an indirect, nonpolitical
politic.
The book with Al de zwart-wit foto’s tot 1998 (‘All the Black-and-White Photographs
until 1998’) is an unstoppable outburst of the real, or an infraction by the real on the normal
(conceivable, approachable) reality. The extraordinary resides not so much in their multitude
as such (thousands of contact prints) as in the encompassing nature of the undertaking: the
inclusion of all kinds of possible themes (art is a subject among others), and especially the
inclusion of the undeniable failures (that thereby maybe are not failures anymore?) and of
‘unnecessary’ repetitions; combined just as crucially with the lack of any visible organisation.
In a contemporary review photography lecturer Johan de Vos brilliantly phrased the disconcertedness
this work brings about among ordinary photographers or with those who expect
to find an ordinary photography book. he also remarks:
The photograph is the whole within the edge, it is the moment and the cut-out, but the
visual artist is not interested in the photo but in the inside of the photograph, the fragments
of images, the visual information between the folds.
Al de zwart-wit foto’s is an extreme or even fanatic work, because there seems to be no shape
made or shown; but this unfinished chaos is automatically perceived in contrast with the lacking,
expected order: only thereby can we somewhat conceive of it and say something about it.
(Something similar was true, I suspect, for the pieces of coal that Geys exhibited and planted
during the 60s.)
In 1966–1967 Jef Geys asked his pupils to make ‘a series of photographs of their “world”,
seen through the framework of the seven colour book pages’ (i.e. from the viewpoint of the
themes woman, house, body, and so forth). In the catalogue for São Paulo we see an example
of what that amounted to: a page that is comparable to the large photography book (that
shows something of Geys’ own ‘world’). The photographs are a counterpart to the schematic
limitation of the Colouring Book. (Kleurboek)
The Verhaal (‘Story’) for São Paulo (probably the most important text that Geys has written)
provides some more points of connection here; the emphasis of ‘image wear’ (explicitly
connecting with Brecht); unreliable images, ‘traps’,‘the pseudo doctor’s office, where the ruler
obscures installation for shooting in the back of the neck’; the coloured triangles and stars that
refer to quintessential horror. And: ‘can rabbits in an avant-garde cage bear any young?’
That last formulation makes the form collide with something ‘natural’ – and nature
seems to see it as a variation of the real. Geys himself has shown in the Kempens Informatieblad
for Venice with what persistence this motif returns throughout his oeuvre: see the seed
packets, the cows’ passports and the photograph of the hand that offers a nettle – brilliantly
printed, an example and at the same time a warning: ‘beware, it stings!’ And the New York
camouflage, referring to the jungle and the apes that preceded the city and will follow it. And
Quadra Medicinale itself, with the whimsical contained in the grid, with the despised weeds
and their ‘denied, ignored properties’ (Dirk Snauwaert). Denial, incorrect knowledge: that is
the function of the ‘false’ form, de semblance, the ideology.
In the meantime Woodward Avenue has joined the list, which is not only about weeds
but also about people who ‘for the most part are invisible’, who ‘use plants productively in

13
the shadows of this city [Detroit]’ (Luis Croquer) In the shadows. Strikingly enough, Geys here
criticises the artistic exploitation of a ‘ruined community’, of the ‘mega images’ of decay ‘in
expensive, colourful magazines’. That critique is a result of his painstaking reflection upon
his own practice, and of his general distrust of the art circuit. That circuit (galleries and other
institutions, and the agents of those institutions) is itself a form, which stands in the way of
the real of art.
And again photographs, those of Lapin rose robe bleu(e). Images of children – each
one someone’s darling – are stuck together en masse, with a band before the eyes, and shown
publicly: this is the breakdown of intimacy, the association with pornography and crime,
rendered anonymous. They are made into a series. In a blink, the disappearance of the unique
occurs (like the disappearance of the unique art work and the unique artist). Trepidation
before the real.
Anonymity is an ambivalent notion. Positive: the possibility to ‘become absorbed in’,
the relinquishing of a privileged position, of a special status (for example, that of an artist).
And so to close.
The Damesroman, (The Ladies’ Novel) with added thoughts by the characters that subsequently
are again made inaccessible; the closed Kist voor Madrid (‘Chest for Madrid’, 1969), of
which even Jef Geys isn’t sure what’s inside; the partially closed archive of the artist; the works
(such as that of São Paulo) that cannot be seen as a whole by one person.
Each time you may, I believe, see indications of the unattainable character of the real:
we are aware of something that is other than de semblance, but we cannot reach it.
aT HIs POsT
In 2007 Jef Geys placed a bronze version of one of his ‘dolls’ from the sixties on Balen’s market
square. That image, De schildwacht (‘The Sentry’), is intended to remain where it stands; it is
therefore a special case, and it received its own special edition of the Kempens Informatieblad.
In it the attention goes to the non-original, non-unique nature of the work and the sources or
examples thereof are revealed in a series that includes both Rodin and Brancusi and the sjotterkes
(‘players’) of table soccer and the Royal Guard at Buckingham Palace.
De schildwacht stands between shops and banks, between institutions that people approach
as customers, consumers, but who at the same time always pretend to be preoccupied
with people and personalities (‘because you are unique’, ‘as it suits you’). The image therefore
detonates because it does not project any false unicity, and also, somewhat paradoxically, by
being unobtrusive and unspectacular, you can easily miss it. Minimal presence; minimal art.
Geys asks us also to look at De schildwacht ‘as a question mark with everything that is
taking place around you’.
What does a sentry do, what does he have to do? Keep an eye on business, and sound
the alarm if necessary. To scare off attackers by his presence. And to never leave his spot.
I am reminded of the song of the jester in Shakespeare’s King Lear:
That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain
And leave thee in the storm
But I will tarry. The fool will stay
I also think of Lao Tzu, chapter 35: passersby hold halt at the resonant music and delicious
food, but not at the right thing that is without salt and unattractive. I paraphrase it, briefly:
look: there’s nothing worth looking at
listen: there’s nothing worth listening to.
But if you make use of it, its use is infinite.

14
sOurcEs
* Kempens Informatieblad, 1971-2010; Jef Geys/Roland Patteeuw, Jef Geys, een ‘roman’ omtrent motivatie en
werkelijkheid, (a ‘novel’ regarding motivation and reality’) Kreatief, jg. 6, winter 1972; J.G., Architectuur als
begrenzing – Bienal São Paulo 1991; (architecture as limit –São Paulo Biennial 1991) J.G., Palace of Fine Arts,
Brussels, 1992; J.G., Al de zwart-wit foto’s tot 1998, (All the black&white photographs until 1998), 1998; J.G./Inge
Godelaine, São Paulo 1991-2006, 2009; J.G./Roland Patteeuw, Wien Vienna Wenen, BAWAG Foundation, 2009; De
Standaard, 20-7-2000 (Johan de Vos), 6-7 juni 2009 (Geert Van der Speeten).
* Présence Africaine, (African Presence) 1955; Alain Badiou, Le Siècle,(the century) 2005; Jean Bernabé, in Aimé
Césaire: Une pensée pour le XXIe siècle (a thought for the twenty-first century), 2003; Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, The Book
of The Way and its Virtue, free translation, Robert Musil, The man without qualities (1930), free translation, 1988;
Jean-Luc Nancy, Identité: Fragments, franchises, (identity, fragments, franchises) 2010; Jacques Rancière, Le partage
du sensible: esthétique et politique), (the division of the sensitive: esthetics and politics) 2000, and Le spectateur
émancipé (the emancipated spectator), 2008.

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3.
PUBLICATION
MULTIPLE
COLOURING BOOK
3D-PRINT
a NEW EDITION OF THE NEWsPaPEr “kEmPENs INFOrmaTIEBlaD”
Since 1965 the newspaper “Kempens Informatieblad” accompanies the different exhibitions
and the editions of Jef Geys .
The edition MARTIN DOUVEN – LEOPOLDSBURG – JEF GEYS (M hKA, 2011):
With texts by
→ Bart De Baere (Dutch/English)
→ Zhang Jing (Dutch/English)
→ Griet Wynants (Dutch/French/English/German)
→ Joris Note (French/Dutch)
→ marie-ange Brayer (French/Dutch)
→ Franz W.kaiser (Dutch/French)
→ and the brochure by Gert Douven (Dutch/French/English)
copies: 1500
available at the m Hkashop
Price: 1€
In order to give more context to the exhibition, Jef Geys put up certain pages from older issues
of the “Kempens Informatieblad” next to the works on display.
The complete series can be consulted in the Antwerp City Library hendrik Conscience.
www.consciencebibliotheek.be

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mulTIPlE
Especially for the exhibition Jef Geys has conceived a multiple:
he proposed the entire museum staff to make puzzles of 500 pieces each– a bucolic landscape
by the American painter Thomas Kinkade – after which he asked the members of staff
to choose three little pieces and to paint them in red, yellow and blue. Geys refers here to an
older work, belonging to the collection of SMAK, Ghent.. The artist signed the puzzles, mentioning
each member of the staff who gave his personal touch to the multiple.
By analogy to the (re)produced paintings by Martin Douven, Geys refers to the imperium
of Thomas Kinkade, ‘Painter of Light’ (°1958) who commercialized his idyllic images on
a very large scale: prints upon daily objects such as towels, coffee cups etc. or for puzzles like
this one: the sentimental little landscape “A Peaceful Retreat – Begin of a Perfect Evening”.
The multiple is for sale at the m Hkashop
Price: 60€
cOlOurING BOOk 2011 – aNTWErP – JEF GEys
Between 1960 and 1989 Jef Geys teached “Positive Esthetics” at the secondary school in Balen, a
small Belgian village. To challenge his pupils into thinking in an artful and creative manner,
he invited them to colour in large colouring pictures in an unconventional way. he created
his first Colouring Book for Adults in 1965, an active exhibition project to literally stimulate the
fantasy of the public. Twice, in 2003 (Siegen, D) and in 2009 (Ostend,B), he translated the idea
into a Colouring Book project for a (young) public.
A new Colouring Book is now being presented.
At the beginning of the school year 2011 – 2012, Jef Geys offers this original Colouring
Book to the 12 year-olds in all Antwerp and Leopoldsburg schools.
The colouring Book is for sale at the m Hkashop
Price: 5€
3D-PrINT: call FOr DEsIGNErs!
What is art? What is real art? How authentic is a work of art? Is every work of art unique? Is a work
of art reproducible? What is the future of art in the makeable world?
In his exhibition MARTIN DOUVEN – LEOPOLDSBURG – JEF GEYS, artist Jef Geys makes the
audience think about authenticity in art and the creative process a work of art goes through.
At the request of the artist and on the occasion of this exhibition, M hKA launches a
special appeal: we invite the public to invent new forms for existing objects; the designs must
be original, be intended as a work of art and can include both handmade sketches or digital
drawings that can be printed in 3D. Those who opt for the digital format can get started with
Google Sketchup & 3Dtin. During the selection we will consider the originality and artistic
quality of the designs.
The call is launched at three different groups:
→ children and young people are encouraged to make and present a design with the 3Dtin
program (www.3dtin.com).
→ anyone with inspiration can present a proposal on the basis of a sketch. If selected, it
will be converted into a 3D drawing by a graphic artist (sketchup.google.com).
→ Experts, creatives and designers are invited to dazzle us with designs of “other” versions
of objects (sketchup.google.com or other software programs).
From the designs of each of the three groups, a selection of the most surprising proposals will
be made by a professional jury. The company i.materialise will print the three selected designs
on a professional 3Dprinter.
At the request of Jef Geys, a presentation of the possibilities of 3Dprinting, including
films and objects, will be on view at M hKA during the exhibition MARTIN DOUVEN –

17
LEOPOLDSBURG – JEF GEYS (until 12/31/2011). here, visitors will also be able to discover the
“home version” of the 3Dprinter, which we may all find in our offices in a few years.
more information about the technical conditions (printable size, materials, timing) for
submitting the designs and the possibilities regarding participation and visits can be
obtained through ontvangt@muhka.be or 03 260 99 99.
In cooperation with the Leuven-based i.materialise company

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4.
ThE ExhIBITION
VISUALLY
The family business of Martin Douven has been visualised through architectural maps, photographies,
scale models of the factory and the trucks, films and former television emissions.
Besides original and by Geys adapted Douven – paintings, the artist shows samples of works
from the printing factory, printed after the original paintings by Louis Camerlinck. Jef Geys
also illustrates his exhibition project by showing famous old paintings such as the 17 th century
oil painting by P.P. Rubens “De Bewening van Christus” (collection KMSKA, Antwerp),
surrounded by parts of a BMW/Z4 car, an installation with all the necessary ingredients to
produce (mass)art and documents like newspaper articles. A fully automatic machine to make
stretchers in the Rotonde, constructed by Wim Verboven – Art-Vebo in Meerhout, shows that
robotizing also entered into the fabrication of stretchers.

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5.
VISUALS
Jef Geys, Zwart schilderij met zwaantjes

20
Multiple

21
Schilderketting Daily Mail, 20 augustus 1965

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6.
ThE ARTIST
JEF GEYS (°1934, LEOPOLDSBURG) LIVES AND WORKS IN BALEN (B), is one of the leading
conceptual artists in Belgium, whose practice is dedicated to the question of art’s social usefulness.
Jef Geys regularly participates in international exhibitions in major institutions,
among others Chambre d’Amis, Ghent (1986), the Biennial of São Paulo (1991), Palais des
Beaux-Arts, Brussels (1992), Skulptur Projekte, Münster (1997), Middelheim, Antwerp – Solo
exhibition(1999), Kunstverein, München – Solo exhibition (2001), Documenta 11, Kassel (2002),
van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven – Retrospective (2004), Venice Biennial– representing Belgium
(2009) with the exhibition Quadra Medicinale, Woodward Avenue, Detroit (2010), M hKA,
Antwerp – Solo exhibition MARTIN DOUVEN – LEOPOLDSBURG – JEF GEYS (2011)
PrIZEs:
→ vlaamse cultuurprijs voor Beeldende kunst (2000)
→ Prijs Beeldende kunst van de Provincie antwerpen (2008)
www.jefgeys.org

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7.
JEF GEYS AND M hKA
The M hKA acquired the following works of art by Jef Geys for its own collection:
→ ABC, école de Paris (1959-1961)
→ Vrouwenvragen (1965)
→ De Gevallen Verwittiging (1985)
→ Jef Geys voor beginners (editie, 2002)
→ Structuur voor Sao Paulo (Berlijn/montevideo/Zedelgem-loppem/Praag, 1991)
Some of these works have recently been on display during the COLLECTION PRESENTATION
VIII (summer 2004), DEAR ICC (2004/5), COLLECTION PRESENTATION: WhO’S GOT ThE
BIG PICTURE? (2007) and ThE ORDER OF ThINGS (2008/9)
EXTra murOs:
VILLA WINTERMANS (04.12.2009 > 17.01.2010, KMSKA)
An exhibition project in cooperation with KMSKA.

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8.
OThER ExhIBITIONS
AT M hKA
lONEly aT THE TOP (laTT): GraPHOlOGy cHaPTEr 1→4
In four episodes, Graphology explores the automatisms that may show themselves in drawing.
The human hand as a seismograph of the inner life, but also, conversely, the ‘mechanical
unconsciousness’ of the machine that thrusts itself on the human eye. Printed reproduction
techniques lead a life of their own, but how? A series of exhibitions set at the intersection of
drawing, photography, printmaking, film and computer graphics.
GraPHOlOGy cHaPTEr 4
26.08→25.09.11
While the first three chapters were dedicated to the impact of photography, typography and
infographics, the last one accentuates the importance of cinématography (ré-animation, linearity,
time and et rhythm)
With works by Juliana Borinski, Jan Evangelista Purkinje, Man Ray, Marcel Broodthaers, Nikolaus
Gangsterer, Dominique Somers ed.al.

25
EXTra murOs
mEEsTErWErkEN IN HET mas/masTErPIEcEs IN THE mas
vijF EEuWEN BEElD IN aNTWErPEN/FIvE cENTurIEs OF ImaGEs IN aNTWErP
uNTIl 30.12.2012
May 2011 MAS/ Museum aan de Stroom opened its doors to the public. Masterpieces in the
MAS. Five Centuries of Images in Antwerp, the first temporary exhibition of the new museum,
brings together works by old masters and those of contemporary artists. The prestigious exhibition
demonstrates that Antwerp was always a leader in terms of visual culture with a series
of undisputed masterpieces. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Antwerp was considered
a world centre for the development of imagery. Even today the visual arts created here
have contributed to Antwerp’s global reputation as an international leading arts centre.
Masterpieces in the MAS. Five centuries of images in Antwerp is an exhibition of The Royal
Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M
hKA) and the Museum Plantin-Moretus/Prints Room (MPM / PK), featuring masterpieces
from their collections.
The exhibition is based on A Story of the Image. Old en New Masters from Antwerp,
shown in Shangai and Singapore two years ago. For the exhibition in the MAS, the subject
will be deepened, while we will be able to admire some masterpieces that were too fragile to
be transported to Asia.
Works from the M hKA show how contemporary artists approach imagery.
Photographers like Charif Benhelima, painters like Luc Tuymans, video artists like David
Claerbout reverse their deliberate focus on the detail back to the essence of the image. Their images
are bold alternatives to the great flood of images of our contemporary consumer society.
venue: mas, Hanzestedenplaats 1, 2000 antwerp

26
9.
M hKAExPECTS
a rua (THE sTrEET)
WITHIN THE FramEWOrk OF EurOPalIa.BrasIl
07.10.11→22.01.12
In the A Rua (The Street) exhibition, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp will be
showing work by twenty artists whose lives and work are closely related to the city of Rio de
Janeiro. The exhibition focuses on the development of this art scene over the last four decades,
on the one hand with work from the late 60s and early 70s – the wonder years of global
conceptualism, in which Brazilian art played a leading part – and on the other work from
contemporary movements. In addition to this geographical and historical approach, A Rua, as
its title indicates, will also highlight the notion of the street, and more especially the role and
position of the street in all the variations of contemporary art produced in Rio. First of all the
street as the place where people meet, and where art meets life, the street as a place of experience
where the community constantly renews itself; and also the street as a studio, stage and
showplace, in other words as a cultural production area; and lastly the street as an arena and
agora, the street as a public space.
Artur Barrio, Ricardo Basbaum, Marcio Botner in cooperation with Pedro Agilson, Miguel Rio
Branco, Waltercio Caldas, Lygia Clark, Mauricio Dias & Walter Riedweg, Ronald Duarte, Guga
Ferraz, Anna Bella Geiger, Jorge Mario Jauregui, Lucia Laguna, Laura Lima, Ivens Machado, Antonio
Manuel, Simone Michelin, Ernesto Neto, Helio Oiticica, Artur Omar, Rosana Palazyan, Lygia Pape,
Gabriel & Thiago Primo, Joana Traub Csekö, Evandro Teixeira, Paula Trope, Alexandre Vogler

27
10.
M hKAPRACTICAL
m Hka
museum of contemporary art antwerp
leuvenstraat 32
2000 antwerp
+ 32 (0)3 260 99 99
info@muhka.be
www.muhka.be
PrEss cONTacT
kathleen Weyts
T 0032 3 260 80 97
kathleen.weyts@muhka.be
rita compère
T 0032 3 260 99 91
pers@muhka.be
OPENING HOurs
TuE→WED & FrI→suN 11:00→18:00
THu 11:00→21:00
ENTraNcE
€8
€4 (60+/groups of 10 or more)
€ 1 (-26)
free entrance (-13/IcOm)
On Thursday evenings (6→9pm) entrance 1 € for
everyone
rEsErvaTIONs
mON→FrI 9:00→12:00 en 13:00→17:00
T + 32 (0)3 260 99 90
ontvangt@muhka.be
www.muhka.be
m HkaFE
Free entrance to m HkaFE and 5th & 6th floor
TuE→suN 11:00→18:00
m HkalIBrary
TuE→FrI 11:00→17:00
PuBlIc TraNsPOrT
from antwerp-Berchem train station: tram 8
from antwerp-central train station: bus 23
from antwerp-Zuid train station: tram 4 or 24
By car
www.antwerken.be
m HkaParTNErs
m Hka is an initiave of the Flemish community
and supported by the Province of antwerp, the
cIty of antwerp, the National lottery, akzo
Nobel Decorative coatings – levis and klara,
cobra
In cooperation with lucas creativ, BmW,
the leuven-based i. materialise company, Wim
verboven – art vebo, meerhout