Gérard de Lairesse's work, "Orphée aux Enfers" (classified as an FWB Treasure), is on display at the Musée du Louvre-Lens in the exhibition "Mondes souterrains. 20 000 lieux sous la terre" until the end of July 2024.
"Orphée aux Enfers" is replaced by "Jean-Baptiste endormi dans la grotte" by Jean-Guillaume Carlier.
It is accompanied by an engraving by Dreppe and a set of eight engravings by Piranèse from the "Prisons imaginaires" series, which are also part of the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège.
The collection of photographs in this exhibition plunges us into the celebration of Holi, which marks the end of winter and celebrates the beginning of spring. The immersion that this work offers is punctuated by images of volcanic earth that blend in an extremely natural way with the explosions of colour that are characteristic of Holi. It's impossible to remain insensitive to the links between this religious festival and the lands immortalised by the photographer.
Brûlures is a poetic, lyrical photographic work exploring the experiences connecting Nature and human beings. This project is a true testament to human life, visible in both the movements of the Holi celebrations and the volcanic manifestations. The palpable intimacy that emanates from each of the photographs on display reminds us of the beauty of the world, by highlighting the fire that springs from the heart of the Earth and the human beings who inhabit it. By bringing us face to face with this intense show, Carine Doutrelepont reminds us that it remains essential to take care of our Earth, as well as ourselves and others, because, ultimately, human beings and Nature are one and the same.
The artist
Carine Doutrelepont sees photography as a form of writing in which the image replaces words or accompanies them in silence. A transmission of a multitude of glances as well as a confidence in the intuition to push back the frontiers of the hidden or the invisible?
For her, photography is also a way of tracing the paths through which she offers the public, free to move through worlds where the imaginary and the real weave the beautiful or tragic density of life.
Attracted by nature and the diversity of human expression, she took up photography during her many travels around the world.
It was through encounters, some of them symbolic, that she developed her creative work. "An explorer, she has found in photography a humanist way of celebrating the beauty and depth of the land and people whose presence and history she likes to recount or celebrate in her own way".
She lives in Brussels, where she writes, teaches copyright at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and practises as a lawyer.
A leading figure in 20th century Belgian painting, Paul Delvaux (1897-1994) will be honoured in a major exhibition at La Boverie in autumn 2024. The exhibition promises to be a landmark event, presenting masterpieces that have not been seen or brought together for many years. Taking a novel approach, the exhibition will also reveal little-known facets of this artist, considered to be the painter of women and railway stations. Visitors will be invited to discover the significant elements of Paul Delvaux's worlds through paintings, drawings and objects placed alongside each other or alongside the work of other artists. As visitors wander through the exhibition, Paul Delvaux's worlds will be revealed to enrich their perspective. They will provide an insight into the place of Delvaux's work in Surrealism and, more broadly, in the history of art. The aim is to shed new light on a timeless work, to reveal its complexity and to engage in a fresh dialogue with today's visitors.
Delvaux, a celebrated Belgian and international painter, is long overdue for a (re)discovery.
HIGHLIGHTS
+ Original works not seen or assembled for a considerable time
+ Innovative scenography revealing the artist's worlds, as well as his studio
+ Masterpieces by the Belgian artist from leading museums
+ The exceptional setting of the Musée de la Boverie
A Tempora and Paul Delvaux Foundation production in partnership with La Boverie
Contact:
info@expo-pauldelvaux.com
+32(2)549 60 49
Goddesses, gods, demigods or heroes, the divinities of Greco-Roman mythology and their representations have been ingrained in European minds and imagery since the Renaissance.
Early sources of inspiration centred on the writings of Homer (the epics of the Illiad and the Odyssey) and Hesiod (the Theogony). The Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid also inspired artists and their patrons. Whether they were figures of divinities carrying symbolic meaning, or mythological episodes with a moralizing purpose, each representation activated the imagination. Icarus burns his wings when he flies too close to the sun, the fall of Phaethon after borrowing his father's sun chariot, the exploits of the hero Hercules (Herakles) and the intrigues, imprudence and amorous adventures of Jupiter (Zeus) and Venus (Aphrodite).
The aim of this selection is to show the diversity, but also the recurrence, of the themes represented in the museum's collections by artists from the 16 th to the 19 th centuries.
Mythological themes even formed the basis of the iconographic repertoire of most artists of the 16 th and 17 th centuries. The work of Lambert Lombard and Lambert Suavius is particularly prolific in this respect. The cult of Antiquity shared by these two artists can be seen in their studies of drapery and their taste for ruins, as well as in their remarkable anatomical studies. For other artists exhibited in the Galerie Noire, the influence of their trip to Italy led to a new iconographic repertoire, based essentially on Roman mythology. Life in Rome was an opportunity for artists to copy and pay homage to their Italian contemporaries, such as Annibale Carracci, Le Dominiquin, Le Bernin and Raphael. For artists from Northern Europe, the Italian experience was also an opportunity to copy ancient statuary, which they appreciated in the Belvedere Gallery, the Capitol, etc. The anatomical study of ancient bodies was an integral part of the academic curriculum of Italian and foreign artists alike. Mythology was used as a pretext for antique nudes; the figures of Hercules Farnese, Apollo from the Belvedere and Venus from the Capitoline Hill, among others, were commonplace in artists' studios from the 16 th century onwards.
Oscar Dominguez (Oscar Manuel Dominguez Palazon, called)
(San Cristobal de La Laguna, Tenerife, 1906 - Paris, 1957)
"Still life", 1951
Oil on canvas
82 x 181 cm
Signed and dated 1951 lower left.
Donated by the artist to the city of Liège in 1952.
Inv. BA.AMC.05b.1952.21294
The year 2024 marks the centenary of the publication in 1924 of the "Manifesto of Surrealism" by André Breton (1896-1966) and the birth, around Paul Nougé (1895-1967), of Surrealist activity in Belgium. La Boverie's collections contain many works by surrealist and related artists (Magritte, Delvaux, Mariën, Graverol, Stas, etc.), which were loaned for two major exhibitions in Brussels. But the museum also owns other works, including this "Still Life" by the Spanish artist Oscar Dominguez, who was born in Tenerife in 1906. The work was donated by the artist himself to the City of Liège in 1952, following contacts he had made the previous year in Liège with the organisers of the 2nd International Exhibition of Experimental Art: the Royal Society of Fine Arts, the APIAW, and certain members of the Cobra group. Dominguez was hoping to organise a solo exhibition in the Cité ardente, which was eventually held in Brussels in 1955, at the Palais des Beaux-Arts.
Dominguez's 'Still Life' is entirely in keeping with the painter's aspirations - he was one of the most subversive members of the Surrealist movement, which he joined in 1934.
one of the most subversive of the Surrealist movement, which he joined in 1934 - with a method in which he likes to surprise and even provoke the viewer. There is nothing classical about this half-abstract, half-figurative painting, in which a hemmed line lightly outlines the elements of the composition, and flat areas of bright colour present recurring elements in the artist's work. There is the motif of sardine can keys, a commonplace object in everyday Mediterranean life, which already featured in "L'Ouvre-boîte", a surrealist painting by Dominguez in 1936 (1). Several allusions to fishing complete the picture.
On the left, a sensual, languid form suggests a half-open female body, close to a vertical bluish floor lamp, which illuminates a piano. Champagne flutes are combined with the keys of sardine tins, while in the foreground, centre and right, are three distinct vessels: a samovar, a coffee pot and a teapot. The shades of colour distinguish each element individually, but the whole reinvents the ancient theme of the still life in an unconventional way. In Dominguez's case, far from evoking the finiteness of the things in life, the work is, on the contrary, a token of rejoicing. That of a colourful party, combining music, drink, food and the meeting of bodies - perhaps as fortuitous as that of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table (2).
Dominguez's links with Belgian avant-garde artists began in 1941, when he met the young poet Christian Dotremont, in the entourage of Picasso and the Parisian surrealist group "La Main à plume". Dotremont and Dominguez became friends, and the same year he gave him an illustration for his collection "Noués comme une cravate". In 1945, they both took part in the Surrealism exhibition organised in Brussels by Magritte and Marcel Mariën. Dominguez then joined Noël Arnaud and Dotremont's Surréalisme-Révolutionnaire group, which opposed Breton's Surrealism. Again with Dotremont, he experimented with word-paintings, although he did not join the Cobra movement. A frequent visitor to Brussels, mainly for sentimental reasons, Dominguez exhibited at Robert Delevoy's Apollo gallery in 1950 and again in 1951. On these occasions, Dotremont supported him with a preface and an article (3). At times violent and unstable, going through deep depressive phases, this man who also displayed a devastating sense of humour eventually gave in to his dark moods. A few hours before a visit from Dotremont, Oscar Dominguez took his own life in his Paris studio on 31 December 1957. Today, La Boverie is paying tribute to this major artist who passed through the surrealist movement.
Alain Delaunois
Scientific Attaché / La Boverie - Musée des Beaux-Arts
(1) "La Part du jeu et du rêve. Oscar Dominguez et le surréalisme 1906-1957", catalogue of the exhibition at the Musée Cantini in Marseille, p.103, Paris, Ed. Hazan, 2005.
(2) Alain Delaunois, "Oscar Dominguez", in "Catalogue du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège", vol. 1, pp. 276-277, Liège, 2016.
(3) Christian Dotremont, "O. Dominguez, Spanish painter", in "Les Beaux-Arts", no. 485, Brussels, 10 March 1950.
This year, our teams received 408 entries from all over the world. After a long selection process, forty-five of them were chosen to be shown at the Musée de La Boverie.
The Triennale de Gravure exhibition runs from 29 November 2024 to 16 March 2025 at La Boverie. At the opening of the exhibition, an international jury will award the Triennale prize.
The selected artists are :
Georges AMERLYNCK, Belgium
Benjamin BADOCK, Germany
Naïm BARBACH, Belgium
Godelieve BIESWAL, Belgium
Jeroen BISSCHEROUX, Netherlands †
Marie-France BONMARIAGE, Belgium
Yvonne BRONNER, Germany
David CAUWE, Belgium
Isabelle CELLIER, France
Cléa DARNAUD, France
Hanna DE HAAN, Netherlands
Luc D'HAEGELEER, Belgium
Steven DIXON, Canada
Lygia ELUF, Brazil
Maria Luisa ESTRADA SÁNCHEZ, Mexico
Marnix EVERAERT, Belgium
Bethsabée (Babé) FOURNIER, France
Dragana FRANSSEN-BOJIC, Serbia
Sigmundstad GISKE, Norway
Marie Laure GUEGUEN, France
Mariuga GUIMARÃES, Belgium
Veronika GÜNTHER, Germany
Adelina IANTCHEVA, Bulgaria
Davida KIDD, Canada
Geneviève LAPLANCHE, Switzerland
Jose Luis LARGO, Spain
Marta LECH, Poland
Eva MAES, Belgium
Antonin MALCHIODI, France
Véronique MARTINELLI, Belgium
Kristin MELLER, United Kingdom
Linda MOONEN, Belgium
Muriel MOREAU, France
Isabel MOUTTET, France
Reiner NACHTWEY, Germany
Stephanie RUSS, Canada
Augusto SAMPAIO, Brazil
Lisa SIBILLAT, France
Kateryna SVIRGUNENKO, Ukraine
Alex THOMPSON, Canada
Pierre VASIC, Belgium
Martin VELISEK, Czech Republic
Sophie VINK, Belgium
Raphaël WU, China
Leszek WYCZOLKOWSKI, Poland
The 'Avenir' project was created in 2019 from the sticker 'avenir partout wifi nulle part'. 5 years later, Avenir has become a multidisciplinary, variable-geometry art project that develops through screen printing, painting, installations, photography and video. Avenir's universe is built on the general hypocrisy of contemporary society and of each and every one of us. There is no particular message; the project is inspired and defined by what it opposes.
Future prospects and perspectives (literally).
Projects for the future inspired by memories of illuminated trips to Naples, Rome and Mexico City. A tribute to the artist Saverio Lucariello (1958-2023) and to my studies as an engineer and architect.
Through around a hundred works of various
types (paintings, collages and drawings), this exhibition reveals the work of Belgian artist and writer Cécile Miguel (1921-2001). Born in Gilly, Cécile Miguel received the Prix de la Jeune Peinture Française in 1950 and took part in an exhibition in Lucerne which also featured works by Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró. She first wrote poems and plays with her husband André Miguel, an author, poet and critic. From 1989, she published ‘dream journals’, typeset poems and prose texts of surrealistic reminiscence. Her art is constructed ‘with juxtaposed colours and printed materials, a teeming blend of derision and humour... an ensemble with its own plastic evidence, even rigour.”
To round off the visit, an exhibition of Cécile Miguel's small-format works, Cécile Miguel, du côté de l'ombre méditante, will be open from 2 June to 13 September at the Musée du Petit Format d'Art Contemporain. Further information at https://www.museedupetitformat.be
“The meaning and task of every artistic effort is the liberation of the spiritual essence of shape and colour and their detachment from imprisonment in the world of objects. It was these efforts that led to the creation of abstract art.” These are the words with which Johannes Itten, teacher at the Bauhaus, ended his ‘Art of Colour’. Before the 20th century, no one had considered that a work of art could economise on resemblance to reality and be only composed of its constituent elements such as shape, colour or material.
But what is abstract art and does it still make sense today? Abstract answers these questions, through a sensitive journey that rediscovers this artistic world and its major influence on our lives. From Kandinsky to the most contemporary artists, the exhibition presents more than 150 works across more than 2,000 m². It reveals the importance of the collections of the Fine Arts Museum of Liège and is enhanced by major pieces from other backgrounds. In dialogue with these works, exclusive interviews with contemporary artists and players in the arts world enable the visitors to grasp the importance and extreme vivacity of abstract art.
‘Abstract’ shows us that this form of language is far from having reached its limits and that its expressions are infinite: contemporary art has not rejected abstract art, and we have not yet exploited its full potential.
With, among others, works by: Malevitch, Vasarely, Léger, De Staël, Poliakoff, Estève, Arp, Nicholson, Degottex, Jacobsen, Mortensen, Chapoval, Mathieu, Hayter, Herbin, Magnelli, Moreni, Viola, Pijuan, Csaky, Chauvin, Schneider, Tapies, Debré, Viallat, Hantai, Bonnefoy, Sol Lewitt, Venet, Schôffer as well as the Belgian artists Dotremont, Van Anderlecht, Lacasse, Closon, Marthe Wéry, and contemporary artists...
Four works from the permanent collections are on loan to Bozar (Brussels) for the exhibition "Histoire de ne pas rire. Surrealism in Belgium" from 21 February to 16 June. The works in question are :
Magritte, L'univers interdit
Magritte, La recherche de l'absolu
Magritte, La Forêt
Marien, Ubucycle
These works have been replaced by Rik Wouters, Après-midi à Amsterdam et Femme au bord du lit.
The Musée du Louvre is committed to providing La Boverie with artistic advice.
It supports the City of Liège in programming exhibitions of international stature and, at the reopening in 2016, in supervising the scenographic concept of the permanent and temporary collections.
The theme of the inaugural exhibition, En Plein air (5/5 to 15/8/2016), underlined the museum's openness to its grounds: the Boverie peninsula has played the same role for the people of Liège as the banks of the Seine did for Parisians at the turn of the twentieth century.
"En Plein Air" featured around a hundred works by renowned artists such as Corot, Vernet, Boudin, Monet, Evenepoel, Pissarro, Cézanne, Picasso, Bonnard and Renoir. These works come from the collections of La Boverie, the Louvre and prestigious Belgian and foreign museums.
In 2018, Viva Roma! from 25/4 to 26/8/2018 evoked the journey to Italy, Rome as seen by European painters from the 18th century to the present day, the theme of the second exhibition designed by teams from the two museums.
The partnership with the Louvre continued with a third exhibition, Collectionneuses Rothschild. Mécènes et donatrices d'exception presented at La Boverie from 21/10/2022 to 26/2/2023, which highlighted the treasures of nine Baronesses with exceptional pieces of sculpture, painting, jewellery, furniture, porcelain, etc.
The origins of the collaboration between the two institutions lie in the scientific and cultural links that have united the Louvre and the museums of the City of Liège for many years.
The partnership is overseen by the City of Liège's museums and culture department and, within the Musée du Louvre, by the Louvre Conseil department, which is dedicated to promoting and passing on the museum's expertise to its external partners.
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Contact : info@laboverie.com
Quatre spectacles pour petits et grands à l'auditorium de La Boverie :
ENTRÉE GRATUITE
Réservation : www.laboverie.com/billetterie ou info@laboverie.com
Infos : Musée de La Boverie - 04/238 55 01 (du mardi au dimanche de 10h à 18h)
Une organisation de l’Echevinat de la Culture de la Ville de Liège
The Liège Engraving Biennial is becoming a Triennial, in 2021, for its twelfth edition.
To be able to find artists from across the world and give a more comprehensive presentation of changes in the art of engraving, the Liège international contemporary engraving biennial is relaunching from 2021 as a triennial.
The Engraving Triennial is an international competition that is free to all, with no age limit and with no required technique or theme. This year, 470 applications from sixty-two different countries were received by our teams. After a long selection process, forty-eight of them were chosen to be presented at La Boverie museum.
Yvon Vandycke is an expressionist painter from Mons. 2020 is the twentieth anniversary of his death. For us, it is an opportunity to do justice to his life’s work, which is too little known in Belgium, by organising a vast retrospective exhibition at La Boverie museum. In Vandycke’s work, the body’s condition is the subject of the texts, painting, engraving and drawing. The face has a curious position in this contact with disorder, revolt, fraternities and the magnificence of the body. As a frontier, it comes first: it shows, and it hides. It is also blind to the point of sometimes disappearing from women’s bodies, headless women, women from behind... Or, on the contrary, it contaminates all the forms, sliding from the eyes in the folds of a stomach, in a haunted background, in the figure of dreams.
A Trinkhall project.
Yvon Vandycke, Quand moi gai (autoportrait) © Sara Vandycke
Franz Friedrich Boscovits, dit Fritz
(Zurich, 1871 –Kilchberg, 1965)
Girl sitting by a lake, 1955.
Oil on cardboard
48,7 x 37,9 cm
Inv. BA.AMC.05g.2000.21123
Donation de Mme L. Grignet, 2000
Franz Friedrich Boscovits, known as Fritz, was a Swiss painter, caricaturist and graphic artist who trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich between 1890 and 1896. His first works are naturally close to the painters of the Munich School. At the end of his studies, he travelled to Florence, where he completed his training, before returning to Zurich.
At the turn of the century, the Swiss city was booming not only demographically but also intellectually and academically; it remained relatively conservative politically and culturally. Swiss painting around 1900 was marked by figures such as Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) and Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), but also by numerous artists influenced by the movements of Symbolism and Art Nouveau, who produced works of great quality. Fritz Boscovits participated fully in this dynamic. He proved to be an artist who experimented and showed great technical skill. He was fully aware of the trends in painting and graphic arts. He frequented many artists of the Swiss avant-garde and was very involved in the cultural institutions in Zurich.
Fritz Boscovits painted landscapes, genre scenes and sometimes allegorical compositions, as in the frescoes on Clausiusstrasse in Zurich. Nature is a prominent element in his paintings; portraits are rather rare. Animals and mythical creatures appear regularly in the caricatures he drew for the magazine Der Nebelspalter for almost sixty-two years under the abbreviation "Bosco". His first drawings for the satirical weekly magazine date from 1889, even before he entered the Academy. Firtz Boscovits painted in oil on canvas or cardboard; his pictures are characterised by the use of strong contours and sometimes bright colours, but generally the palette is sober, often matt. The paint is applied with brush strokes. Over time, the line becomes more refined and the shapes are freed from contours. Both the paintings and the caricatures reflect the benevolent, yet sharp, gaze of a man who is sensitive to his environment.
Fillette assise au bord d'un lac (Madeleine), dated 1955, is a late work in the artist's production. A young girl sits on a pier, dipping her feet in the water while looking at her reflection. The scene is bathed in the soft, warm light of a lake where the sun's rays are reflected. The mountains can be seen in the distance. Firtz Boscovits lived with his family in Zollikon, on the shores of Lake Zurich, for many years and several of his paintings are set on the shores of this lake. Pastel colours dominate and a great sense of calm emanates from the scene. However, there is a slight tension in the girl's body. She is wearing a black swimming costume and her dark reflection on the surface of the lake somewhat disturbs the serenity of the landscape. Beyond appearances, thanks to a subtle treatment of the body and the choice of colours, the artist pays homage to his little daughter, Madeleine, who died at the age of 18.
Fillette assise au bord d'un lac (Madeleine) is part of a group of nine paintings by the painter from the donation of Mrs. Lucienne Grignet to the Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Liège. Fritz Boscovits' son Walter married a Belgian woman, Olga Odeur, whose sister, Blanche Odeur, was the mother of Madame Grignet. The paintings were in her possession. The artist also travelled several times to Belgium, where his daughter also lived. On these occasions he painted several small landscapes of Flanders.
Marie Remacle
Project Manager for les Musées de Liège
Art hisrtorian