TEXT BY STELLA LOHAUS

Spring 1998, Manfred Pernice showed an instal­la­tion at the Stella Lohaus Gallery in which he raised the floor with an 18 mm chip­board. During the open­ing, some­one stum­bles head over heels into the gallery space, and I think: who the hell is this guy?

Barely fif­teen min­utes lat­er, Gery Van Tendeloo buys a work by this then unknown artist. This image has always stayed with me. Rather than begin­ning to swear at the work or its mak­er, Gery Van Tendeloo took no offence at the so-called obsta­cle. On the con­trary, he con­sid­ered the fact this work almost made him fall as a great quality.

In hind­sight, one could say that Gery Van Tendeloo sought obsta­cles rather than avoid­ing them. He chose a life with as few com­pro­mis­es as pos­si­ble. So too in art: a work of art is rad­i­cal or it is not. Gery Van Tendeloo expe­ri­enced being chal­lenged by art as impor­tant, fas­ci­nat­ing and instruc­tive. Moreover, he want­ed to share this with his fam­i­ly and imme­di­ate envi­ron­ment, but also with an audi­ence unknown to him. With the inten­tion of cre­at­ing more rad­i­cal exhi­bi­tions in Kortrijk again (cf. Kanal Art Foundation 1988 – 1998 by Catherine de Zegher), he tried to enthuse a group of entre­pre­neurs. The pur­chase of the large hall in the Minister Liebaertlaan helped make this pos­si­ble: Liebaert Projects was born.

Looking for a suit­able exhi­bi­tion for­mat that would pay homage to Gery Van Tendeloo on the occa­sion of 25 years of Liebaert Projects, I came across fold­ers of unre­alised projects in the archives of the Van Tendeloo fam­i­ly. Among them was one with Vaast Colson. I invit­ed him to work with the two of us to give con­tent and shape to this exhi­bi­tion. Together we arrived at a con­cept that por­trays both the Liebaert group and the per­son of Gery Van Tendeloo, in the way that most char­ac­teris­es the lat­ter for both of us: the grand ges­ture! We asked the Liebaert mem­bers to choose a work from their own col­lec­tion that they asso­ciate with Gery Van Tendeloo. These, togeth­er with a selec­tion of works from the Van Tendeloo fam­i­ly’s col­lec­tion, will be exhib­it­ed in the first room.

The main hall, cleared for the first time since his death in 2018, can once again inspire artists and cura­tors, and enable new inter­ven­tions and/​or exhibitions.

ARTISTS

Stella Lohaus (b. 1968, Antwerp) was a gallery own­er from 1997 to 2011. Afterwards, she inven­to­ried the oeu­vre of her late father, sculp­tor Bernd Lohaus (1940−2010), and since 2018 she has been direc­tor of the v.z.w. LLS Paleis, space for con­tem­po­rary art, in Antwerp. At the invi­ta­tion of mem­bers of Liebaert Projects, she is curat­ing an exhi­bi­tion to hon­our ini­tia­tor Gery Van Tendeloo.

Vaast Colson (°1977, Kapellen) has been devel­op­ing a ver­sa­tile and unpre­dictable oeu­vre since 1996. His work is often con­text-spe­cif­ic and starts from an inter­est in under­ly­ing process­es and struc­tures. An intu­itive and asso­cia­tive approach cre­ates lay­ered out­comes, both mate­r­i­al and imma­te­r­i­al. For Colson, art is a vehi­cle to relate to the world, …between hat and shoe.

‘Gery com­mit­ted to my work ear­ly on. During Art Brussels 2003, he signed up for the ​‘Onstageoffstage Dedicating Songs Dilemma’ edi­tion with­out know­ing exact­ly what the work would even­tu­al­ly look like. The edi­tion would only be realised after the 6‑day action on the Maes & Matthys exhi­bi­tion stand. Gery has remained inter­est­ed and com­mit­ted to my work. We made sev­er­al attempts over the years to work out projects togeth­er. We final­ly suc­ceed­ed in 2014 with a duo exhi­bi­tion by Jacques Charlier and myself in Kortrijk with the elo­quent title ​‘HALF and HALF’.

SHOWING WORK OF

Vaast Colson, Jan De Cock, Koenraad Dedobbeleer, Stefaan Dheedene, Tracey Emin, San Keller, Ragnar Kjartansson, Elke Krystufek, Bernd Lohaus, Paul McCarthy, Bjarne Melgaard, Manfred Pernice, Jason Rhoades, Michael E. Smith, Henk Visch