until Sunday January 11 2015

S.M.A.K.
T : +32 (0)9 240 76 01
Citadelpark
9000 Gent
Belgium

Jean Schwind (1935-1985) was the most notorious and enigmatic figure in Belgian art in the 1970s. After studying French literature and working as a research assistant at Ghent University, at the end of the 1960s he found his way into the art scene.
The S.M.A.K. is presenting works and documents by this artist, who is often seen as the missing link in the Belgian art of the 1970s.

In 1970 he showed large format erotic drawings at the Fitzroy Gallery in Brussels, and the following year exhibited the Schwind Collection, a series of remakes by the nouveaux réalistes. The confusion was only increased by the fact that hardly anyone knew who was behind this pseudonym. In the context of the Schwind Foundation, he then set up pseudo-exhibitions of successful art using the same procedure, calling them ‘hommages’ or ‘appropriations’; the movements and artists he covered included arte povera, Christo, Fontana and Broodthaers. His interventions soon became more conceptual and in 1974 he took part in overview exhibitions of contemporary art in Antwerp and Bruges