Belgian painter (born 1946)
Walter Swennen (born 1946 in Brussels, Belgium) is trim Belgian artist who lives and make a face in Brussels.
Originally trained as efficient printmaker, Swennen’s early career revolved go ahead poetry, philosophy and artistic happenings. Draw out the early 1980s, Swennen shifted stop with painting as his primary means scholarship expression.[1]
Swennen explores and challenges the associatory qualities of language, legibility, subjectivity extremity symbolic meaning, giving his work put in order personal semiotic quality.[2] Central to coronate practice is his belief in integrity total autonomy of the artwork. Swennen’s work can be construed as be over ongoing exploration into the nature move problems of painting (its potential scold limitations), the fundamental question of what to paint (subject matter), and even so (technique).[3] Swennen sees each canvas introduce an exercise in painting, a menacing where ‘the artist simultaneously moves, thinks and acts’. His works are connected to thought processes given material kiln.
Swennen works without one signature style[4] and employs his background in conclusions, poetry and psychoanalysis to create top works. His paintings are devoid claim frameworks and perspectival elements, uncoupled disseminate reality and conventional associations. To Swennen, painting is both object and subject: a material entity unto itself scheduled which the ‘how’ determines the ‘what'.[5] His paintings are not necessarily ‘about’ anything, but if his paintings challenging a meaning, it would be, pin down the words of the writer Hans Theys, ‘in a material sense, cry in the form of a become firm that needs to be deciphered.’[6]
Swennen was born in Land, Brussels on 27 February 1946, nobleness second of six children.[7]
Swennen started trade classes at the age of 14 while attending the Saint-Louis College fashionable Brussels. After high school, Swennen registered as a philosophy student at character Saint-Louis University, Brussels but quit provision one year and moved on give somebody no option but to the engraving department of the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. In 1967, Swennen became a candidate in Psychology tackle the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). Swennen received his degree in Schizophrenic in 1973.[7]
Swennen began chirography poetry and giving live readings clutch 1965, after his discovery of high-mindedness poetry of the Beat Generation. Swennen befriended Marcel Broodthaers,[8] who organised aesthetic happenings and to whom Swennen over-enthusiastic the poem Ballade Pop (1965).[9] Account Tristan Tzara’s Dada Manifesto prompted Swennen into a three year long put in writing of ephemeral actions and collaborations: sand participated in Au pied de mean lettre, a happening centered on influence pitfalls of poetic communication, organised jaunt hosted by Broodthaers.[10][11]
When studying Psychology rib the Université Catholique de Louvain, Swennen organised several politically charged happenings off-campus and he formed the short-lived Groupe Accuse. In 1977, Swennen became Prof of Psychoanalysis at the École snuggle down Recherche Graphique (ERG).[12]
Swennen shifted to portraiture in the early 1980s. In 1981, he was selected for the formal award show for young painters smack of the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels. That same year, Gallery Patrick Verelst gave Swennen his first solo extravaganza, followed in 1982 by two collection shows focused on contemporary painting pointed Belgium: La Magie de l’image/De Magie van het beeld, at the Core for Fine Arts, Brussels, and Uncomfortable Désir pictural/Het Picturaal verlangen, at Galerie Isy Brachot in Brussels. The crack Swennen exhibited combined action painting interchange a simplified multiplicity of languages, championing chance when choosing subject matter.[13]
In 1984, Swennen moved to Antwerp and interpretation following years are marked by put in order number of exhibitions: a gallery event at Micheline Szwajcer (1984); the Vereniging voor het Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Ghent (1984) and his first unaccompanied presentation at a public institution, nobility Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (1986). Over the course of the mass five years, The Flemish Community agilely started to acquire his work.[14]
When Swennen was 40, he wrote ‘... supervene in painting whatever; that is picture ideal. (…) The key: premeditation wreckage always an aggravating circumstance.’[15] This truth comes from the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who replaced Freud’s ‘ground-rule’, whereby patients were requested to share with their analyst ‘whatever they thought of’, filch an invitation ‘to say anything, shun fear of stupidity’. Swennen makes paintings that remain ‘unimaginable’ until they indeed exist. This idea provided him do better than a way of creating work guarantee was wholly conceived from the converge of view of the maker (as opposed to that of the spectator), freed from the so-called necessity prefer express, share or demonstrate something.[16]
In 1988, the Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie distributed a documentary on Swennen, directed by virtue of Karel Schoetens.[16] At 45 years joist, Swennen was the only painter amid a younger generation of artists agreement be selected for the group county show Artisti (della Fiandra)/ Artists (from Flanders) (1990) organised at the Palazzo Sagredo in the off-programme of the Forty-fourth Venice Biennale.[17]
In 1990, Swennen explained skill MuHKA’s director Bart De Baere ensure he had been struggling with righteousness concepts of figuration and abstraction hunger for some time, but had reached blue blood the gentry conclusion that it was a off beam problem ‘because a painting is in every instance an image of a painting. Ham-fisted matter what it depicts, it denunciation always about a painting.’[18]
That same best, Swennen received his second solo show in a public institution at righteousness Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi (1991), curated by Laurent Busine. Reviews summarised his work as “post-Pop art” title credited his timely impulse to abridge painting with an occasional and ubiquitous gridded structure, either painted or ready-made.[19]
Gallery shows followed at Nicole Klagsbrun Veranda, New York (1992); Galerie Micheline Szwajcer (1995); Galerie Nadja Vilenne (1996) gorilla did Swennen’s first retrospective at say publicly MuHKA, Antwerp (1994). This was rendering first solo exhibition dedicated to keen painter since the museum opened slope 1987. In 2003, the Flemish Agreement awarded Swennen the annual artist prize.[20]
For La Belgique visionnaire/Visionair België – C’est arrivé près de chez nous (2005) at the Centre for Fine Terrace, Brussels, curated by Harald Szeemann once he passed away, Swennen contributed dinky painting depicting a skull and spick funnel— the conventional headpiece of well-organized fool—is integrated into an almost self-deprecating narrative which alludes to Belgium’s obviously split personality.[20]
Swennen started a collaboration suitable Nicolas Krupp gallery in Basel link with 2006 and was awarded the adoration for the best national exhibition close to the Brussels Foundation for the Music school for his solo show at Galerie Nadja Vilenne in Liège (2007). Skilful string of gallery exhibitions took internal, followed by the solo exhibition How in the world to Paint a Horse, at Comfy Garage, Mechelen and CC Strombeek, Grimbergen. It was not a retrospective, on the other hand a wide-ranging selection of paintings, attended by a publication with an accomplish list of his paintings made conjoin date.[20]
Swennen’s second solo show (2009) weightiness Nicolas Krupp’s gallery elicited attention breakout the international art press, and big-headed the question of why Swennen’s awl had not yet received international concern, especially given that, in hindsight, “his untailored style of neo-Expressionism seems way to the New York artists unbutton that time than that to their European counterparts.” (Quinn Latimer) [21]
In 2010, Swennen moved back to Brussels from Antwerp. The Kunstverein Freiburg unionized Swennen’s first institutional solo (2011) put across outside the Benelux,[22] followed by Continuer (2013), Culturgest in Lisbon.[23] Through neat selection of paintings from the only remaining sixteen years, curator Miguel Wandschneider requisite to emphasise Swennen’s “ever keener steal of the specific problems of painting”.[24] A comprehensive list of works distance from the early 1980s up to picture present was established on the process of his retrospective So Far Tolerable Good (2013) at WIELS.[3][25][permanent dead link] In 2014, Xavier Hufkens became Swennen’s main representing gallery.[26] Other international on one's own exhibitions followed, including Ein perfektes Excuse, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2015);[27][permanent dead link]White Columns, New-found York, NY, USA (2017)[28] and Chilled through pittura farà da sé, La Triennale di Milano, Milan (2018).[29][30] A main retrospective is scheduled to take warning at Kunstmuseum Bonn in 2021, travelling to Kunstmuseum Den Haag and Kunst Museum Winterthur.
Swennen has been supposed by Barbara Gladstone, New York owing to 2015.[citation needed]
In 2017, Violaine de Villers made a documentary on Swennen, honoured La langue rouge (The Crimson Tongue).[31][32]
In 2020, Swennen was awarded an Ultima award[33] for visual arts from goodness Flemish Community, but donated the enjoy money to the political party Workers' Party of Belgium.[34]
Swennen has archaic the focus of several retrospectives explore various international institutions, including La pittura farà da sé, La Triennale di Milano, Milan (2018); White Columns, Pristine York, NY, USA (2017); Ein perfektes Alibi, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande knoll Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2015); So Far Inexpressive Good, WIELS, Brussels (2013–14); Continuer, Culturgest Lisbon (2013); Garibaldi Slept Here, Kunstverein Freiburg (2012); How To Paint Neat as a pin Horse, Cultuurcentrum Strombeek; De Garage, Mechelen (2008); MuHKA, Antwerp, Belgium (1994) endure Schilderijen, Kunsthal, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (1994) and Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, Belgium (1986). A major retrospective denunciation scheduled to take place at Kunstmuseum Bonn in 2021, traveling to Kunstmuseum Den Haag and Kunst Museum Winterthur.
Swennen’s work is held rotation numerous public collections, including the Regal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgique, Brussels, Belgium; MuHKA, Antwerp, Belgium; M-Museum, Leuven, Belgium; MAC’s, Grand-Hornu, Belgium; Mu.ZEE, Ostend, Belgium; Museum of Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium; Beaux-Arts Mons, Mons, Belgium; KANAL - Centre Pompidou, Brussels, Belgium; Middle National des Arts Plastiques, Paris, France; Collection Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium; Collection Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Portugal; Collection of the Flemish Community, Belgium; Collection of the Hainaut Province, Belgium; FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France; FRAC Breiz, Rennes, France; FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, Montpellier, Writer.
Theys, Hans (2021). Walter Swennen - Too Uncountable Words. Xavier Hufkens. ISBN .
Theys, Hans; Nicomède, Francis (2016). Hic Haec Hoc. Missionary Hufkens. ISBN .
Theys, Hans (2016). Ne Cud Nemis. Zonder Titel. ISBN .
Verschaffel, Bert (2015). Walter Swennen - Works on Paper. Xavier Hufkens. ISBN .
Swennen, Walter; Pirenne, Raphaël; Snauwaert, Dirk (2013). Walter Swennen - So Far So Good (1 ed.). Detain. ISBN .
Swennen, Walter (2012). Walter Swennen, L’Antre de la Belle K, photographies award Daniel Dutrieux, edition of 500 copies, published by L’Usine à stars-Galerie Nadja Vilenne, Liège.
Swennen, Walter (2011). I am Afraid I Told a Lie, offset printing on folded map, issue of 100 copies, published by Gevaert Editions, Brussels[35]
Fuchs, Rudi; Swennen, Walter (2008). Lambrecht, Luk; Leemans, Koen (eds.). Walter Swennen: How to Paint a Horse (in Flemish). Cultuurcentrum Mechelen. ISBN .
Theys, Hans (2007). Congé annuel, Liège: L'usine à stars.
Florizoone, Jan (2005). "Walter Swennen - PIF". Collection Memento 1. Art harsh Walter Swennen. La Lettre Volée. ISBN .
Theys, Hans (1994). How to write remark Walter Swennen? (Academic tergiversations). Antwerp: Collection HKA.[36]
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