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This spring, Sotheby's celebrates its fiftieth anniversary in Brussels, the capital of a country shaped by overlapping histories, cultures and languages, "Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Black' takes the Belgian flag as a starting point, and presents a group of works that reflect not only Belgian identity - but in a provocative and thought-provoking and not unfunny curation - challenges the very fundamentals of what a national flag stands for. Co-curators Emmanuel Van de Putte and François de Coninck talk us through the exhibition's genesis within the context of Sotheby's Belgian half-century.
So, let’s begin with 50 years of Sotheby's in Brussels! Emmanuel – what made Sotheby's open in Brussels back in 1974?
Emmanuel Van den Putte: Belgium has always had a big collector tradition, since the Middle Ages, when we had the St. Luke’s Guild [the artist’s guild, first identified in Antwerp in 1382] for artists in the Low countries. And when there are productive artists, then you also have collectors. These painters were first collected by the church and the courts. But at the same time, a market was being created for private collectors. And that has not really changed since the Middle Ages. There is that tradition of collectors, collecting in families. collecting decorative arts, paintings and so on. People would inherit art, pass it over to the next generation. Generations each have their own interests and tastes, these things change, and art collections change too. So, we have that tradition and then in Belgium, after the war, and into the 1950s and1960s, you continued to have important collectors, now specialising in contemporary art. And from an early stage, those collectors pushed to have contemporary art museums, which also helped to develop that scene in Belgium.
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Which has continued to the present day. How did Sotheby’s come to launch in Brussels, in 1974?
Emmanuel: Before Sotheby’s opened this selling location in 1974, previously, it had been a ‘rep’ office, a representative office, which of course is not the same as a selling location. So, in 1974 we launched this office to better help long-term clients and contacts, to ensure we were always there for them, long term. Auctions are of course, our main area of focus but this has now changed to a very wide range of activities we do for our clients. As well as consigning works to sell abroad, we offer our clients the chance to buy. So, we have a lot of collectors selling things, at the same time there is also a new generation buying.
"While Belgium is a small country, it has important collectors... who are very cutting-edge buyers, across different fields"
How do you see the art market having evolved over the last 50 years in Belgium since Sotheby's opened its office?
Emmanuel: Belgian collectors are seen on the international market as being early in buying new young artists. While Belgium is a small country, it has important collectors and international galleries and international fairs see Belgian collectors as being very cutting-edge buyers, across different fields. That hasn't changed over time. What has changed over time is that many old collections have been dispersed and movements like Impressionist and Modernists are maybe less present on the market and the market has moved to contemporary art.
How will that evolve in coming decades? Of course, it’s difficult to say. But we are seeing a change in tastes - these days we have some collectors looking for more figurative art from the early 20th century. There’s less abstraction in contemporary art nowadays, everything is much more figurative. So therefore, collectors will go back to explore figurative art of the past. So, it has to do with shifting tastes.
Emmanuel how did this exhibition come about, the 50th anniversary exhibition?
Emmanuel: François and I came up with this exhibition together. He’s a close friend of mine and so it came about from many months of conversations. While I focused on the older classical works, he brought in the more contemporary artists - that's really his area of expertise. And not only is François a curator, but he’s also an artist himself, he has a work of his own in the exhibition. So, in total, we had a good mix, we have a bit of everything.
Francois, in collaborating with Emmanuel on building this selling exhibition, how did you begin to assemble the works?
François de Coninck: Well, I wouldn't have been able to curate such a high-quality exhibition without Sotheby's networks. I'm mostly focused on contemporary art. And at Sotheby’s, I found there’s a lot of contemporary art, it’s not just Old Master paintings. In this exhibition, we have 16 or 17 contemporary artists, mostly Belgians - there is one Spanish one too, Mateo Maté – alongside great, well-known artists, such as Bernard Villers, Elodie Antoine, Gauthier Hubert, Pascal Bernier and Damien De Lepeleire. But there are also young, emerging artists, who are less well known, such as Caroline Purgal and Idris Sevenans. And thanks to the network of Emmanuel, we have high-quality artworks.
Emmanuel: I think what maybe has changed over the years and certainly now, as we have our own exhibition space here, is that an auction house is not only selling location, it’s not only an intermediary in buying and selling, but it can have a role in the market. And I think we should play that role. At least that's my take on it, and it's the take of my team. We like to do that; we like to be part of the scene. Of course, we know the galleries and respect their work, and that is very important. So, we're not only an auction house, but we can also be something in between. And I think with that fun approach that François and I have - we like humour - I think that's what we wanted to bring with this exhibition. But in a chromatic way. We're true with the colours and the colours of the Belgian flag, it's just those colours. Francois, you can talk about that flag.
François: Yes, the mix of modern and contemporary works on the theme of the three national colours is quite unusual! I think it's a surprise for everyone, the way this exhibition will change the image of Sotheby’s. I think maybe it's because Emmanuel and I, we have a special attachment to Belgium. Not politically, but the artistic tradition, we have the same attachment. It was a good experience!
Emmanuel: Yes, we were good sparring partners!
'We love the way that Belgian artists are always playing with the rules - of language, in particular - the way they subvert the relationship between things and words'
Would you say this is a distinctly Belgian approach?
Francois: I'm happy that this concept evolved as it did, focusing on the colours of the Belgian flag. Emmanuel and I both love the spirit of Belgium, we love the soul of Belgium, we love the way that Belgian artists are always playing with the rules - of language, in particular - the way they subvert the relationship between things and words, like Marcel Broodthaers. And so, I think it was a good place to do something special and original. In my network, people were maybe surprised, they would say, ‘Oh, so you're making an exhibition at Sotheby's?’ And yet now I can see that it changed the way people are looking at this selling house.
Francois, you’ve created intriguing dialogues between the works in the show, bringing together older and newer pieces together to create a vivid internal dynamic. Is that something that is a new approach for you – the ability to work with a much broader chronological span?
François: Yes, I think the dialogue here in this exhibition, between Modern and contemporary is perfect. In general, that sort of presentation is not common here in Belgium, it’s more commonplace in the States and in the UK. Blending works from distinct eras together in a single show, I really like that. A great Belgian surrealist, Louis Scutenaire, close friend of Magritte, wrote, 'It’s not the pearl that makes the necklace, it’s the thread. Here, we have both: the thread and the pearls! Actually, in fact, it’s quite new that in Belgium the museums are starting to mix Old Masters with contemporary art – such as in the wonderful newly-renovated KMSKA Museum in Antwerp. They have done something which is for me, original - organising a dialogue between old masterpieces and contemporary artists. But it's also the way you do it that has to be considered, it’s not enough to just put pieces together, they have to work together. I think we have much to learn about this from the way the Anglo-Saxon curatorial world is approaching this. And I think now, because the exhibition now up in the Sotheby’s space, now I've seen it, I think, wow, the dialogue between the Moderns and the contemporary is perfect. It's really for me, a great success. It's also what makes the originality of this project.
Emmanuel: There is another thing in the Anglo-Saxon world that always comes through, and that is the repositioning of men artists, repositioning gender. We don't have that discussion here in Belgium – or, at least, we have it less. We're much more detached from that debate, in a certain way. I’m not saying we don't need that debate - I'm the first one to defend women artists in all our sales - but to me they [the artists] have never changed. If they were good 20 years ago, they're good today. What has changed is people’s perception. Of course, we also have a role to play here too. We have staged sales focusing on Belgian women artists and we had wonderful results. So we have pushed for projects like that but we don’t feel we need to reposition everyone. We're much more relaxed with that.
So, black, yellow and red. That was that your starting point?
François: It was the theme. About 15 years ago, I was participating in another project as an editor, which was titled L'Union Fait La Forme in BOZAR, curated by Jean-Marie Stroobants. In Belgium, the national motto is: 'L'union fait la force'. He transformed the phrase into L’union fait la forme'.
Emmanuel: In other words, union makes the strength of the country. François was in a project that was called "L'Union fait la forme” because it's about artistic form. What is form? Where does it stop, where does it begin? It's an example.
'We must admit, a flag is a sad object. People fight for their flag; people die for their flag. But we don’t talk about a flag’s colours'
François: It was an exhibition at BOZAR, with various contemporary Belgian artists. It was about colour, but it was also about what Belgium is. So, for this Sotheby’s exhibition, I took a few artists and artworks that had been in that exhibition. And here, we made the concept more around the colours. It's a chromatic journey. I think citing the flag, the Belgian flag, for us, it's really a pretext. I've been reflecting about this theme, and I think if you take all the national flags around the world, they are all full of colours. But we must admit, a flag is a sad object. People fight for their flag; people die for their flag. But we don’t talk about a flag’s colours. So, that is a question we must ask of artists. And so, we’ve taken a lot of painters, and sculptors who can tell us something about colour. And I have some doubts about the way we have used certain artists – will they forgive us!? [Laughs] If you take a Soulages and a Bram Bogart and then you put them together to make a Belgian flag, would they have agreed to that?
Emmanuel: Its typical for François to do those things, to abuse misuse, reuse – that is what it’s about!
'If you look, wanting to see a flag there, then that’s your problem, I see colours, also'
Belgian reappropriation!
Emmanuel: Yes, but at the same time, I think it’s not a problem, it is what it is! If you look, wanting to see a flag there, then that’s your problem, I see colours, also. If you put them together, you see a flag, maybe not. It's also that game.
François: I found a quote by Eugène Delacroix, who said, ‘Par excellence, the most magical element of art is colour - where subject, form, and line primarily affect the thought. Colour is meaningless for the mind, but completely overpowers the senses.’ And that's the direction I think we took with Pierre Soulages, with François Morellet with René Guiette - I think, okay, we are talking about Belgium, yes, it is the fiftieth anniversary of Sotheby's in Belgium, but it's also a pretext to make something about colour.
Emmanuel: And you have another one quote by the singer, Arno?
Francois: Yes, Arno told us, ‘Belgium doesn't exist. I know that. I live there.’ (laughing) Which means it exists. Of course, it does exist in all of us. So don't try to tear us apart!
Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Black? 18 April–17 May 2024 Sotheby's Avenue Louise 251, 1050 Brussels, Belgium
