‘Jef Verheyen, Window On Infinity’ exhibition at KMSKA, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, until 18 August 2024

On 23 March 2024, the Jef Verheyen exhibition opened at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art of Antwerp (M HKA). ‘Jef Verheyen, Window On Infinity‘ is a first. Forty years after his death, it is the first solo exhibition of this illustrious modern master in a museum in his hometown of Antwerp. The exhibition runs until 18 August.

“The exhibition is a fascinating play of light and dark, color and shape and illustrates how Verheyen introduced a new way of experiencing art. To look at his work is to slow down. Turn your gaze towards infinity”, the press release introduces the exhibition.

The exhibition shows the evolution in the oeuvre of Verheyen, ‘the last modernist’. From ceramic experiments to painting, a medium that he continues to refine. For Verheyen, the concept behind his artwork was of enormous importance. ‘Window On Infinity’ is the first exhibition to explore the conceptual approach of Verheyen’s work in such detail.

Verheyen bridges the gap between tradition and innovation in an inimitable way. In search of the essence. He has mastered painting technique to perfection. Even now it is difficult to figure out how he was able to paint the thin (semi)transparent layers with brushes without leaving brushstrokes. He lets the light break across the canvas and plays with emptiness as a window onto infinity. A common thread throughout his career.

Jef is dreaming

“The KMSKA was a constant source of inspiration for Jef Verheyen. He regularly visited the museum and always dreamed of presenting his work next to Jean Fouquet‘s ‘Madonna’. As a tribute to this special artist, we are now making that dream come true”, Carmen Willems, general director of KMSKA, says.

Jef Verheyen has even more ties with the museum. In 1979 he curated the ‘ZERO International Antwerp‘ exhibition at the KMSKA, a movement to which he himself belonged. In the years after this exhibition, the museum purchased several works from the ZERO movement. It is one of the few international ensembles that has been given an integral place in the collection and includes names such as Lucio Fontana and Günther Uecker, all friends of Jef Verheyen.

Moreover, looking at Verheyen’s work fits in seamlessly with the motto of the KMSKA. To look at his work is to look at light, at emptiness, at infinity. He does everything he can to make the viewer look differently and thus see more.

Jef Verheyen exhibition: dark and light.

International pacesetter

Although Verheyen was less known in his own country, he was undeniably one of the great pacesetters within the international avant-garde. Not only did his work create momentum within art itself. Verheyen was also actively developing an international network.

Partly for this reason, the exhibition places Verheyen’s works in dialogue and confrontation with his predecessors and contemporaries. Prestigious loans from, among others, the Yves Klein Foundation, the Uecker Archiv and the Fondazione Lucio Fontana enrich the exhibition.

“With this exhibition around Jef Verheyen, KMSKA and M HKA are strengthening their shared ambition to put Flemish Masters on the international map. Verheyen wanted to make Antwerp a European hotspot at all costs. An objective that we of course share with him”, Luk Lemmens (N-VA), Chairman of the Board of Directors of KMSKA, says.

Contemporary interpretations

Contemporary artists also take up the challenge – just like Verheyen – to push the boundaries of painting. Ann Veronica Janssens, Kimsooja, Pieter Vermeersch and Carla Arocha & Stéphane Schraenen stimulate the amazement of visitors with spatial installations. After all, the search for the essence is still as relevant today as it was in the time when Verheyen focused his window on the infinite.

“Verheyen’s work is slow art at its best. Thanks to his fascination with outer space and his special technique, in which he paints without visible brushstrokes, he directs the viewer’s gaze to the void, to the light, to infinity. It makes you slow down. It is a form of meditation”, Adriaan Gonnissen, curator of modern art KMSKA, says.

“Verheyen knew better than anyone else how to bridge the gap between innovation and tradition. Through traditional ceramics he connects with a monochrome tradition in which he discovers new possibilities for his abstract painting. Contacts with Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana lead to a further deepening of the importance of the idea behind the work of art”, Annelien De Troij, curator and researcher M HKA, says.

A visit

I must admit I had never heard of Jef Verheyen, so this exhibition was a real discovery. In eleven rooms, ‘Jef Verheyen, Window On Infinity’ shows you what his artistic career was all about.

Verheyen painted some dark stuff, literally, but also played with light, the illusion of light, content and non-content.

This exhibition might be less of a crowdpleaser or crowdpuller than ‘Turning Heads‘ with its old masters, but museums should also showcase less obvious art.

I had the opportunity to visit the exhibition almost on my own, on a Tuesday morning. As KMSKA participates in the MuseumPASSmusée programme, it dodn’t cost me anything extra.

I enjoyed this discovery. Being on my own, the visit only took me an hour, but I can imagine spending 90 to 120 minutes there. And of course there’s the rest of the museum.

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