The group exhibition "Un Jardin d’Hiver", a carte blanche entrusted to curator Sam Steverlynck, takes the unique setting of GNYP Gallery as its point of departure. Housed in a building dating from 1912 on Jan Van Rijswijcklaan in Antwerp, the gallery is distinguished by its high-ceilinged rooms, wooden wainscoting, grand staircase, and elegant glass dome adorned with decorative motifs. The building was constructed in the Neo-Regency style at the end of the Belle Époque, a period of prosperity during which, among other things, Antwerp’s banking sector and port experienced remarkable growth. Affluent citizens commissioned stately residences in an eclectic range of architectural styles, from Neoclassicism to Art Nouveau.
The exhibition takes its title from an installation by Marcel Broodthaers, the Brussels-born artist who presented several important exhibitions at Antwerp’s Wide White Space Gallery in, located on the ground floor of the Art Nouveau building 'Het Bootje'. With his installation "Un Jardin d’Hiver", presented at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1974, which featured potted palm trees, folding chairs, and framed animal engravings, Broodthaers drew attention to the parallels between the bourgeois culture of collecting that underpinned the museum model and the colonial drive for expansion.
The winter garden, which originated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is a quintessential example of nature tamed by human hands. It is a space where one can enjoy the natural world in complete comfort, sheltered from its inconveniences. The winter garden experienced a renewed flourishing during the Art Nouveau period, reflecting the movement’s fascination with nature and organic forms. Its popularity was made possible by technological innovations, such as cast iron and sheet glass, which could be employed on an industrial scale.
The artists brought together for this exhibition present works that respond to this context. Their practices engage with themes such as nature as an artificial construct, exoticism, World’s Fairs, phantasmagoria and enchantment, Art Nouveau, and colonialism, which played a significant role in shaping Belgium’s prosperity and the flourishing of this architectural style, sometimes referred to as the “Congo Style.”
"Un Jardin d’Hiver" brings together existing works alongside new productions created specifically for the exhibition.
Text by Sam Steverlynck
Curated by Sam Steverlynck
Artists: Che Go Eun, Nadia Guerroui, Iasonas Kampanis, Yorgos Maraziotis, Wesley Meuris, Maya de Mondragon, Lucian Moriyama, Bruno V. Roels, Mira Sanders, Filip Vervaet, Oriol Vilanova
