Jacques Lennep (1941)
Belgium

"The Brussels artist Jacques van Lennep finished his studies in art history at the Free University of Brussels in 1965. He began his career as a researcher for the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and associated his work with his life as an artist under the name of Jacques Lennep. He specialized in 19th century Belgian sculpture and published a book in 1966 entitled Art and Alchemy. In 1969 he then visited the first exhibition of conceptual art in Europe which took place in the Kunsthalle in Bern. In 1972, he created the Cercle d’Art Prospectif (CAP) with Pierre Courtois, Jacques-Louis Nyst and Jacques Lizène. The artist collective organizes various exhibitions that highlight photography and video.

Lennep regularly uses images of masterpieces. Through photography, he recreates works that belong to the history of art, a practice that can be closer to Brussels surrealism. He also devotes himself to kinetic art and creates thermoformed and screen-printed plastic multiples. He integrates texts, photos, objects into his works, and as the first pioneer, even videos. These are always multi-layered and structured and are halfway between sociology, anthropology and conceptual art. As an extension of this trend, in 1974 he created the Museum of Man. In this “museum”, he exhibits men like the sculptor Monsieur Bonvoisin, the football supporter Ezio Bucci and Tania, a model for charming photos. It was his way of materializing the theory of relational art: by putting himself in contact with these people and examining the relationship they have with certain objects and analyzing which stories can create a connection.

The artist also displays a bibliophile preference for artists' books and personal journals. He worked for many years on his Devoirs Quotidiens, a sort of journal in the form of a diary which is available on an interactive CD-ROM. Towards the end of the seventies, Lennep lost interest in video and turned entirely to painting. Regardless of the medium he uses, Lennep’s work continually creates a new definition of art. Since beauty is no longer an exclusive criterion, the work is no longer considered an object of contemplation, but rather a means of engagement whose objective is to achieve expressive totality. Contemplative art becomes a participatory art which invites – perhaps – to adopt a more complete observation technique."

(Source, website, MUHKA)
(Biography by the artist himself : website)