Exhibition: Guillaume Bijl – “40 YEARS INSTALLATIONS" 1979 - 2019 (Celebration)
M HKA, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp
14 September 2019 - 05 January 2020
Collection M HKA, Antwerp / Collection Flemish Community, Donated by the artist, 1987, image: © M HKA
Autorijschool Z marks the starts of a whole series of installations which Belgian artist Guillaume Bijl initiated in 1979 and which he himself refers to as Transformation installations. With this series, the artist has over the past forty years created an oeuvre that presents a fictional reconstruction of our time.
In 1979, Bijl writes a fictional pamphlet in which the government apparently comes to the conclusion that art is irrelevant to society and that art spaces must henceforth be transformed into spaces with a social purpose. The first artwork in this 'Art Liquidation Project' is the installation Autorijschool Z. To create this work, the artist closed the Antwerp gallery Ruimte Z and transformed it into a useful social institution: a driving school. The space is furbished like a driving school and becomes, as such, a perfect imitation of reality. The staging was so convincing that casual passers-by assumed that the gallery had in effect become a driving school. The illusion was perfect.
Guillaume Bijl realises that his actions – the choice and arrangement of the objects – during the creation of the installation are those of a sculptor. “In fact, every installation I make is carefully thought out. What I make is still a set. It has been put together in a conscious, reasoned manner so as to represent reality".
Media
>Guillaume Bijl, Autorijschool Z, 1979-1989
>PROJECT FOR ART LIQUIDATION, text by Guillaume Bijl. Translation: PROJECT FOR ART LIQUIDATION BY ORDER OF THE STATE -Due to art’s non-functional nature. -Due to the lack of space that several ministries have had to contend with recently. -Due to the uneconomical aspects of the art market, which is rife with tax evasion? -Due to the annually rising costs of the ministry of culture. -Due to the mounting general crisis, for which a solution needs to be found urgently. -Due to the degrading nature of the new tendencies in art. -Due to the anarchist mentality of many contemporary artists. WE ARE OBLIGED TO CLOSE ALL MUSEUMS and transform them, as quickly as possible, into spaces suited for more practical purposes; ART GALLERIES ARE TO FOLLOW; with the same aim. THEY WILL BE REPLACED BY A.O.: -Tax audit offices (department of the Ministry of Finance). -Hospital wards (department of the Ministry of Health). -Retraining centres (department of the Ministry of Labour) -Military training centres (department of the Ministry of Defence) -Career guidance services (department of the Ministry of Education) -Data banks (department of the Ministry of Justice) -Driving Schools (department of the Ministry of Roads and Bridges).
>Guillaume Bijl, Autorijschool Z, 1979
WorksShow artists
> Guillaume Bijl, Autorijschool Z [Car - driving school Z], 1979-1989. Installation, mixed media, 260 x 535 x 1024 cm.
> Guillaume Bijl, Composition Trouvée (à l'affiche / prochainement), 1993. Installation, mixed media, 100 x 180 x 6 cm.