Sint Jan art exposition Ghent St Baafs Cathedral: An inspiration story-day 105.1

Sint Jan_exciting art exposition Ghent St Baafs Cathedral

(Saint) Jan Hoet senior did it again.

Sint Jan, an exhibition curated by Hoet and Hans Martens in the fabulous St Baafs cathedral in Ghent opened yesterday for a wide selection of the Belgian & Ghent art scene. (Fun!!)
More than 60 artists like Jan Fabre, Wim Delvoye, David Claerbout, Dirk Braeckman, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Jan Van Imschoot, Thierry De Cordier, Matthieu Ronsse, Michaël Borremans and many more joined forces and coordinated well in the grandeur of the cathedral.

The expo turns out to be a selection of work on spirituality, life & death, devotion and (anti) religion. Universal themes brought with respect, intelligence sometimes humor but never chocking. That wasn’t the goal after all.

The works in the crypt are less integrated in the surroundings and look somehow like an bad displayed art show.

But in the cathedral you really can discover the artist’s visions piece by piece, blended together in (sometimes) perfect harmony with Old Masters like Jan Van Eyck, Pieter-Paul Rubens, Joos van Massenhove, Frans Pourbus De Jongere and Gaspar de Crayer. Fabre and Delvoye set already the trend at The Paris Louvre with this kind of confrontation encounters.

Sometimes you really have to look for the art works, but that makes the exposition even more exciting.

“And the ones that don’t want to see, don’t have to look”, dixit Hoet at his opening speech at the altar (!).

The fact that this exhibition opened shortly after the SMAK curated TRACK expo, is a statement.
Off course. Hoet’s statement is one of ‘no budget’.

In times where XL exhibitions like Beaufort cost 7,5 million euros or let’s say Track about 3,5 million, Hoet shows what you can do with the right drive, the right friends and a strong vision idea. (Remember Hoet’s Chambres d’Amis costed less than 150.000 euros.)

And ‘no budget’ we can take literally: The expo is free, all the artists collaborated for free and as we could expect from a real bon vivant like Hoet, the reception on the Sint Baafs Plein: loads of free booze and food until 6 PM, for all.

I loved it. The idea, the art circus around it and some of the work could become a fixed part of the cathedral’s heritage.
Let’s keep the sword of Kris Martin at the entrance, if I may suggest already one.