JEF GEYS' KOME: Artworks in several copies

At the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium

April 20 - July 8, 2012

The exhibition intends to bring to light all of Geys’s “Kome” - Kunstwerken op meerdere exemplaren (Artworks in several copies), Jef Geys coined the term KOME (Kunstwerken op meerdere exemplaren/ Artworks in several copies) in order to disprove the concept of both “multiple” and “unique” works of art.

For the KOME exhibition, Jef Geys has donated 13 versions, in different languages, of Questions de Femmes, a project that he began when he taught school in the 1960s. On a wall, Jef Geys posted a series of socio-political questions that elicited debates and conversations between students. In 1970, Geys received an invitation from Balen’s Socialist Women’s Group to exhibit his work. Among other works, he suggested this list of 157 questions, with the 158th, question left blank. Since then, the questions have appeared in various formats as well as in different languages. This work-in-progress has been unfolding for over forty years, and it is still timely.

Jef Geys, who has represented Belgium in the Venice Biennale in 2009, was born in Leopoldsburg, Belgium. Since the 1950s, Geys has worked at his home in the nearby town of Balen. His unifying theme is a dialogue between the personal and the universal. In his studio, there is a vast inventory of his work, as well as documentation, photos and press clippings, which he draws from in order to compose new narratives – both socially-oriented and autobiographical – that may subsequently become part of his oeuvre.

His work focuses on a narrative that brings together three essential elements in the life of an individual: one's private life, one's environment and one's relationship to the outside world. Geys joins these elements to an artistic practice that is difficult to define due to its complexity because he is constantly bridging different parts of his work, an approach that allows him to present his gathered material as an ensemble.

He critiques and calls into question the authority of certain accepted practices (his own and those of others) including art criticism. By so doing he expands the range of what constitutes an artistic experience: taking part in a cabaret, displaying pornography, joining a strike, exploring street slang, combining notions of high and low culture, etc. In line with this approach, he has been able to situate his job as a teacher for children ages 10 to 15 within his artwork. He uses these and other experiences to demystify that which institutions, received truths and the powers-that-be have elevated to be absolutes.

All of Geys projects are created in relation to a specific place or theme. The installation of a work is an artwork in itself—one that goes beyond KOME (Kunstwerken op meerdere exemplaren/ Artworks in several copies), and re-emerges as a unique work.

For more information, please visit www.fine-arts-museum.be.