ALTAR AND FLOOR -1 SACRISTY

Born in Apt (Provence). In 1973 Faucon graduated in Philosophy at the Sorbonne; until 1977 he devoted himself to painting and then discovered photography. The artist compiled series such as Les grandes vacances; his method involved using groups of mannequins and sometimes real children to create complicated stagings. In 1980, in Chambres d’amour and Chambres d’orde, he delved into themes such as absence and melancholy with snapshots of furnished rooms in ruined houses. Faucon was awarded the Grand Prix National de Photographie in 1989 and the Prix Léonard de Vinci in 1991. Faucon worked on cycles such as Idoles et sacrifices; between 1993 and 1995, he focused on Fin de l’image. In 2007 he reappeared with a new project, Le plus beau jour de ma jeunesse, where he invited boys and girls from more than 20 countries to represent their happiest day. In 2004 he opened the Moscow Biennale; in 2005, a retrospective of his work was presented at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP). In 2009 he exhibited at the Rencontres d’Arles, and in September 2013 at GetxoPhoto. The artist showed work at galleries such as VU’, Agathe Gaillard et Yvon Lambert (Paris), and Leo Castelli (New York).

Born in Kiev. Goldsmith, industrial designer, and master craftsman of the Bauhaus, Slutzky mainly designed jewellery and lamps, but also teapots and coffee pots. In 1924 he left the Bauhaus to become an independent designer. In 1933, when the Nazis seized power, the artist fled to England; he worked as a design professor in London and Birmingham. In the 1920s and 1930s, Slutzky participated in the exhibitions of the Sezession in Hamburg and the Neue Sezession, and then exhibited in Paris and Germany. His works can be found in the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert (London), as well as in Berlin and Stockholm.

Born in Dendermonde (Belgium), Wauman lives and works in Sint-Niklaas. In 2000 he obtained a master’s degree in photography at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten (Antwerp) and, in 2003, he completed postgraduate studies at the SintLucas Instituut (Ghent). His work is based on images and objects with which he creates compositions, scenes, and installations that are like visual riddles loaded with whimsical interpretations. The artist creates still lifes, landscapes, and architectural constructions. In 2003 he participated in Happiness: ASurvival Guide for Art and Life (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan). In Belgium Wauman has exhibited in the Kusseneers (Antwerp, 2009), De Garage (Malines, 2013), and Roberto Polo (Brussels, 2016) galleries, as well as the Permeke Museum (Jabbeke, 2016). In 2012 he invited 150 international artists to contribute “inspiring” objects to his project Paraphernalia; with them, he created and photographed 21 compositions that gave rise to a publication with comments from everyone and a text by Stefaan Vervoort. In 2016 he began a series of works based on his research into craftsmanship, consisting of handmade marquetrypieces and three-dimensional objects based on furniture. Wauman is currently working as a researcher at the Antwerp School of Art, preparing for his PhD in Art at the University of Antwerp.

Born in Antwerp (Belgium). Vanriet studied at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunstenand combined painting with poetry. In 1968 he took part in a writers’ protest against literary censorship in Belgium. In 1971 the artist became the youngest member of the editorial board of the political magazine De Nieuwe Maand. In 1972 he exhibited for the first time at the Zwarte Panter gallery and later began his collaboration with gallery owner Jan Lens (Lens Fine Arts). His books, published by Manteau, and his literary collaborations and cover designs for the literary magazine Revolver, alternate with his exhibitions: biennials in Sao Paulo, Venice, and Seoul, as well as the Isy Brachot gallery (Brussels and Paris) and others. When Antwerp was the European Capital of Culture (1993), the artist organised an important exhibition and painted the ceiling of the lobby of the restored Bourla Theatre. The Lippisches Landesmuseum (Detmold) presented Transport (1994–2004), paintings partly inspired by World War II: his parents and other members of his family collaborated in the Resistance against the Nazi invaders, but they were arrested and deported to Mauthausen and Ravensbrück. In 2005 Vanriet travelled to Israel to install his triptych Nathan the Wise. In 2010, the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Antwerp) invited him to “close” the museum before its remodelling and organised the retrospective Closing Time in dialogue with classical artists such as Pieter Paul Rubens, Jan Van Eyck, Titian, Lucas Cranach, and others; in 2012 the Roberto Polo Gallery (Brussels) inaugurated Closed Doors, his first exhibition there. In 2013 he presented Losing Face, a series on Jewish deportees from Belgium to Auschwitz, shown at the Kazerne Museum in Mechelen and then at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Centre in Moscow. His work can be found in the National Museum (Gdansk), the British Museum, the Museum of Polish Jewish History (Warsaw), the Walsall New Art Gallery, and others.

A Belgian painter, graphic artist, and sculptor born in London, Mendelson’s British parents settled in Antwerp in 1922. With Alechinsky, Jo Delahaut, Van Lint and others, in 1945 Mendelson founded the Young Belgian Painting group, a very important group in the history of Belgian painting, although it was dissolved in 1948 when René Lust, one of its patrons, died. Initially his style was close to that of Giorgio de Chirico; then he moved on to abstraction and later developed a figurative style inspired by Joan Miró and Paul Klee; a good example is his polychrome wood bas-relief Happy Metro to You, 20 metres long, installed in the Parc station of the Brussels Metro in 1974 to offer travellers a humorous and colourful experience. In the nineties the artist returned to abstraction and made collages, as well as sculptures and assemblages. Mendelson made several trips to the Costa Brava. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1948 and the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1951 and 1953. In New York, an exhibition on Young Belgian Painting was presented in 1953 and 1954. A retrospective exhibit of his work was created in Ostend in 1995 and at the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts (Brussels) in 2010.