Presentation for the Salon Mac 2000 at Grand Palais, Evelyne Artaud et Jean Rustin, 24 February 1985, silver print (13cmx18cm) by Antoine Darnaud, Archives ©FJRustin.
JEAN RUSTIN FOUNDATION
Imagine a wine cellar that would never be visited and from which no bottle would come out: a whole world suffocating under dust that cannot diffuse its nectar. These great vintage wines become vinegar when they have not been appreciated in due time. The same goes for art collections. As rich as it may be, it is no less sterile if what it carries within is not shared. What do archives say if they don’t establish a dialogue with the paintings? What is the value of a library if it is not open to researchers, or more simply to enthusiasts, to curious minds? Nothing more than dead matter awaiting to be injected by the flow of life to unfold its potential. Things and beings must be fertilized to liberate their knowledge, taste, and beauty. Rustin’s painting must be shown precisely when our sick egos need it. And this is what the members of the new Jean Rustin Foundation wish today: to show a powerful art capable of reviving the buried, of disturbing, literally and definitely. To do so, they decided to set up a vast circulation project by creating different spaces to deploy the gathered elements (the collection, the archives) and the necessary tools to explore the various dimensions of the work.
FOR A LIVING PAINTING
To this end, Maurice Verbaet has created a dense network of connections within the art world in Belgium and abroad since the 1970s. As far as twentieth-century Belgian art is concerned, his collection is one of the most important and constitutes a rich heritage that he was able to share in his private museum in Antwerp until 2018, as well as on the walls of the Maurice Verbaet Gallery, which regularly participates in the most important contemporary art events (BRAFA, Art Brussels, Art Paris, among others). He is now logically part of the vast network formed by institutions, collectors, and galleries, a network that continues to grow and that Verbaet wishes to share for the Rustin cause. As he does for many of the artists he supports, he is already putting in place the means that will allow the œuvre to circulate. The creation of a unique retrospective on the painter’s work, the publication of the first comprehensive monograph on Rustin, and the making of a feature film on the impact of his art are on the horizon. It is a colossal project, of course, but his ambition is supported by solid foundations that will make it possible to uniquely impact the set of materials gathered.
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A UNIQUE RETROSPECTIVE
The straightforward confrontation with the painting remains the ultimate experience and the purpose of the artist. Since the late 1950s, Rustin’s work has been exhibited in many institutions across continents, and the new foundation intends to continue to allow the work to travel. It is thus conceiving a major traveling retrospective. This unparalleled event will cover the artist’s career from his first drawings to the very last productions, presenting the fullness of his career for the first time and offering the public a meaningful confrontation between the earlier and later pieces. It can now develop new spaces for dialogue by presenting the most striking pieces, transforming a simple journey into real immersion.
DIALOGUES
To prevent the foundation from becoming a closed space, its members also set themselves the task of organizing exhibitions bringing together the works of other artists whose art relates, in one way or another, to Rustin’s. It wishes to create proposals in which the artworks could echo each other and whose confrontation would create new perspectives. The public will thus have the privilege of freely associating the thoughts that may arise from the richness of these dialogues. This approach is critical to the foundation because it makes it possible to highlight the polysemy of the artworks and their deep vibrations brought to the surface thanks to the proximity of “sister artworks.” The opportunity will thus be given to see embodied in very different forms and approaches, the fundamental questions that link powerful works together and, therefore, to touch their universal dimension.
CONFERENCES AND VISITS
Always considering the need to offer the richest and most complete experience possible, the public will be invited to follow different cycles of conferences and events designed to unfold Rustin’s work. They will also be invited to take part in guided tours organized during the temporary exhibitions or on other occasions, thus renewing access to the collection. The Jean Rustin Foundation wishes to remain open to any proposal related to the artist’s work: researchers, critics, art historians, or enthusiasts will be able to shed different lights on the work to lead the public beyond the shock of the initial impact that such a painting can sometimes create.
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ABOUT AND AROUND RUSTIN
While the exhibition is the ideal setting to discover the painter’s artworks, the Jean Rustin Foundation sees books as a powerful way to infiltrate its substance. The foundation combines all the publications released during and beyond the painter’s life, from the first exhibition catalog to the most recent editions, including monographs and numerous books published in collaboration with artists, poets, writers, and doctors. They join Verbaet’s library, which contains thousands of books about the artists he collects and those directly related to the themes embraced by Rustin. Themes that have been ever-reconsidered since the dawn of art history: mainly the body, the metamorphoses of the flesh, and our unrelenting finitude. The library comprises volumes dedicated to Goya, Bonnard, Ensor, Bacon, Toulouse-Lautrec, Ribera, or Caravaggio, but also to La Tour, Hals or Le Nain, the artists of the past who have left their mark on history as well as the contemporaries who also seem to bear affinities with Rustin, from Diane Arbus to Berlinde de Bruyckere, David Lynch or the CoBrA group. There are also volumes on art in general, post-war art in particular, sexuality, eroticism, psychiatry, and anything dealing with the human figure, whether addressed from a historical, artistic, or scientific perspective. Other books relate to the notion of the uncanny, as Rustin never adhered to an entirely realistic idea to create a poetic universe of his own, moving away from the descriptive and capable of whispering to us what might lay beyond the known.
NEW PUBLICATIONS
Therefore, the Jean Rustin Foundation is home to many volumes, forming a rich soil for all forms of research on painting in general and Rustin in particular. But beyond the existing collection, it is already proud to have published a first book as part of its new circulation project, the fruit of a promise made by Verbaet to the art critic Roger Pierre Turine, who followed the painter since the 1990s and covered many of his exhibitions in the press. His exquisite writing and years-long friendship bring the sap of a rich exchange with the painter; fascinating comments are brought together in the extended interview that forms the first part of the volume, the second being a collection of articles by Turine and collected in the form of a diary. This first publication illustrates the determination of the foundation members to offer quality publications, a dive into the work on par with what its author brought into it. This brings us to the foundation’s major project, one that Verbaet has been dreaming about for years, namely the publication of a major monograph.
THE RUSTIN MONOGRAPH
One of the most substantial publications released about Rustin is by Edward Lucie-Smith, an English critic and art historian who joined the first foundation when it was founded. That monograph, published in London, covered the painter’s career up to 1991. A decade after his death, the Jean Rustin Foundation wishes to publish the artist’s first complete monograph. The hindsight we have today makes the project unprecedented. Beyond considering the painter’s entire career by adding to the initial study the last twenty years of creation, it is now possible to explore the fantastic material made available by the recently acquired archives. The new chronological elements offer a precise sequence of events that marked the painter’s life, from the most subtle details to the decisive revolutions. Thus, the text that will form the body of the volume will emerge from the orchestration of all the material collected to form a solid basis for highlighting the crucial stages and redrawing the entire route, illustrated with hundreds of reproductions and other archival pieces. The book will also be an opportunity to bring together the most beautiful texts written about Rustin, including by Pascal Quignard, Marcel Moreau, Claude Louis-Combet, Claude Roffat, Kits Hilaire, and Bernard Noël. One-day encounters or long-standing friendships will also be illustrated by correspondence or photographs taken during visits to the studio. This new monograph is a large-scale project that Sandrine Lopez is developing step by step. Completing this book and the required inventory work will also be the opportunity to compile the catalog raisonné of the work. But for the time being, the photographer is busy writing: her various missions within the new foundation have required long dives into the painter’s universe, shedding new light onto the œuvre. She is thus quite naturally entrusted with the production of this monograph, which is also combined with the other major project of the foundation: a feature film that will deliver a different way of entering the artist’s world, between documentary and fiction.
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JEAN RUSTIN: THE FILM
Thanks to the long writing process that forms the monograph’s basis, the richness of the archives, and her own experience as an artist, Sandrine Lopez embarks on making a film whose actual content she will know only at the end of the editing stage. While the current project for the monograph is to offer a detailed journey through the life and work of the painter according to a linear perspective, that of the film will be different. She wants to translate into images the powerful impact of this extraordinary work according to a principle that she cherishes: association. She aims to account for what was born from her long immersion in Rustin’s world, from discovery to assimilation, including everything that emerged during its dissection. This is because the monstrous material past her eyes has left traces. You do not swallow Rustin for years without anything happening during digestion. Thus, as the night dream distills its power of vision in the interlacing of the day1, whatever was brewed has left a trace. Beyond the paintings themselves or the thousands of drawings she has looked at, all the reproductions have also left their mark on her retina, not to mention the repercussions of letters, articles, guest books, or even the various writings and testimonies collected during the interviews she conducted with those who met the painter. All this created a fabric of associations that she now wishes to convey in images. Thus, the monograph will be the journey through a territory with markers and directions, while the film will offer a dive into a space, one of the imaginary linked to the work where the markers have disappeared, leaving the world of fantasy as the only guide. The sensory dimension will thus be highlighted, the main idea being to create an atmosphere free from the notion of borders that no longer needs to be thought of chronologically but organically, obeying a system of associations where everything becomes possible. Analysis, speculation, imagination, speech, image, fiction, and reality could merge or at least intertwine to act at a different level. The film will result from the setting in motion of an immense tapestry formed by the harvesting and arrangement of material (the woven threads) and their impact. The film will be a counterpoint to the exhibitions and the monograph, thus forming a triangle whose poles will offer a journey in Rustin.
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A VIRTUAL PLATFORM
In addition to allowing everyone to be informed of the projects initiated, the Jean Rustin Foundation website is intended to be a natural space for discovery. It will include essential elements of the work and the new foundation dedicated to it. It will provide access to part of the collection, excerpts from interviews conducted for the monograph research work, and glimpses of the film in progress. Social networks have already been activated to relay this material and aim to create a community of enthusiasts who will, we hope, form the audience of the future exhibitions and be valuable relays.
PRESERVATION AND MEETING POINT
The Jean Rustin Foundation exists in different places in France and Belgium. Antwerp is a secure space for the artist’s paintings and drawings and all the original pieces that comprise the archives. Everything is classified and kept under optimal conditions. The foundation’s headquarters, on the other hand, are in Paris. It is a meeting point intended to receive anyone interested in the painter’s work; researchers, conservators, or exhibition curators are welcome to the research center with access to the collection and the archives via the web page.
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The first seeds of a foundation dedicated to the art of Jean Rustin were planted in Belgium in the early 1990s. A few years earlier, in the mid-1980s, the gallery owner Marnix Neerman had discovered Rustin’s painting and bought all his artwork, which he began to promote in Belgium and abroad. Then, a small group of collectors and critics gathered around Neerman’s project, all with the firm belief that Rustin was one of the twentieth century’s prominent painters. This conviction led to the establishment of the first Rustin Foundation in 1992 in Antwerp, presided over by two Dutch collectors, Corinne van Hövell and Take von Spijker, who bought a large part of Neerman’s collection. The following year, another collector, Maurice Verbaet, discovered and very much appreciated Rustin’s painting despite his strong inclination for Belgian modern art at the time. Mainly interested in post-war artists, he has gathered for nearly 50 years a vast collection of works by well-known and prominent artists ranging from Pierre Alechinsky to Jan Fabre, Hugo Claus, or Stéphane Mandelbaum, but also artists for whom attention had too often been lacking, those who must be discovered, rediscovered, and made visible, such as Denmark or Tapta. Thus, nothing predicted an encounter with Jean Rustin, were it not for the man’s ability to deviate from his line when his instinct invites him to a turn he would hardly regret. Immediately after discovering a painting by Rustin at the turn of a newspaper page, Verbaet decided to meet the person behind that painting that was both beautiful and disturbing. Following his instinct, he began collecting the paintings of Rustin, falling in love with the work, and becoming friends with the artist. From then on, he participated in various dissemination projects in museums, fairs, and galleries. From 2001, he presided over the foundation alongside van Hövell and acquired the entire body of work, both present and future. At the painter’s request, he also received a private copyright. In 2007, the foundation, then directed by Charlotte Waligora, moved from Antwerp to Paris, the city chosen by the painter from Moselle 60 years earlier to join the École des Beaux-Arts. The first space was inaugurated in the 7th arrondissement before moving to the 3rd where the foundation welcomed the public at 24 rue Beaubourg. It closed in 2012, and the artist’s death in 2013 somewhat froze the foundation’s activities. But from that time that one might have thought dead, it will emerge reinvigorated, for if we are talking here about a new face, it is because Maurice Verbaet did not forget his commitments. To honor them, he decided to leave the existing foundation in 2019 to reconsider the missions on which it was founded.
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Maurice Verbaet and Sandrine Lopez met at the end of 2018. A French photographer and videographer, then a teacher at an art school in Brussels, Lopez discovered Rustin’s painting in 2010 and immediately found matter worthy of digging, a terribly fertile space, one that is welcoming and nourishing by concentrating the most burning themes. Themes she had long
been exploring, her own work revolving around the body and its implacable finitude, blurring the boundaries between the beautiful and the monstrous, bringing the vulnerable to its climax. As part of a workshop she led on images and the creative process, she showed Rustin’s work to the students, who demonstrated great enthusiasm. Having heard that Verbaet’s collection was in Antwerp, she decided to organize a visit so the students could experience the physical confrontation with the paintings. She contacted the foundation several times, and despite
the warm welcome she received every time, things did not fall into place. She tried her luck until Verbaet himself received the request in 2018, visibly delighted by the interest in his protégé. The visit was a success as Verbaet offered a moving confrontation in the intimacy of the belly of his collection. He touchingly shared the story of the 20 years he spent with the painter, who quickly went from being an artist to being a dear friend. In the wake of the visit, he told Lopez about the vast project at the origin of the Rustin Foundation, a project that he wished more than ever to continue in memory of his friend, out of love for the work, but above all to give this artist the place he deserves in the history of painting. Sandrine Lopez did not hide her fascination for the painter, and their encounter was no coincidence for Verbaet, who felt that she was fascinated enough by the work to imagine the possibility that she could become what he called “the Rustin ambassador.” He saw in their encounter a sign that it was high time to wake up the sleeping beauty. It seemed that the mad recognized each other, two mad who lacked neither the dedication nor the fascination necessary to defend the man whom the great Marcel Moreau had nevertheless described as “indefensible1.” Verbaet seized the opportunity to breathe new life into the Rustin project by asking Lopez to join. In September 2019, she left her teaching positions and began vast research based on the publications on the work gathered in Verbaet’s library and the first set of archives received at Rustin’s death. Step by step, Verbaet and Lopez would redesign the dissemination project and begin the creation of a brand-new space in which to relaunch the orchestration of the elements that will henceforth constitute the heart of the new Jean Rustin Foundation: Verbaet’s personal collection (paintings, drawings, lithographs) as well as the painter’s archives entrusted by the family.