• Source: Guillaume Bijl

Guillaume Bijl (born 1946 in Antwerp) is a Belgian conceptual and an installation artist. He lives and works in Antwerp.




Early life and education


Bijl was born in 1946 to a working-class family in Antwerp. The artist's father worked at the local docks and his mother worked for the Bell Telephone Company. A self-taught artist, Bijl came to art as an outsider initially making paintings during the 1960s. During this time, he mimicked numerous artistic movements such as Impressionism, Expressionism, Surrealism, abstract movements and more. During a period of self-guided studies in economics, Bijl worked at a bank in Brussels. Shortly thereafter his parents sent him to a local vocational trade school in the hopes of gaining professional skills. For nearly a decade, Bijl worked part-time in the art section of a bookstore in Antwerp. In the late 1960s, he studied theater and film at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema, and Sound in Brussels before dropping out after only a year. Bijl only then devoted himself to art-making full-time in his mid-30s.




Work


Bijl's early work, a series of projects on paper, combined his myriad background experiences and aimed to engage a wider audience citing a need to be nearer to the public. The series, Project-notities [Project Notes] (1969–1975), includes drawings and written proposals for museum installations, theatrical pieces, performance projects, and experiments in 16mm film. In the late 1970s Bijl began creating Transformation Installations, meticulous imitations of everyday realities inside the walls of galleries and museums. Bijl's first installation was a driving school, set in a gallery in Antwerp in 1979, accompanied by a manifesto calling for the abolition of art centres, and replacing them with 'socially useful institutions'. This installation was followed in the eighties by a billiards room, a casino, a laundromat, a centre for professional training, a psychiatric hospital, a fallout shelter, a show of fictitious American artists, a conference for a new political party and a rural Belgian model house. A more recent show was at the Berlin's Center for Opinions in Music and Art. Bijl has been reviewed by The New York Times. He divides his work into four categories: 'Transformation Installations', 'Situation Installations', 'Compositions Trouvées' and 'Sorrys'.




Solo exhibitions


Guillaume Bijl is represented by At the Gallery/modern and contemporary art (Antwerp), Galerie Nagel Draxler (Cologne/Berlin), Guy Pieters Gallery (Knokke-Heist, Belgium) and André Simoens Gallery (Knokke, Belgium). Below is a selection of Solo exhibitions:

2012: Cultuurcentrum Mechelen
2012: Etablisssement d’en face, Brussels
2011: Arnolfini
2008: SMAK
2001: Städtische galerie Nordhorn
1998: Kunsthalle Reklinghausen
1998: Neue Galerie Graz
1997: Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
1996: Kunstverein Hannover
1996: Muhka
1994: Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum
1993: Wiener Secession
1990: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art
1989: New Museum
1989: Le Magasin
1988: Venice Biennale, Belgium Pavilion
1988: Kunstverein Kassel
1986: Kunstverein Keulen
1985: Stedelijk Museum
1984: SMAK
1984: Art Basel
1979: Galerij Z, Antwerp




Group exhibitions


Guillaume Bijl's work has been featured in significant groupshows and biennials, including the Documenta IX (1992), Skulptur Projekte Münster (2007), Busan Biennale (2006), Scape Biennale (2008), Lyon Biennale (2011), Istanbul Biennale (2013) and MANIFESTA 11 (2016).




Public collections


Bijl's piece titled Behandlingen (1975–1979) resides in the collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp. The artist has work collected at Centre Pompidou and Musée Nationale d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent, MUMOK in Vienna, the Goldberg Collection in New York, and more.




References






External links


Guillaume Bijl Official Website
M HKA
the-artist.org
Guillaume Bijl at Franklin Furnace Archived 2012-02-13 at the Wayback Machine

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Seni instalasi
• Guillaume Bijl
• Bijl
• Found object
• Skulptur Projekte Münster
• Bart Cassiman
• IKOB International Art Centre East Belgium
• List of people from Antwerp
• CASSTL
• Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery
• Château des Adhémar