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Het Onding Kunst / ‘Against the Powerlessness of Art’

As the first artistic projects already suggest, art as a social experiment lay at the heart of Ruimte Morguen’s programme. The artists who exhibited there actively explored the boundaries between art and society, between image and social reality. This inquiry culminated in 1985 with Het Onding Kunst [The Nonsense of Art] —a programme series that thematised the powerlessness, impossibility and unsustainability of art. Driven by a rotating project group (including Leen Derks, Lode De Clercq, Paul De Vylder, Nadine Tasseel and Marc Schepers), it resulted in 17 exhibitions and a companion magazine: Fase 2. Tijdschrift voor Beeldvervorming [Phase 2. Journal for Image Distortion]. The various projects, as well as the writings in the magazine, revealed a shared fascination with the status of the image in a spectacular, hyper - mediated society. Each sub-project illuminated a different facet of the founding manifesto —from me - dia critique to peripheral art, from political statements to personal fascinations.

In 1985, Ruimte Morguen organised Het Onding Kunst, a programme series that would ultimately consist of 17 exhibitions. How dit you came up with the idea for this project? 
“After the exhibition of Wilchar, we collaborated with Paul De Vylder. He exhibited his Unsolved Media Mysteries in the space, and we kept in regular contact. We shared a fascination with images co-opted by society, particularly in the form of propaganda and advertising. At the time, I was still interested in folk art and ‘peripheral’ art, such as children’s drawings. When the idea for Het Onding Kunst arose, we wanted to link it with a magazine. This became Fase 2. Tijdschrift voor Beeldvervorming [Phase 2. Journal for Image Distortion]. The editorial team consisted of the project group members, together with, among others, Lieven de Cauter. Later, Jan Ceuleers also joined.” Marc Schepers

Read the full interview here!