As travelling abroad remain restricted at the moment, we (me and my art-loving friend) are travelling every month within Belgium to visit museums we've never been to yet. Well, you can be a tourist in your own country, aren't you?
On Saturday morning, following our passion for books and discovering that we haven't been to The Bibliotheca Wittockiana yet, we took a train and started our journey. Upon arrival in Brussels, we decided to take a walk and enjoy the beauty of the city, soaking in the warm morning sun. So unusual for this time of the year.
The Bibliotheca Wittockiana, the Museum of the Book Arts and the Bookbinding, is one of the few museums in the world devoted exclusively to bookbinding and book arts. The museum opened its doors in September of 1983. Founded by Michel Wittock (1936-2020) it houses his private collection of bindings from the Renaissance to the present days. The building, designed by Emmanuel de Callataÿ (1936) who was commissioned by Michel Wittock to create a modern-day shrine to books, impresses with a rhythm of concrete and large chunks of natural stone, where the entrance resembles a cave. Every year temporary exhibitions are held at the museum. And a special workshop area has been equipped to offer bookbinding workshops given by national and international professionals, breathing new life into the art of bookbinding.
The current exhibition of Camiel Van Breedam (1936, Boom), with fifty works, selected by the artist himself, should have been on view from September to January 2021 but has been extended till May. Well, the are also some good news coming along with the lockdown :)
Camiel Van Breedam loves books, book art and art with books. They are like a thread through his oeuvre. Therefore The Bibliotheca Wittockiana, the Museum of the Book Arts and the Bookbinding, was close to his heart.
Van Breedam's assemblages, collages, object art and book objects often consist of wooden boxes in which collages of reused materials such as official documents, papers, letters, envelopes, engravings, tree leaves can be seen. Including bookbindings from which the book block has been removed. New shapes, new textures and, in this case, new books arise from these reused objects. Books about growth and decay, about life and death.
Apart from that, Van Breedam's book objects and collages contain - sometimes in the titles alone - numerous cultural-historical references to, among others, De Stijl, the work of Mondrian, the Russian expressionist painter Alexej von Jawlensky, and American writer William Faulkner. In addition to the book objects on the tables, there are also letters to artists (letter to Paul Klee, Chaim Soutine) or writers (letter to William Faulkner) that can be seen on the walls of the museum. His use of composition and the predominantly present red colour in his abstract works reminds me of works by the artists of the Russian avant-garde, Bauhaus and De Stijl.
His three-dimensional collages using old books and documents are looking like unique, bibliophilic "publications". They are taking you to another, poetic world.
More pictures here
The Bibliotheca Wittockiana
Rue du Bemel 23
1150 Woluwe-Saint-Pierre
website
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