Manfred Sellink: Pieter Bruegel: the hand of the master. ‘A once in a lifetime exhibition’ - concept, aims and results

Thursday 20 February 2020 starting at 7:00 p.m.
VANDENHOVE Centre for Architecture and Art
Rozier 1, 9000 Gent.

The lecture will be held in English.

In view of the commemoration of Pieter Bruegel’s death 450 years ago (1569) the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 2018/19 organized the first ever - and for many decades to come the last - comprehensive and highly successful survey of the master’s oeuvre with paintings, drawings and prints. More than ‘just’ a commemorative blockbuster, the exhibition was also the result of a seven year multidisciplinary research project. As initiator and co-curator Prof. dr. Manfred Sellink - Bruegel specialist and director of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp - will lecture on the making of the exhibition. What were the aims of the project, how was the research conducted, how did the organizers try to translate and visualize the research in the exhibition itself, are the (prize winning) exhibition and its accompanying catalogue an aim in itself or are there targets beyond. Numerous questions, many suggestions for future research and, perhaps, some answers. In Sellink’s opinion a good exhibition raises as many questions as it answers.

Prof. dr. Manfred Sellink, Director Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (KMSKA) in Antwerpen (Antwerp), Belgium and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Art History, Musicology and Theatre Studies, Ghent University (UGent)