Jef Geys makes school
The exhibition Jef Geys makes school focuses on the work made by Belgian artist Jef Geys (1934-2018) from 1963 to 1989, when he was a teacher at the State Secondary School in Balen.
As a teacher, Jef Geys, in his very own way, knew how to fill aesthetics lessons with worldly insights. He challenged his pupils in an open manner about the self-evidence of prevailing opinions and changing world views, and also about advertising techniques in which he himself had been trained.
His most extraordinary works of art were created both from direct practice in the school and through his subcutaneous organic talent as an unparalleled, knowledge-transferring educational force with the aim of demystifying all sorts of insufferable myths and disguises of lived reality. The world country map, the women’s questions, ABC école de Paris, colouring book for adults, sensation box… are and remain crucial works in his oeuvre that to this day have lost nothing of their topicality.
From 31 January to 17 May, WIELS in Brussels will present a major retrospective of Jef Geys’ work.
