ROOTED
Painting Flanders 1880-1930
A year after its first successful exhibition, the Chancellery presented another part of The Phoebus Foundation collection to the public. The stars of this event devoted to Flemish art between 1880 and 1930 were the period’s most influential painters: Emile Claus, Valerius De Saedeleer, Gustave Van de Woestyne, George Minne, James Ensor, Léon Spilliaert, Rik Wouters, Frits Van den Berghe, Constant Permeke, Gust. De Smet, Hubert Malfait and Edgard Tytgat. The exhibition focused on a tipping point in Flemish artistic and cultural history and transported visitors back to the early twentieth century. But ROOTED was different and groundbreaking too. It was also about the present day and what it means to be Flemish, given that the boundary between past and present is gossamer-thin.
ROOTED offered a selection of masterpieces. Many of the works are privately owned and were being shown to the public for the first time. The fairy-tale scenography gave a sense that visitors could walk around the paintings. ROOTED was another bullseye: in the space of four and a half months, over 60,000 people came to the Caermersklooster.
