Free guided tour every first Sunday of the month
Every first Sunday of the month, the Wittockiana proposes free guided tours of the current exhibition.
2:30 pm: Guided tour in French
L’Atelier du Faux immerses you in a fascinating world where disapproval meets admiration.
Since the Renaissance, forgers have fueled collectors’ desires with remarkably skilled creations. Even today, as in the art market, the trade in luxury goods and consumer products must contend with the sophisticated expertise of counterfeiters. With the rise of new technologies, copying systems have multiplied, and anonymity has unleashed new forms of abuse. Fake news and misinformation now tumble down a slippery slope with disconcerting ease.
Through this new exhibition, Wittockiana invites you to explore the paradoxes of deception and ingenuity throughout the centuries. This exhibition blends lightheartedness with depth, reflecting our own quest for authenticity in a world of illusions.
As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Surrealism, Jacques Lacomblez (Brussels, 1934°) turns 90! He has now become a major figure in historical Surrealism, from his encounters with Magritte, Mesens, Lecomte, Nougé, and Colinet to André Breton in 1958. This self-taught painter discovered and became enamored with De Chirico, Ernst, and Kandinsky before joining the Surrealist group Phases in 1956. But he is also a poet, influenced by Novalis and Michaux, and a craft publisher who founded the journal Edda (five issues, from 1958 to 1964) before publishing Achille Chavée. He illustrated works by Guy Cabanel, Jorge Camacho, Edouard Jaguer, and Franklin Rosemont. His poetry has been published in the USA in Chicago, in Belgium by Quadri, in France by Le Grand Tamanoir, in the Netherlands by Brumes Blondes, in Switzerland by La Doctrine, and in Canada by Sonàmbula.
The Wittockiana will showcase the “paper” side of the artist: his editions, his illustrators, his limited-edition prints, but also his binding designs and his watercolors that sing of the alchemical marriage between ice floes and fire, mineral strata and fossilized shells submerged beneath glazes, both subterranean cathedrals and contemporary cabinets of curiosities.