Jef Geys's works inhabit a border zone between art and everyday life. He attacks the monopolistic position of art institutions and experts on the one hand, and the superficial prettiness and clichés of conventional canons of beauty, kitsch and popular culture on the other. Geys became interested in the relationship between 'high' and 'low' art in the early 1960s. This interest informs his paintings, sculptures and installations, as well as the biographical series 'GROTE Zaadzakjes/Grosse Samentüten 1962001' (GROTE Zaadzakjes/Large Seed Bags 1962001), which is on show in its entirety at the Munich Kunstverein concurrently with his piece for Messestadt. Interactive projects rooted in society form the basis of Geys's artistic activity. He has devised various projects involving inhabitants of the region where he lives, implementing them first in local surroundings before presenting them in documentary form in an 'art' context. In 1969, for example, he set up the cabaret Bar 900. In 1971 he joined 'Vieille Montagne' in a strike protesting against the closure of a factory and, as a primary school teacher, developed dozens of projects with schoolchildren and teachers. Many years later, in 1993, he started an early evening TV programme for the Kunstzentrum Witte de With in Rotterdam and, after the closure of the local newspaper 'Kempens Informatieblad', Geys adopted its title for a series of booklets containing information on his exhibitions. Two such booklets will appear in conjunction with the Messestadt project and the show at the Kunstverein.

For Messestadt, Geys has reactivated and expanded a project that he devised for the exhibition 'Chambres d'Amis', which attracted a great deal of attention when it was staged in Ghent, Belgium, in 1986. The idea behind the exhibition was to allow artists to show work in a number of private homes, effectively dissolving the borders between the public and private realms, between institutions and society. In six homes Geys showed doors on which he had written the three ideals promoted by the French Revolution of 1789 - 'egalité, fraternité, liberté'. In contrast to the spacious middle-class residences that hosted the other works in the exhibition, Geys chose small, cramped homes. In this way, the aloof manner associated with the viewing of art works was accompanied by a confrontation with real, lived-in surroundings. In Messestadt, Geys has chosen doors in twelve homes to inscribe with the slogan 'equality, fraternity, liberty', which he will write in the language of the residents concerned.

The Belgian artist Jef Geys was born in 1935 in Leopoldburg and now lives in Balen, where he taught at the art school from 1960 to 1989. He works with photography and creates periodicals, objects and installations, many of them designed for public places. He is particularly interested in group activities and social contexts, which he translates into artistic terms in his works.

Spring 2001