Jef Geys

‘Born in Leopoldsburg, lives in Balen’ is how Jef Geys (1934-2018) liked to introduce himself in catalogues. After an “unsuccessful army career” and Publicity studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, he became a 'Positive Aesthetics' teacher at the State Secondary School in Balen. Teaching, learning, emancipation, and self-realisation became significant themes in his art practice, and his ‘protest’ generation. From the late 1950s onwards, he steered towards artistic disruption, such as amateurish technical finishing, and the depersonalisation of authorship, in contrast to the spontaneous subjectivity of previous generations. Through repetition and serialising of the multiple, he disrupted the notion of the ‘original’ and he set up networks and collaborations to support cultural influence and exchange with ‘other’ modernities. Strongly rooted in his region, Kempen and Balen, Jef Geys took an unconventional approach that often veered away from prevailing trends. His 'Cultuurcentrale', for instance, delivered artworks on demand and challenged conventional ideas about popular art. He also received international appreciation, with invitations to the global São Paulo and Venice Biennales, documenta 11 or Skulpturprojekte Münster 97.