Jacqueline Mesmaeker

The Belgian artist Jacqueline Mesmaeker (1929-2023, Brussels, BE) developed a poetic-conceptual artistic practice from the 1970s onwards. Her work deals with questions of temporality and spatiality in a subtle and playful way. In a variety of media such as film, sculpture, photography, drawing and books, she reflects on central themes of Western art history such as painting, figurative representation, nature, landscape, light, the relationship between gaze and space and the longing for history. She undermines the desire for a solemn, historical classicism with quiet irony.

Despite exhibiting internationally, Jacqueline Mesmaeker long stood in the shadow of her male artist colleagues. Today, her work is being increasingly appreciated and is being rediscovered and repositioned in the context of Belgian-Dutch Conceptualism with artists such as Marcel Broodthaers (1924 Brussels, BE - 1976 Cologne, DE), Lili Dujourie (1941 Roeselare, BE - Ghent, BE) and Bas Jan Ader (1942 Winschoten, NL - 1975 Atlantic Ocean). The Generali Foundation—Permanent Loan at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg is dedicating a newly conceived solo exhibition to Mesmaeker while the artist was still alive. The exhibition is the first comprehensive presentation of the artist's work in a German-speaking country.

A publication will accompany the exhibition.