By Sophie Gayerie , art historian based in Brussels
In 1971, at 17 Schoolstraat, in a residential street of Aalst, a provincial town of Flanders half-way between Brussels and Ghent, 23-years old Roger D'Hondt opened the first exhibition space of New Reform Gallery. Founded a year earlier, New Reform was a self-proclaimed 'anti gallery' and 'an information center and a communication center for ideas'.
Operating from Aalst, outside of major art cities such as Brussels or Antwerp, New Reform's aim was to introduce the local, national and - if possible - international audience to experimental art. Roger D'Hondt had just closed Reform Gallery, which he had run with his friend, the painter Walter Schelfhout. He was familiar with abstract painting, Minimal Art and Pop Art, which formed the main trends in art at the time, but was looking for something different. Influenced by his discovery of the Living Theatre, which relocated to Europe in 1966, and by his experience of the avant-garde Mickery Theater in Amsterdam, Roger D'Hondt focused New Reform's program on 'performance art, concrete poetry, plastic arts, video, film, theatre, experimental music and conceptual works'.
At the time, Belgian galleries associated with avant-garde art, such as Wide White Space in Antwerp or MTL in Brussels, concentrated on post-minimalism and conceptual art. New Reform, which operated as a non-profit association, was the first to offer a space to emerging performance artists from Belgium and neighbouring countries. Although New Reform was located in Aalst, its program was international. Roger D'Hondt spent a considerable amount of his time gathering like-minded artists and building up a network of experimental art centres. His unrelenting work enabled him to show the work of French, German, British, Australian, American,Canadian and Japanese artists and performers. Many of them would then show their work in similar venues elsewhere, such as Galeri 1-36 in Paris.
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| Poster for Taka Iimura exhibition at New Reform, 1974 |
One of the most significant achievements of Roger D'Hondt is the lasting support he gave to the emerging scene of conceptual art in Eastern Europe. A significant part of the gallery's program was dedicated to performers and artists from Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. Petr Štembera, a body artist active in the Prague perfomance scene, or Gabor Attalai and Endre Tôt, one of the main representatives of conceptual art and performance in Hungary, regularly exhibited their work at New Reform. Roger D'Hondt also collaborated with the Permafo gallery and the Actual Arts Gallery from Wroclaw, two groups of artists who initiated a distinct form of conceptualism in Poland. During the 1970's, New Reform became closely associated with German artist Klaus Groh, whose book 'Aktuelle Kunst in Osteuropa', published in 1972, was one of the first to document the work of conceptual, performance and land artists active in the region.
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| Poster for Gabor Attalai's exhibition, organised by New Reform in the exhibition space of the University of Antwerp, May 1974 |
New Reform's activities were varied, mirroring the spirit of the times, and ranged from solo or group exhibitions to one-off performances, conference nights and film screenings. Roger D'Hondt soon extended his activities to publishing, and printed exhibitions catalogues and artists' books. One of the most original features of New Reform was its aim to function as a communication and information centre. About four times a year, Roger D'Hondt produced and distributed 'New Reform Nieuws’, an worldwide distributed ‘information bulletin’ gathering information and personal thoughts on exhibitions of contemporary art in Europe. 'Nieuw Reform Nieuws' was a way for Roger D'Hondt to advertise his activities, but also to provide relevant information on art to his subscribers, who may not have had access to it otherwise. Those interested could also order books on contemporary art from the gallery or participate in the New Reform Workshop, which would take them on trips to see exhibitions and art fairs in neighbouring countries.
All of this was part of a general strategy aimed at breaking the gallery's isolation from major cities. Roger D'Hondt collaborated with artist Paul Gees to create a mobile space inspired by the architecture of Buckminster Fuller, used as an exhibition space for New Reform in culturel centers, art and books fairs across Europe. Using his network, Roger D'Hondt exported New Reform to Antwerp, Brugge, Ghent, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, Maastricht, Kassel and Tokyo. In the later exhibition, New Reform's activities were presented along with those of the CAYC, Centro de Arte y Communicacion from Buenos Aires, Ecart from Geneva, and that of the Japanese collective The Play from Osaka – the program thus reflecting the growth of like-minded projects around the world.
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| Poster for the Performance Art Festival, curated by Roger D'Hondt, Beursschouwburg, Brussels, 1978 |
In 1978, the Brussels theatre Beursschouwburg invited Roger D'Hondt to organise the first “Performance Art Festival” in Belgium and one of the first's in Europe. To it he invited Belgian and foreign performers and showed works - photographs, videos, documentation - by, among many others, Marina Abramovic & Ulay, Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Simone Forti, Dan Graham, Chris Burden, Gina Pane and Valie Export.
Over the course of nine years, New Reform had become a landmark for experimental art forms in Belgium, and proved crucial in the careers of young Belgian performers such as Hugo Roelandt. It also helped familiarise the local and national audience with performance art, which at the time was hardly considered as art. New Reform played a pioneering role at a time when there was no public funding, and, except for the influential ICC,International Cultural Centre in Antwerp, and a few galleries, there was no institution dedicated to contemporary art in Belgium. Closed in 1979, the spirit of New Reform would come to life again in 1988 with the founding of Netwerk Arts Centre in Aalst, now become a renowned arts centre.
In 1988, a retrospective on the activities of New Reform was held at the City Museum of Aalst, Netwerk and the Cultural Center of Berchem Antwerp. A catalogue was published.
Sophie Gayerie
www.behindthemuseum.com
www.behindthemuseum.com
All pictures©New Reform Archive 1970-1978, collection Roger D'Hondt and Marie-Hélène Van Audenhove