M HKA
Old Guard? Avant-garde!
With Paul van Ostaijen, Michel Seuphor, Paul Joostens, Jozef Peeters, René Guiette, Floris Jespers and ELT Mesens.
06/06/2026 – 13/09/2026
Old Guard? Avant-garde! shows how the rediscovery and reappraisal of experiment rekindled the avant-garde fire among a generation of pioneers. For some of them, it was a surprising reunion. Although they were by then between sixty and seventy years old, they also rediscovered themselves in the years 1955-1965.
The responses of the historical avant-gardists to the neo-avant-garde were very diverse. Michel Seuphor’s triumphant attitude towards the renewed attention for abstract art stood in stark contrast to the critical position adopted by Paul Joostens, for example. To do justice to this diversity, this archive exhibition does not present one overarching story, but eight parallel stories that lift the veil on how the old guard became avant-garde once again.
