Face au temps is the result of a friendship between two art lovers. On the one hand, Georges De Jonckheere, who runs the eponymous gallery founded in Brussels and now established in Geneva, collects and sells Flemish painting from the 15th to the 17th century. On the other hand, Philippe Austruy, whose exhibition is held in his wine estate in Peyrassol, is more adept at contemporary art - a fact that is made clear by a walk through his sculpture park, where works by Lavier, Venet, Friedmann or Tayou are scattered. Antagonistic bills and distant morals. And yet: through a beautiful game of comparisons and contrasts orchestrated by the scenographer Jean de Piépape, the comparison of a few pieces from their respective collections overcomes the divisions and points to lasting concerns about the work of art, whatever its concretization on the plastic level. For, as François Morellet emphasized, whose exhibition brings together the neon crosses of Triple X Neonly (2012) with the meticulous realism of a Bouquet of Flowers in a Serpentine Vase by Antwerp's Osias Beert the Elder, "art is above all a shaping of thought to the visibility of an intention." The result: one highlights a specific element of the other - although it is mostly contemporary artworks that offer new insights into ancient paintings, and the reverse is less true.

Extract from the article by Emma Noyant published in the N°103 of the magazine Art Absolument. Publication on October 14, 2022.

exhibition's website