Together with PhD student raf Wollaert (University of Antwerp), I am currently working on an edited volume titled "Marcel Broodthaers and Film: A Second of Eternity" to be published by Leuven University Press.
Covering both well-known titles such as Le Corbeau et le renard (1967), La Pluie (1969), and Une Seconde d’éternité (1970) and many lesser-known Broodthaers films, this book brings together essays by Andrew Chesher, Eric C. H. de Bruyn, Xavier García-Bardón, Charlotte Friling, Steven Jacobs, Bruce Jenkins, Deborah Schultz, Christophe Wall-Romana, and Raf Wollaert.
this book is the result of a research project sponsored by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) that enabled Raf Wollaert to write his PhD thesis on Marcel Broodthaers and cinema under the supervision of Steven Jacobs at the University of Antwerp.
Focus: AcademicSince the 1990s, I have been working on the work of Belgian late-modernist painter Raoul De Keyser (1930-2012), publishing various articles and booklength volumes such as Raoul De Keyser: Paintings 1980–1999 (2000) and Raoul De Keyser: Retour 1964–2006 (2007). Together with Wouter De Vleeschouwer, I published Raoul De Keyser in Print: A Catalogue of the Silkscreens, Lithographs, Linocuts, and Etchings (2018).
In 2014, the artist's sons donated De Keyser's personal archive to the Central Library (Boekentoren) of Ghent University. Since then, I am working on the exploration, description, inventoring, and the disclosure of De Keyser's personal papers.
For about 25 years, I also have been working on a catalogue raisonné of De Keyser's paintings from the 1960s and 1970s in close collaboration with Hilde D'haeyere (KASK, HoGent). This will result in the book Raoul De Keyser: Early Works. Catalogue of Paintings 1964-1980, to be published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Cologne in the fall of 2024.
In addition, I am co-editing the book Tentoonstellingen te Gent: De kunstkritiek van Raoul De Keyser, 1949-1964 (in Dutch), to be published by A&S/books in the fall of 2024, dealing with De Keyser's activities as an art critic in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
On the occasion of these two books, VANDENHOVE Center for Architecture and Art hosts the exhibition Long Time No See: Raoul De Keyser 1946-1964-1980 in September-November 2024.
Focus: Societal value creation Publication(s):Over the years, I have been studying the history of the art documentary, particularly art films made in the 1940s and 1950s, which can be considered the "Golden Age" of the art documentary. Before the breakthrough of television, in France, Italy, and Belgium, the art film was applauded as an avant-garde film genre, playing an important part in a cinephile culture favoring experimental shorts.
Research on the topic was carried out in the context of an FWO research project (with Birgit Cleppe as researcher), resulting in a volume with essays co-edited with Dimitrios Latsis published by Bloomsbury. In addition, I supervised Joséphine Vandekerckhove's PhD project on the art documentaries by Paul Haesaerts and Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti.
For Cinematek Brussels, I edited a DVD box set containing a selection of major Belgian art films from the late 1930s to the early 1960s.
Focus: Societal value creation Publication(s):In 2007, I published The Wrong House: The Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock with 010 Publishers Rotterdam (second edition published by NAi-010 in 2013).
Since then, I have lectured and published frequently on the visualization of art and architecture in Hitchcock films.
Focus: Academic Publication(s):