The Arie Mandelbaum exhibition is an original creation of the Jewish Museum of Belgium. Fre-
quently exhibited, the work of painter Arié Mandelbaum (°1939, Brussels) had not yet been the
subject of a retrospective. For the first time, old productions and recent creations engage in dia-
logue here, in a journey which starts in 1957 and ends in 2016.
Arié Mandelbaum, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants, began painting at the age of sixteen. As
from the early 1960s, he was considered one of the most promising talents in Belgian painting. His
idiosyncratic and compelling oeuvre continued to develop over the decades that followed. After
the heightened expressionism of his early days, greater restraint followed as of the 1980s, giving
rise to works of disturbing fragility, which he has created to this day.
The exhibition is structured around different themes. We first discover the way in which the artist
deals with intimacy, before politics – especially the anti-authoritarian protest of 1968 – telescopes
his soul-searching. The visit continues with the exploration of the self-portrait and the body, two
themes through which we see the work of Arié Mandelbaum transform into a reflection on trace,
absence and erasure. Political violence, particularly related to (neo)colonialism, then made a
marked return in his work. Over the past two decades, it has become increasingly influenced by
the memory of the Shoah – as a return to what was repressed in this child of the war, who will re-
main a rebel painter all his life.
The works presented come from the collections of the Jewish Museum of Belgium, but also from
institutions such as the Museum of Ixelles, the Museum of the National Bank of Belgium or the
collections of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. A number of private collections have also been
mobilized, in particular those of private individuals and the Belfius Art Collection.
Arié Mandelbaum, Untitled, 1987, 150 x 162 cm, mixed technique on canvas, Hugo Godderis collection, Veurne
© Jan Van Goidsenhoven
Arié Mandelbaum, L’Amandier de Fontenoille, 1989, 162 x 150 cm, acrylic on canvas, Hugo Godderis collection, Veurne © Jan Van Goidsenhoven
Arié Mandelbaum, Le canapé vert n°1, 1968, 1220 x 720 cm, oil and coloured chalk on paper, collection of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Mon © coll. Communauté française de Belgique
Arié Mandelbaum, The Assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Maurice M’Polo and Joseph Okito – 2 – The Villa Brouwez, 2011, 180 x 210 cm, charcoal and coloured chalk on paper mounted on canvas, Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels © Anass El Azhar Idrissi
