When the Sky Is Low and Heavy: David Lamelas and Transnational Heritage in Flanders

Elize Mazadiego,Stefaan Vervoort

doi:10.3390/arts11010024

Elize Mazadiego, Stefaan Vervoort

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/arts11010024

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Abstract

In 1992, artist David Lamelas installed Quand le ciel bas et lourd at the temporary exhibition America: Bride of the Sun—500 Years of Latin-America and the Low Countries at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), a show that explored the cultural, economic, and political exploitation of indigenous America by European forces, and its project of colonization and erasure. Lamelas’ work remained a public installation in KMSKA’s garden until March 2021 when it was dismantled as a result of the museum’s years-long renovation. This article examines the work in the context in which it was exhibited and later destroyed as a lens to examine two aspects of contemporary art and history in Flanders. Firstly, it foregrounds the complex, transnational heritage that Lamelas’ work presents and considers its implications upon the local, cultural scene in which it resided from the 1960s to 70s, in the 1990s and in the present. Secondly, the text frames Quand le ciel bas et lourd and America: Bride of the Sun as reverberating with the emergence of nationalism in Flanders and a global, postcolonial discourse in the art world. This article considers how aspects of Lamelas’ work and its elusive meanings over space and time might challenge monolithic understandings of Flemish art.

Highlights

America: Bride of the Sun—500 Years of Latin-America and the Low Countries at the Royal Museum of
In Belgium, Lamelas became part of a roster of European and American conceptual artists represented by the pioneering avant-garde gallery Wide White Space
In the process of developing Quand le ciel bas et lourd, Lamelas’ early sketches drawn in Los Angeles from 1987, underwent subtle modifications that tailor the work to its location in front of the Antwerp museum’s main entrance

Summary

Introduction

America: Bride of the Sun—500 Years of Latin-America and the Low Countries at the Royal Museum of. Martin’s School of Art and stayed until 1974, but frequented the cities he had established connections with, primarily Brussels, Antwerp and Paris.7 In Belgium, Lamelas became part of a roster of European and American conceptual artists represented by the pioneering avant-garde gallery Wide White Space.

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Conclusion