Jean Glibert

Jean Glibert was active for more than seven decades and studied at La Cambre, where he later taught. He took over the 'stained-glass' workshop and transformed it into the 'urban and rural spaces' workshop, driven by a desire to break down the hierarchy between the arts. His postmodern work is strongly influenced by the decorative arts and movements such as De Stijl and Bauhaus, and remains inextricably linked to architecture and urban planning. As early as the 1960s, he challenged the role of the artist in public space, choosing to integrate colour and light into buildings and the urban environment rather than create monumental paintings. Unlike artists such as Daniel Buren and Sol LeWitt, Glibert integrates his site-specific works into the architecture from the design stage onward, so that they blend seamlessly into the built environment. Driven by his social and political convictions, he also kept his distance from the art market, and as a result, his 'anti-monumental' work has remained relatively unknown, despite its presence in public spaces and a major retrospective exhibition at Bozar.