Connivences: Stefan De Jaeger / Stéphane Janssen A history of art, family and friends

March 3 – May 12, 2007

Friday, March 2, noon
Tour with Stéphane Janssen and Marilyn Zeitlin

Friday, April 13, 7-9 p.m.
Public reception

A personal conversation about this exhibition between ASU Art Museum director Marilyn A. Zeitlin and collector Stéphane Janssen can be downloaded at the following links. Please download these files on your portable player and enjoy them as you tour the exhibition.

Kresge Gallery [MP3, 30MB]
Top Gallery [MP3, 15MB]

Connivences: Stefan De Jaeger / Stéphane Janssen
A history of art, family and friends

Stéphane Janssen has collected art for nearly 60 years. At the age of 16, he bought his first work: a painting by Spanish artist Oscar Dominguez. It was the beginning of many friendships and a monumental collection. After World War II, Janssen amassed one of the outstanding CoBrA collections in the world.

When he came to the U.S. in 1975, Janssen’s aesthetic opened in response to the free atmosphere of California. When he met his partner Michael Johns, they began to collect works by well-known artists such as Basquiat, O’Keeffe and Witkin, but also explored the work of emerging artists.

Janssen met photographer Stefan De Jaeger through Belgian cartoonist Hergé . De Jaegerbegan to photograph the artists whose works Janssen and Johns collected, as well as Janssen’s family and friends, creating a parallel history through portraiture.

Connivences presents works from the collection with the 20 years of portraits by De Jaeger of the artists and members of Janssen’s family.

ASU Art Museum Presentation
Organized by Marilyn A. Zeitlin, Connivences: Stefan De Jaeger/Stéphane Janssen, will be installed in the ASU Art Museum’s Nelson Fine Arts Center on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University.

Duration
Connivences: Stefan De Jaeger/Stéphane Janssen, March 3 – May 12, 2007, is open at the ASU Art Museum:
Tuesday: 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Wednesday – Saturday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Support
The exhibition, and the publication that accompanies it, originated in collaboration with the Musée d’Ixelles, Belgium.