Unframing Walter Leblanc
an expanded conversation on the notion of archives
Symposium at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Wintertuin
Thursday 9 October 2025, 10:00 - 17:30
Walter Leblanc’s legacy continues to unfold, not only through his artworks but also through the documents, ideas and networks that shaped his practice. Taking place at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, where Leblanc began his artistic journey, this symposium invites artists, curators, researchers and students to engage with the notion of the archive as a living and generative space for knowledge and creation. Organized by the Academy with ArchiVolt research group (Nico Dockx and students), the Centrum Kunstarchieven Vlaanderen and the Walter & Nicole Leblanc Foundation, the event seeks to ‘unframe’ Leblanc by activating his archive as a tool for renewed interpretation and critical exchange.
Over the past year, we have expanded our research to explore alternative approaches to artist legacies and archives—investigating how different methodologies, disciplines, and practices can renew our understanding of the past and inform the present. Across three thematic panels, participants will explore the cultural and historical context of Leblanc’s work, discuss its resonance in contemporary artistic practices, and reflect on the future of artist archives today.
| PROGRAMMA 9 OCTOBER |
| 09:30 - Welcome |
| 10:00 - Introduction |
| 10:10 - Neo-Avant-Garde Networks Annelien De Troij, Francesca Pola & Tijs Visser, moderated by Johan Pas The first panel revisits the artistic, intellectual and geopolitical environment in which Walter Leblanc emerged. Experts will examine the vibrant postwar networks, including G58, Zero and Nouvelle Tendance, that shaped his practice and positioned him within a broader European and international context. |
| 11:30 - Screening documentary Driven by Light, 2024 This newly released documentary offers a poetic and in-depth portrait of Walter Leblanc’s work and legacy, drawing on archival footage and contemporary testimonies. |
| 12:30 - Lunch |
| 14:00 - Activating Artist Archives — A dialogue with contemporary practices Alexis Gautier, Hana Miletić & Raf Wollaert, moderated by Nico Dockx How does an artist’s legacy remain alive and relevant today? This conversation brings together artists and writers who have recently engaged with artists’ legacies to share how archival encounters, reinterpretations, and collaborative gestures can shape new artistic languages. |
| 15:10 - Keynote: Lisa Le Feuvre Renowned curator and thinker Lisa Le Feuvre offers a keynote address on the evolving responsibilities of institutions and individuals in preserving and reactivating the work and legacy of artists within contemporary culture. |
| 16:10 - Preserving and Promoting Artist Legacies Ursula Davila-Villa, Hélène Guenin & Rossana Miele, moderated by Nele Luyts This final panel looks at the strategies and challenges involved in safeguarding and sharing artist archives. Through diverse institutional and curatorial perspectives, it explores how archival practices are being reimagined in Belgium and internationally. |
| 17:00 - Conclusion - María Inés Rodríguez |
| 17:10 - Drinks |
Annelien De Troij is art historian and curator at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp. She writes extensively on modern and contemporary art, contributing to major exhibitions and publications. Notably, she co‑authored Jef Verheyen: Window on Infinity, a 2024 monograph linking Verheyen’s evolution with concrete contexts in Belgian and international art. De Troij’s work bridges scholarly research and curatorial practice, with a strong interest in how art engages with material, form, and archiving.
Francesca Pola is an Italian art historian, critic, curator, and Associate Professor of Contemporary Art History at Università Vita‑Salute San Raffaele in Milan. She earned her degree, specialisation, and PhD from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore. Her academic and curatorial work focuses on postwar and contemporary art, often exploring interdisciplinary and cross-cultural dimensions. Pola is a member of the international scientific advisory board of the ZERO Foundation in Düsseldorf. She has written extensively on the ZERO movement, including the 2014 book Piero Manzoni e ZERO, which examines Manzoni’s role within the wider European ZERO network.
Tijs Visser is a Dutch curator, researcher, and exhibition maker best known for his work with the post‑war ZERO movement. He studied architecture before joining the curatorial world. From 2001‑2008 he served as Head of Exhibitions at Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf. He was founding director of the ZERO Foundation (2008‑2017), where he oversaw many major retrospective and survey exhibitions—including at the Guggenheim New York, Stedelijk Amsterdam, Martin Gropius Bau Berlin, and Sabancı Museum Istanbul. He now leads the 0‑Institute, focused on recovering, researching and presenting the ideas, archives, and forms of the international ZERO avant‑garde.
Alexis Gautier is an artist based in Brussels and Brittany whose practice explores cultural exchange, collective narrative, and the porousness of storytelling. He trained at the Städelschule in Frankfurt and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. His work spans sculpture, textiles, video, performance, and drawing; much of it arises through collaboration and encounter. A recent strand of his research directly engages with the textile archives of Richard Tuttle—probing how woven structures embed meaning, how archival textiles act as sites of memory, exchange, and material thinking.
Hana Miletić is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brussels. Her practice links photography, weaving, textile, and archival work to explore memory, care, repair, and materiality. In 2024‑2025 she exhibited at the Walter & Nicole Leblanc Foundation, where she created a dialogue between her work and the archival legacy of Walter and Nicole Leblanc—using textiles, archival notebooks, photograms, and woven installations to examine how artistic labor and personal histories persist across generations.
Raf Wollaert is a researcher and doctoral fellow at the University of Antwerp, affiliated with the Research Centre for Visual Poetics. His PhD work maps and analyzes the avant‑garde cinema practice of Marcel Broodthaers (1924‑1976). Since 2019, he has co‑edited an LP edition, organized film screenings, an exhibition, and an international symposium—all devoted to Broodthaers. He is co‑editor of Marcel Broodthaers and Film: A Second of Eternity (2024), a volume that situates Broodthaers’ film work within his broader artistic oeuvre and within the history of experimental cinema.
Lisa Le Feuvre is a curator, writer, and editor. She is the inaugural Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, the artist-endowed foundation dedicated to the legacies of artists Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson. From its home base in New Mexico, USA the Foundation collaborates with artists, writers, thinkers, and institutions to realize exhibitions, publish books, initiate artist commissions, program educational events, encourage research, and develop collections across the world. Previously, she directed the Henry Moore Institute from 2010 to 2017, and also led the contemporary art program at the National Maritime Museum. She has curated more than seventy-five exhibitions, edited over thirty books and journals, published more than 130 essays and interviews with artists, and has served on numerous juries and advisory committees.
Ursula Davila-Villa is the co-founder of Davila-Villa & Stothart (DVS). DVS focuses on supporting the artistic legacies of artists and families whose work has been historically marginalized or considered unconventional. Her previous roles include being a Partner at Alexander Gray Associates gallery from 2012 to 2017 and Associate Curator of Latin American Art at The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin from 2005 to 2012. Ursula is a trustee of the Lorraine O’Grady Trust, previously served on the boards of VisualAIDS and Women Studio Workshop, and is currently a board member of ArtTable.
Hélène Guenin is director at the Yves Klein Foundation. Previously, she served as director of the Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain (MAMAC) in Nice, where she organized exhibitions dedicated to Gustav Metzger, Liz Magor, and Lars Fredrikson, among others. As chief curator at Centre Pompidou-Metz from 2008 to 2016, she developed a multidisciplinary artistic program proposing a constant dialogue between the visual arts and the performing arts. From 2002 to 2008 she was curator and in charge of programming at the FRAC Lorraine and assistant curator at Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain in 2001.
Rossana Miele is an art worker and cultural producer. She works as Project Manager of Archivorum Ark, a pioneering program initiated by Archivorum, a foundation created by Mia Rigo, and co-funded for 2023–2025 by Creative Europe, developed in collaboration with Galleria Continua and Fondazione Antonio Ratti. The project supports three postgraduate students biennially in collaboration with selected artists—Nil Yalter, Babs Haenen, and Belén Uriel—treating the archive as a living, creative, and research tool to foster intergenerational collaborations and to share outcomes through digital platforms and critical publications.