The Schwind Foundation is given new life in 2014 on the occasion of the Jean Schwind retrospective in the S.M.A.K. (Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst) in Ghent.
Jean Schwind (1935-1985), the first and only Belgian appropriation artist of note, in 1972 expanded his Collection Schwind to the status of a Foundation. In the Schwind Foundation he brought together his already realized as well as prospective appropriations in a way that was closely allied to conceptual art, and including a grand Plan. When, in 1976, Schwind took leave of art with a fictional death announcement, it also brought an end to the activities of the Foundation.
The new Schwind Foundation takes it upon itself the task of making the oeuvre of Jean Schwind accessible to the widest possible public. Not so simple a mission, when one considers that the artist had destroyed many of his works once they had served their initial purpose as disruptive interventions in the world of art. Nonetheless, the intention is to eventually assemble and make available a catalogue raisonné of this artist's works.
The Schwind Foundation is happy to lend its cooperation to exhibitions and publications that draw attention to the very particular role played by Jean Schwind in the art world of the 1970s.