Jan Hoet

Jan Hoet was a charismatic figure who shook up the local and international art world time and again.  Chiefly known as the founder and conservator of the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, or S.M.A.K. He became the director of this contemporary art museum in the 1970s and made headlines when, in the summer of 1986, he invited 51 artists to exhibit works in private homes in the city. He went on to successfully lead the move of the museum into its current landmark site at Citadelpark and gave it its name. He opened the new site in 1999 with a boxing match.

Hoet was born in Leuven and studied art in Ghent but eventually decided that he wasn't a good enough painter to pursue it as a career. He studied art history instead and went on to devote his life to advising art organisations and staging exhibitions.

Together with S.M.A.K., which he led until 2003, Hoet also had a very active international career, including curating Documenta IX in Kassel in 1992 and serving as the artistic director of the MARTa Herford contemporary art museum in Germany for five years. In 2012, Hoet organised the Yinchuan Biennale in northern central China and last year the Middle Gate exhibition in Geel, Antwerp province, where he spent most of his childhood. 

He once told an interviewer: “I don’t know what art is. The art itself has to tell us what it is, not me. I can only sell the ticket to the discovery tour.”

Jan Hoet shall never be forgotten: that is something about which artists and art lovers are in total agreement. 
 On Studio Brussel, artist Wim Delvoye reacted by saying, “Jan Hoet belonged to a time that no longer exists. He was tremendously enthusiastic and passionate. Such a person you won’t find anymore.” According to Delvoye, Jan Hoet has inspired many to pursue a life of Art. “He was naturally no artist, but he has still had an enormous influence. A good example is the exhibition, Chambres d’Amis in 1986 in Ghent. That has been imitated around the world.” ​He shall not only be mourned within the art world. “He also left his traces outside of the realm of art. He was a folkloric figure and people will never forget him”, said Delvoye.

“Great Loss”
 Artist Luc Tuymans called the death of Jan Hoet on Radio 1 a great loss for the Belgian and international art world. “Despite all, he remained a man of the people, someone who brought contemporary art to a broader public with an unbelievable charisma.”  Tuymans sees no other curator as being so involved with his work and who could emanate such passion. “With the passing of Hoet, we come to the end of an era, one in which the curator passionately has contact with the art. Today, curators are mainly trained on paper. That is a monumental breach that has been made. But that man has lived his life more than 200 per cent, and everything is temporary.”

“A great gentleman”
 Chantal Pattyn, network manager of Klara, called Jan Hoet “a great gentleman” on Radio 1. “The energy with which he stormed the world of art is unbelievable.”

“Jan Hoet was inspired by the arts. He was limitless in his love for the arts, as an art expert, curator, international museum director and spokesman. He loved to debate, stimulated it and dared others to do the same.” Thus reacted the Minister of Culture for Flanders, Joke Schauvliege, on the death of the art expert Jan Hoet. ''It is a great merit of Hoet that he has helped break the barriers of contemporary art.'' Flanders lost a treasure trove of experience and artistic know how with the death of Hoet. “However, it will never become ‘silent’ around this excessive personality, as Jan Hoet was for many too great of an inspiration.”

“Today we have lost a man that was not only passionate about art but also told us about it in a most inimitable and compelling manner,” said minister-president Kris Peeters this morning in the Flemish Parliament. “He has inspired innumerable Flemish people to take an interest in art.”