Shifting Perspectives – Albert Rubens & Jan van den Abbeel

A dialogue between Albert Rubens and Jan van den Abbeel, two distinctive voices within Belgian Constructivism sharing origins in the Ghent art scene of the 1960s. About Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery is pleased to present 'Shifting Perspectives', a dialogue between Albert Rubens (b. 1944) and Jan van den Abbeel (1943–2018), two distinctive voices within Belgian Constructivism. Their artistic trajectories share a common origin in the Ghent art scene of the 1960s and the context of the PLUS Group, which broke decisively with the expressive and lyrical tendencies of its time. In their place emerged a rational visual language centred on geometry, colour, rhythm and a new relationship between the work of art and its surrounding space. From this shared context, Rubens and Van den Abbeel developed distinctly individual practices. Van den Abbeel explored how systematic structures and colour could generate optical movement and spatial tension. Rubens pursued an ongoing investigation into geometry, structure and spatial perception, later becoming associated with the International Working Group for Constructivist Art, connecting his practice to a wider international constructivist discourse. 'Shifting Perspectives' brings their work into renewed dialogue, revealing how a shared constructive foundation could give rise to two autonomous visual languages—in which order is never static, but continually opens up new ways of seeing.