“That is partly for professional reasons, I must admit. I am involved in the art sector myself. I used to work for CypresGalerie in Leuven. I now run CAPS (Contemporary Art Projects), a nomadic art platform that is currently based in Oostende. It is useful to maintain contacts with other art lovers, and being an M-bassador is great for that.”

“As a gallery holder, I am specialized in contemporary art, and that is what interests me most when I visit M. Compared to other museums, M has a very particular and interesting profile. It is one of the few museums that successfully combines old masters and contemporary art. And they have high visitor numbers for both.”

Murals

“They also have excellent curators, with a broad network in the international museum world. That is how they are able to bring such big names to Leuven. I am thinking, for example, of the exhibition of Sol LeWitt, one of the pioneers of conceptual art. In 2012, M exhibition twenty-four of his famous geometric murals. LeWitt had died already, but he left very strict instructions for in-situ works. Leuven-based artists reproduced the murals at M according to those instructions. M-bassadors were given the opportunity to watch a film about the creation of those works. Fascinating.”

“I am also a member of the sounding board group for M-bassadors. There are eight to ten members and we meet regularly to discuss things with people from the museum. A museum like M needs a supporters’ club, and the M-bassadors and M-aecenasses are that supporters’ club. Just like real supporters, we sometimes have criticisms, but the museum does listen to us. M appreciates our opinion, and I value that very highly.”

Friends’ Day

“I am also a fan of the artist talks to which M-bassadors and M-aecenasses are invited. Artists are not always big talkers, but during such artist talks, they dialogue with a curator and you often learn a lot. There are some interesting names on the programme again this year.”

“As an M-bassador, I was given the opportunity to present my favourite work during the first Friends’ Day, a few years ago. In one room, there was a series of miniatures by Robert Devriendt juxtaposed with works by Rogier van der Weyden and other artists. I know Devriendt’s work relatively well, so that appealed to me. I pointed out the striking parallels. Devriendt painted small, hyper-realistic tableaux that you could read sequentially like a kind of story – just like the predella, the platform at the foot of old triptychs on which smaller scenes of, for example, saints’ lives were painted. He even uses the same painting technique as the Flemish Primitives: oil on panel. Very special. I am already looking forward to the next Friends’ Day in 2020.”