Jef Cornelis De Langste Dag
Jef Cornelis De Langste Dag / The Longest Day
Belgium 1986, video, 376 min
De Langste Dag / The Longest Day, broadcast live on Belgium television on 21 June 1986, is a legendary project in the history of art and television.
One of Jef Cornelis’s most radical television experiments, the six-hour programme was devoted to the influential exhibition Chambres d’Amis, curated by Jan Hoet that displayed work by 50 international artists in private dwellings across the city centre of Ghent, and to Initiatief 86, a simultaneous group of exhibitions curated by three international curators - Jean Hubert-Martin, Gosse Oosterhof and Kasper König. The parallel exhibition Initiative d'amis set up by artists was portrayed as well. Realised with the logistics of a sporting event – helicopters, mobile reporters, a telephone exchange and studio with guest audience – the broadcast offered an unparalleled, revelatory and at times kaleidoscopic view of art at this time.
The broadcast involved discussions with curators as well as participating artists, politicians, critics and members of the public. The radical programme refused to catalogue art or offer explanations, but instead sought to recreate television as an open communication model geared towards reflection and discussion, intervention and reaction. Featuring a diverse range of artists’ projects by Daniel Buren, Lili Dujourie, Jef Geys, Bruce Nauman, Panamarenko and Paul Thek among many others, interventions from critics and commentators (including Chris Dercon, Germano Celant and Denys Zacharopoulos) as well as musical performances, a firework display and even a break for the 1986 World Cup.
The work will be shown in its entirety throughout the day with breaks.
This special screening of The Longest Day is curated by Koen Brams and George Clark in association with Liverpool Biennial.