Jan Baetens

Jan Baetens, born September 5, 1957, in Saint-Nicolas (in the province of East Flanders), is a Belgian poet, essayist, curator, editor and critic.

Biography Jan Baetens was born on the 5 September 1957 in Saint-Nicolas.

He is a professor of cultural studies at the Leuven University, as well as being both a poet and critic.

As a poet, he began in 1998 (over 40 years old) with 416 Heptasyllables (bilingual edition with Dutch translation/transposition by Dirk van Bastelaere) and he has published a dozen collections, including Cent Fois sur le métier (2004), which won the triennial poetry prize from the Wallonia-Brussels Federation in 2007. Very close to so-called “constraint” poetry in his first texts, he gradually opened up to freer forms of expression. From a thematic point of view, he attaches great importance to the representation of everyday life in its most unexpected and humble forms, from which humor is never absent: basketball, comics and Sunday poets are some of his favorite subjects.

As a critic, Jan Baetens publishes both studies on poetry and numerous academic works on the relationships between texts and images, or the film photo comic.

Co-founder of the publishing house Les Impressions nouvelles, he also participated in the creation and management of the magazines Conséquences (1984–1993), Formules (1995–...) and Formes poétiques contemporaines (2002–...) .

He frequently collaborates with Milan Chlumsky, a Czech-German photographer, and Olivier Deprez, a wood engraver and member of the FRMK group.

In 2008, he curated the first retrospective of Marie-Françoise Plissart at the Antwerp Photography Museum.

In 2013, he participated in the artist residency project organized by the Brussels collective (SIC) as part of the Venice "off" Festival. His contribution La Belgique à Venise Venice is published in a collective volume of (SIC) dedicated to this residency.

In 2015, he participated in the Atopolis catalog, a contemporary art exhibition organized by the Wiels contemporary art center for Mons 2015.

Since 2019, he has co-directed, with the Franco-Iranian artist Narmine Sadeg, the bilingual website PLACE where literature and visual arts intersect.

In 2019, he curated, with Géraldine David, the retrospective exhibition of Olivier Deprez, Wrek, not work, at the Bibliotheca Wittockiana.

In 2023, he participated, in collaboration with Olivier Deprez, in the exhibition celebrating the 15th anniversary of Textimage magazine: "Ce qui a été, ce qui reste".

Throughout his life as a teacher, he organized exhibitions at the University Library of Leuven: the photo novel, the journal Arts et métiers graphiques, the journal L'Immédiate (in collaboration with the CEEI center for studies on writing and images) and the Belgian photo comic or the film-photo-novel.

He has been a member of the management committee of INSL (international network for the study of poetry) since 2019. He is currently president for the period 2023–2025.

Personal life He lives in Leuven. for the collection Cent fois sur le métier; 2015 : Élie-Rodenbach award from the Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique for Illustrer Proust.

Homages

2022 : Vivre sa vie, Exposition bibliographique, Université de Grenade from 14 March to 16 May 2023. Hommage au professeur Jan Baetens.

Notes and references