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FRANÇOIS SCHUITEN’S ODE TO THE UNIVERSAL EXHIBITION

François Schuiten is well versed in the particular dynamics of universal exhibitions. He created the Pavilion of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg for Seville 1992, the Pavilion of Utopias for Hanover 2000 and the Belgian Pavilion for Aichi 2005. Nevertheless, the Atomium remains, for him, a special case.

The first memory brought to the mind of the co-author of “Cités obscures” by “Expo ´58” centres on a tiny sugar-spoon whose handle was adorned with a mini-Atomium. “My parents had perhaps bought it during a visit to the Expo? Another memory is linked to the Civil Engineering Arrow. Jacques Moeschal, the sculptor who created it, was a friend of my father’s, and when I would visit his studio I would see maquettes of this creation, which fascinated me. I was two years old when Expo ´58 took place and it was only later, on reading again my brother’s weeky issues of “Spirou” and “Tintin”, that I experienced the time of the Atomium’s construction. Those weekly issues were wonderful witnesses to the euphoria of those times.”

The period of the early ´eighties saw a revisiting, by stalwarts of the “New Clear Line” style (including Swarte, Chaland, Floc’h, Ted Benoit, etc), of a style created in the Belgium of the 1950s. “I was amazed that people from far afield were interested in something that had its roots in my native place. We were more blasé about it because we were accustomed to it. Their perspective caused us to look afresh at our own history. It has troubled me at times to realise that we Belgians were not necessarily the best placed to see ourselves.”

For this artist-scénariste, Expo ´58 “is without doubt the last one to embody the aspirations that were at stake; the utopian dreams and ambitions that these events sought to express. A Universal Exhibition is a means of gathering and representing the world and all its cultures in one time and place. This aspect of such events will probably be lost as travel becomes commonplace. Aeroplanes, TV and internet will undermine their function.”

It was also distinguished as an exhibition that succeeded in creating a lasting symbol: the Atomium. “Many such Expos have not had comparable success. Creating a symbol is no easy matter. Every so often it becomes possible to forge a lasting connection between the preoccupations of the age and a material form.” The screenprint Expositions universelles creates an encounter between the Atomium and the symbols of other great universal exhibitions. Schuiten also pays homage to Lucien De Roeck’s famous star-symbol. “He helped me with the typography for La fièvre d’Urbicande. He was an artist of great talent with letters.” The artist agrees that, notwithstanding the temptations of the Atomium’s form for graphic artists, “confronting an icon that has already been conveyed in every way and from every angle is no easy task.”