At St John’s Hospital in Bruges Flemish master Memling dialogues with modern art

It is artist Lahouari Mohammed Bakir who welcomes you to the Saint John’s museum in Bruges with his neon letters at the entrance. "Persona grata" it reads, "desirable person". Hospitality has existed here since the 12th century, when the building served as a hospital

"Feel the heartbeat" you read on posters. By the door you see a big heart.  It’s a work by Atelier Van Lieshout. The emphasis is on care and empathy for the suffering and the dying but also on the healing.

For many years now the museum has provided a home for seven works by Hans Memling.  He is one of the most famous of our Flemish Primitive artists. Memling painted the reliquary for St Ursula and the triptych of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist on a commission from the St John's Hospital in the 1400s.

The St Ursula reliquary has now been given pride of place in the chapel. Other Memling paintings hang together in a new, glass construction, a "museum within the museum" that also resembles a shrine. Sybilla Goegebuer is the museum’s curator: "The Memlings need to be stored safely. They used to be on display at the church in a somewhat austere enclosure. Today the paintings are in a shrine, which refers to Ursula's reliquary. It is a new home for the Memlings.  You can walk in and out. By showing these painting together you create a feeling of unified power."

That strength is enhanced by a new permanent artwork. Near the Memlings stands a large sculpture by Flemish artist Berlinde De Bruyckere, which she made especially for the museum: "Reclining Arcangelo II". It is a reclining angel with folded wings on a kind of tomb.

"The angel is at rest," says De Bruyckere. "This is not about the direct, aggressive action of falling. This angel needs rest because it has received too much input from us: our fears and our doubts that it has taken with it into this pose."

Berlinde De Bruyckere says she is very happy that she was allowed to place this work next to the great Memlings. "It is so impressive, it's hard to put into words. It is a very special place. I also feel a kinship with Memling. He was commissioned to paint four works for the hospital. Then you start thinking. I also feel I’m working on behalf of society by addressing people's questions and starting a dialogue through my work."

"This hospital was a place where people were welcome and where they were immediately given a blanket on arrival. My work has come to the right place; it is truly at home here. The way Hans Memling translates religious themes also carries in it a vulnerability and a humanity."

Berlinde De Bruyckere calls her sculpture a "tribute to everyone receiving care". She started making her series of angels during the pandemic.

"The first angels were on a higher plinth; they commanded respect; people could turn to them and entrust things to them. The reclining position of this new sculpture is very important and especially the tranquillity it exudes. As a spectator, you can walk around the angel and look over it."

The museum’s themes are things that interest everybody, De Bruyckere believes. "It's nice that this museum has rewritten that story. It’s what I do too, rewriting a story. I often use objects from a different context." For the sculpture of the fallen angel, Berlinde De Bruyckere reused metal and marble and even linoleum from her own living room.

Testimonials

At the renovated St John's Hospital museum people receiving care also bear witness. Between the works of art, you can watch videos relating gripping human stories. The textile installation "De Fluisterzetel" (Whisper Chair) by Barbara Raes and Klaas Rommelaere incorporates stories and clothes from deceased loved ones.

A strange creature

Another new contemporary artwork is a very special sculpture "The Bridge" by Australia’s Patricia Piccinini. It’s a hyper-realistic sculpture of a woman gently and warmly placing her hand on the hand of a strange creature, half woman, half pig. It’s no coincidence that this work stands next to a painting of the Good Samaritan.

Let your heart speak, that's the appeal the museum makes. You can literally measure your heart rate. Children can play hospital games. You get interactive information about medical care today and in times gone by. "The Saint John's Hospital museum reconnects with the old and current story of medical and religious care and empathy. These are universal stories," says curator Sybille Goegebuer.

Can art heal? Berlinde De Bruyckere thinks it can: "I feel it very often, when I talk to people or when people write to me and translate what they have felt into beautiful words. It is very important as an artist to realise that this is valuable for other people. I never miss an opportunity to speak about it. My work has a social function. It can be a tool. In difficult moments, art can help."