“Elan Vital - Levensdrang”
Galerie Transit, Mechelen, Belgium

This exhibition marks a defining moment in the gallery's history and confirms a fundamental relationship: that between artist Johan Creten and Galerie Transit, a collaboration that has spanned almost forty years.

Elan Vital is Johan Creten's ninth and final exhibition at Galerie Transit. Central to this exhibition is the relationship to scale: the transition from studies and "library versions" to monumental sculptures; the connection between life with artworks in private collections and their existence in nature and public spaces. 

The exhibition includes ten important intimate versions of The Herring, The Dead Fly, and other key works. At the center of the exhibition is a new bronze version of De Gier, a work with a strong sacred, metaphysical, and simultaneously political aura, functioning both as a monument and a tombeau. New versions from the series Odore di Femmina and Glorie are also presented, in which the sacred blends with the erotic and the physical.

The title Élan Vital (The Urge of Life) itself functions as a pamphlet. This exhibition takes place at a key moment when Galerie Transit is preparing to conclude its gallery chapter and transform into Transit Art Office, an agency for artists and art projects. The exhibition offers an opportunity to reunite collectors around the work of Johan Creten. Simultaneously, Galerie Transit is embarking on a meaningful transition, with particular attention to preserving its history, ensuring continuity, and positioning itself within the future artistic landscape.

36 years ago, Johan Creten created a small invitation booklet for my exhibition L'oeil de l'antiquaire at Gallery Transit, back when it was still in Leuven. Printed in 2,000 copies, with 50 bound and signed editions, those invitation from 1990 have since become extremely rare. To mark this new exhibition Johan Creten created a new invitation inspired by the original 1990 booklet, a quiet homage to time, continuity and transformation.