Extra Academy is a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Sint Lucas Antwerp and Royal conservatory of Antwerp. They organize an open program of lectures, performances, workshops and screenings around artistic practices, reflection and research. Since September 2024 they hold there monthly meetings at Stadsform. The program is in English and open for non students also, no need to register!
"What can an artwork teach us about disease?"
Peter Paul Rubens - De drie Gratiën (Prado,Madrid)
Works made by old masters like Caravaggio, Rubens and many others depict sick human bodies, in a moment in history when artists were not aware of the pathology behind the image. But, also modern and contemporary visual artists use illness, decay and death as a continuous source of ideas. Sometimes the artists even get confronted with their own sickness or decay or get inspired by friends or family. Many artists have built up a prominent relationship with their doctor(s) and use this as an inspiration in the work.
During a very visual and interactive talk -for which a medical background is not mandatory- a link will be made between looking at an artwork, discovering a disease and relating arts and science. As different media will be presented, we wander from Caravaggio to Rosalia and from painting to TikTok.
Luc Haenen (Antwerp 1959) received a medical degree and was trained as a heart and vascular surgeon, with an active surgical practice till December 2024. During his youth, the five baroque churches in Antwerp were an inspirational ground for getting to know the old masters as well as the personal contact with a patient journalist and a book on Kandinsky (2000)... hereby getting a profound interest in contemporary art. This led to a curious fascination in how old masters like Caravaggio and Rubens portrayed disease without knowing the pathology of the image and to contemporary artists who continue to find inspiration in illness and decay. If the main format during the old masters and modern artists was painting, we see that in the contemporary art period a multimodal materiality is being used; painting, photography, moving image etc…. Even the artist as a patient becomes a source for many artworks. Also the sometimes profound relationship between the artist and his (patron) doctor. The link between “art and disease” or “disease and art” is unequivocally present in the art world and in Luc's talks the goal is a forensic and focused analysis. In a time where our attention span is under siege, he wants to help us -as viewers- to focus on eventual disease or illness depicted in the work for promoting a deeper ‘viewing’.
He is a member of Wiels (Brussels) and SMAK (Ghent). Author of the book: #whatpatientsreadafterheartsurgery (2025) and numerous papers on medicine and art.