Publications, Reviews, Magazines...   :   PHASES (1954-1975) - Cahiers internationaux de recherches littéraires et plastiques

It was at the end of 1951, following the disappearance of the reviews Cobra and Rixes which he had created, that the poet and critic Edouard Jaguer conceived the idea, with his wife Anne Éthuin and a few artists, of creating a new "hosting structure" that would be as flexible as possible and open to artists from all countries.
Georges Henein, who joined the project, wrote to him from Cairo on January 7, 1952, regarding this: "I want the review to be one of a certain disorder that gives the impression that everything is far from being said; let it become the radiating plate that could make the world sensitive. It matters little that this is a one-in-a-million shot."
The following year, the title PHASES was chosen and affixed in February to the catalog for the exhibition of ALECHINSKY and TAJIRI in Amsterdam, alongside the text by Christian Dotremont L'ARBRE ET L'ARME and drawings by Jacques HEROLD and Wilfredo LAM.
After many delays, the decision was made to launch the first issue during an exhibition at Paul Facchetti's gallery, bringing together twenty painters and sculptors, most of whom were still unknown to the Parisian public. However, due to its "surrealist" character for some and "experimental" for others, this event was coldly received by the art critics of the period's newspapers, both official and "progressive." Over the next eighteen years, these same columnists would rarely depart from their hostility, when they didn't purely and simply apply the famous "law of silence."
Although open to poetry, Phases was resolutely focused on young abstract painting and post-war surrealism, rapidly growing into a full-fledged movement. Several issues of the review were published on the occasion of some of its many group exhibitions, such as in 1955 at the Galerie Creuze in Paris (No. 2) and at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1957 (No. 4).

Petr Kral, in the DICTIONNAIRE DU SURREALISME, analyzes PHASES as follows: "Sensitive to contributions from currents as diverse as Cobra, the painting of the Canadian Automatistes, or that of the Swedish Imaginists, this movement nonetheless played a unique and autonomous role through its very eclecticism... a broad conception of modernity allowed them to pursue it, with an uncommon curiosity, throughout all of modern art without distinction of era or place."
Over the years, the group's events, echoed by the review, multiplied in places like Milan or Mexico City, ensuring an international audience for Jaguer and his friends. In its wake, several publications with the same editorial line were born, such as Il Gesto in Milan, Salamender in Malmö, Boa in Argentina, or Edda in Brussels.
In Belgium, where Phases established itself as early as 1956 under the impetus of the painter and poet Jacques Lacomblez, two exhibitions were organized at the Ixelles Museum (Brussels) in 1964 and 1974, and another at the Mons Museum entitled “Phases belgiques - courant continu” in 1990.
Although PHASES ceased publication in 1976 – due to a lack of subscribers – the group nonetheless remained highly active, organizing a hundred exhibitions and just as many publications worldwide.
The passing of Edouard Jaguer on May 9, 2006, is considered by some to be the true end of the adventure.