since we had let things slide a bit - need to get it back
beleive it or not, back to painting - very thin, very minimal but with a gesture or two... after all these years of conceptual constipation it seems like a good way forward...
first stop Düsseldorf
We started spring on March 8th with a coffee trip, celebrating Women's Day with a visit to the exhibitions in Düsseldorf: Yoko Ono at the K20 and Katharina Sieverding at the K21. The Yoko Ono exhibition was quite interesting, lots to see, including some from the early years that you don't get to see so often, and which charmed me and brought home how much of that eary work also influenced my own practice without really realizing it – osmosis - otherwise, a lot of weel-know stuff... and also very common these days, good to remember where the trends originally came from (I had forgotten, for example, that she participated in the DIAS in London... (Destruction in Art Symposium 1962, organized by Gustaf Metzger)... Katharina Sieverding was also interesting, you're more familiar with the early years in actionist Düsseldorf and have somewhat forgotten the large photographic works of the 70s... or repressed them, seen them as less relevant en though equally engaged as the earlier stuff -... good to take another look, but still not entirely convincing – heart in the right place, but the works just don't quite speak... the distance doesn't help.
Next stop Bonn
Fast-forward Meanwhile, it's April, and finally some time for a detour to Bonn... Yes The grave –. The cemetery was quite pleasant this time, with flowering trees and such. Birds were chirping, and someone had thrown their entire record collection into the general waste bin. I chose a German Grammaphon recording (Privilege Collection) of "Les Grandes Lieder de Schubert" (with Fischer-Diskau and Fritz Wunderlich, Grace Bumbry, and Irmgard Seefried, among others)... In true Romantic style, I lay down at the foot of the gravestone and Sighed and sobbed; Well, a bit Dadaist, yes – I'm thinking of the ProPathetic cabaret, for example, partly because this time we did a cult-culture combo and went to the museum (Bundeskunsthalle): Continuing our series on strong women: Sausan Sontag... interesting, but perhaps more of an overview for the younger generation who may not be so familiar with her work... Another (random) discovery was the exhibition "Para Moderne," which critically examined the lifestyle reforms since the turn of the befor-last century, including the slosh zone between Oberdada Baader's critique of democracy and Schultze-Naumberg's Nazi ideology, all the way to the Haeusserian swastika-communist superman... that's how quickly things can go wrong-wrong, hey – all the way to the alternative (commercialized) lifestyle of the hippies and to "today's false prophets & profits," so to speak - We probably needed a A decent iced coffee on the terrace of the art museum, just to be decadent... but much of the Bonn we knew is disappearing, like everything else. Nevertheless, I was delighted that some of the old avenue trees were still standing... (at Telekom, Friedrich Ebertallee) – because a lot of things are disappearing, and there's also a large construction hole behind the Science Center on Kennedyallee... we'll see wht that will become...
another leap / and back in Belgium
this time still with a strong sexual reference but on gender-neutral terms, or perspective – specifically sex work an violence – South Africa specifically; Candice Breitz breaking a lance for sexworkers (Ghost Series, Capetown 1994-96 TLDR 2017) and critical of the white middle-class hollywood womens stance, tho well meaning not relevant to the real world.. quite an eye opener, radical and relevant without becoming screamy, letting the voices of the practitioners carry the show – another strong showing in between a slightly stayed 'Broodthaerisan' environment the series of births revisited:reviewed – pushing baby back into the womb... that simple detournement setting off quite some tought... the matriarchal manifest on the other hand seemed a bit much... would have left it to the viewer of the strong imagry to ponder...
The (curious) reappearence of Yoshio Nakajima
I had the privilege of partaking in a rare manifestation of living live art archive with the reappearance of Yoshio Nakajima after 50 years of absence from Belgium. His name and the 'UNBEAT' are forever fixed in the annals of performance and street art in Belgium since the famous happenings in 1965... In fact one might well say that the loitering of this Japanese sage were instrumental in congealing the various tendencies of the time to create the myth that is has become:
Having arrived in Europe after his long hike/hitch-hike across Asia just in time for Szeeman's Documenta 5, he immediately was immersed in all that was going on at the time and was himself a purveyor of the oriental mystique that was all the rage...
Since the late 50's various tendencies such as abstract expressionism, new music and artistic investigations began to merge, Kaprow's first happenings were conceived as musical scores, the
'Jikken Kobo' in Japan mixed various disciplines in what they termed "Happyokai" (recital) based on dada (one hs to think here of one of Yoshio's friend Dada Khan (the 'failed' kamikaze)... as well as neo-dada and Gutai obviously)...
So this was an opportunity to see live for oneself the flavour of an event related to these historic references: for me on the one hand the inception of Provo in Amsterdam and the relation to Robert Jasper Grootveld, as part of the Jef L archive (here in the correspondence I found material from the later Ubbeboda Symposium... more on that later) but mainly and of course the dynamics of the happenings on the Meir in Antwerp, the Happening news and the 'Unbeat'-like names such as 'Nihil' and Happy() spacemaker... multimillionaire and Dusseldorf (sic) – Thom Jasper's Veilig-Verkeer-Magiër direct from RJG... A lasting albeit short interlude in the European 'dérive' that saw Yoshio Nakajima end up in Sweden...
So after all these years we have the opportunity to see what the fuss was all about... we are reminded that in those days, street performance was viewed as a major disturbance of the public order and the authorities had a difficult time to administrate a response: removal from the national territory was in fact all they could do – and did... Nowadays it seems completely laughable but it's all coming back. But in contrast to the rather wild and destructive fare of yore (thinking also of Metzger's Destruction in Arts Symposium) Yoshio has graduated to a more kind, light and ritualistic collaboration with positive vibes, even if with a critical note and reminder of our mistreatment of nature and each other (recently Ukraine and Middle-East) But the sharp edge of youth is rounded – some might say worn – and has a patina to it while still looking frash: the collaboration here was with Stakattak-frontman Nick Defour and performer & organizer Merzedes Sturm-Lie, a well as with an impromptu by Philippe Tonnard. Attendance was middling... it reminded me of the interest generated by the visit of Ben Patterson in the flux-year 2012... aside from a few academics and aficionado's there was hardly any response... here too the remnant of the public staying behind for the lecture (by historian ) in the anatomical theatre was meagre – but we got another performance which the others missed – making it an exclusive moment...
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Of course it was all recorded – nowadays the documentary aspect is out of all proportion – all the more reason to partake live, giving the flavour and sphere rather than just the metadata... The song and the movement conveying the vibrations – the 'vibes' as they used to say – an essential part of the experience, and as such I am very glad to have been a part of this rare occasion... the scale of which made it possible to be up close and personal for a brief encounter as it were...
of which kind is a bit of a mystery...
and must remain so.
Ho!
Metrofood...(impromptu)
Underground Picknick
We had visited a presentation at the city archive of Amsterdam and upon leaving looked for something to eat before our train trip back to Antwerp...
We came across an Indian restaurant that was willing to proide us with a take-away meal, since we were loathe to have a proper sit-down dinner, time being just a bit short for that. The 'Memories of Indoa' provided us with a sumptious picknick which we thought to enjoy in a perk or along a canal... but it started raining and we desecneded into the Metro – in the sparse-looking Vijzelstraat station we unpacked and ate our picnic... thinking of Ghandi on a british colonial railway platform but then in this case Metrofood instead of street food... the underground passengers probably thought of us as homeless people rather than (under-)street artists, even though this was a perfect 50/50 performance: sharing a meal across from each other with every now and then the metro trains from both the south and the north stopping almost simultaneously... everyone jostling in and out for a hectic period except us... leisurely letting the cadence of the city pass us by... timeless, Indian style, eating with our hands, finishing the finger-licking curry without a hurry ... a case for the 'unnoticed art' collection...
Players: Heinrich Obst & Guy Rombouts, Amsteradm Metrohalte Vijzelstraat (line 52) 20 december 2024
had a good roundup of givens and it is time to consolidate the results of various strands of research during the summer...
We had quite a runaround during the summer – after visiting (courtoisie) the van Gogh hoses in the Borinage in the spring, we tried to adhere to his own agenda in the 'lost year' 1880 to figure out where he all went – Korsele, one of the more interesting ones because hardly mentioned until recently... but also Courcelles, a strange about-face just before his goal... and how he might have traveled - trains being more widely available than today... icing on the cake was a languid trip to Auver-sur-Oise, and then back again via various stations along the river to it's source in Belgium...
yes we took our time this time...
Short excursions following the (surmised) footsteps of VG in northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands... on the trail of an imaginary archive.
Auvers itself...
It's touristy, it”s picturesque, it's pleasant... but even then Van Gogh said “Auvers est bien beau, beaucoup de vieux chaumes entre autres ce que devient rare” – it has a high level of a village museum – whether it is useful to visit the supposed locations of specific paintings... in any case part of the cult: a group of orientals in a row enjoying a snack and an aperitif at sunset with a view over the cornfield that Vincent last painted... the tree roots behind protective fencing that have recently been identified creating additional root-painting courses, the many information panels to take any form of discovery out of the hands of the visitor...
The Auberge Ravoux is already too quaint and sweetly air-brushed, the back garden set up for oiled commerce... in fact already beyond its purpose... for a short visit and a few chair-photos still doable, but not for too long... run and follow the Oise back to Belgium.
(for a more detailed account, see...)
In the north there are several tracks to follow, but unclear: Van Gogh apparently walked a lot in the period that he did not write letters to the family, not even to Theo (1880) or were these destroyed?) So the scant information comes from later letters in which a brief look back in time is taken... His walk to Courrières to visit the painter Jules Breton has been clarified somewhat, but the exact route is not really known. He did write later that he had been in the region of Zola's novel Germial, so the town of Marchiennes on the Scarpe is one that also exists in real life... In Courrières itself, nothing remains from that time (except for the church) so it is difficult to map out a cult-place circuit. Other excursions are highly speculative.
The mode of transport or walking-route is also unclear... in an description of such a journey - the walk to St. Maria Horebeke to visit the Reverend Pieterzsen - J. Deweer has developed it into an interesting book, but it deviates considerably from the actual data... assumptions sometimes simply become facts and may be adopted in the future without further ado... but everyone has their own interpretation... for my part I noticed that at that time a much denser network of railway lines (and cheaper local trains) offered more possibilities than one would suspect today... For example, the line to St Denijs Boekel is a possible option... and from there on foot, instead of the entire way in a (current) straight line...(the possibility of hitching a ride on a barge is also omitted) .. His visit to Tournai is also something that encourages speculation: perhaps (also) cultural (Cathedral, Rogier van de Weyden) or personal - Protestant acquaintances? Nobody knows.
In Holland there are clearer traces – Etten-Leur, where they have (re-)dedicated the entire church to Vincent van Gogh is a good example: because Van Gogh himself left descriptions and even site plans in his letters, a tourist trail can be mapped out with the houses of the potato eaters and the mill, and the avenue to ... and and and so on.. Zundert of course, his birthplace where the former (no longer original) house has been converted into a museum with annex, with artist-residence pavilions and all kinds of satellite activities, - or in Nuenen, where a fine modernist architect's dream offers a virtual Van Gogh experience between the dotted paths to all kinds of sites mentioned...
Just a short one this time - but with wide historical scope... been meaning to get around to the octagonal centre of the church at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) for ever so long and this time finally made it...
of course didn't just go for the fun of it, but with purpose
intense purpose one might say
on a historical mission even - going back ages...
The seat of power – the throne of Charlemagne (supposedly) in the cathedral of Aachen was our main focus, but we did do a jaunt down to the river Rhine at Plittersdorf, just off of Bad Godesberg and one of our favorite haunts... High waters, but not enough to swamp the place as it did a few years ago...
Back via Aix-la-Chapelle, where many years gon we did various interventions at the 'Gelateria del Anno' by artist friend AVS back in 1991, among which was a performance by JL about the Throne of Charlemagne – a model for the holy see and itself a version of Solomons throne – and the most important seat of the holy roman empire and the whole notion of a unified Europe... so, gotta see, no?
We nearly missed it because we didn't know it was in a limited access area, but managed to get tickets for the last group ascending... even though it was a holiday and lots of people, but also one of the few occasions they actually light the 'Jerusalem chandelier' – so that was an additional tid-bit.
The throne itself simplistically majestic, even modernist- just tome old slabs held together by rusty crampons, but in a sumptuous surrounding breathing byzantine opulence... all a bit 19th century fake-ism, but none the less... as said, seat of power for ever so long (lots of Otto's!) and also site of historical machinations and source of much conjecture- for instance the shenanigans of Fredrick, who re-wrote most of the history to fit his own vision...
In the meantime Frederick was focused on restoring peace in the Rhineland, where he organized a magnificent celebration of the canonization of Charlemagne at Aachen, under the authority of the antipope Paschal III.(not much later deposed) – all in all a coup de théatre which shaped much of our history, and as such one of the great misrepresentations of who we are...
that being the theme of my current exhibition project and research focus... more about that later.
The most interesting things are the most enigmatic – this pineapple-head being one – they don't seem to know too much about it... letting it's own sculptural quality speak for itself.
