underground picknick

 

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 

 

 

rounding up VG

 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...

 

tracing VG

 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...

 

shortstop tri drive

 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 19^th 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.

 

us-theatrics

 

B.A.G in the American Embassy (ex) The Hague

In the Movie Theater no less, where the film 'Incredible Journey' DDV referred to in his AI discourse might have been shown in those heady sixties sci-fi days... Now we find ourselves facing the other way – confronting the projection-booth with stares usually reserved for the screen – detournement d'un lieu de cult cinematographique spectaculaire – against the grain.

Been watching Danny Devos for quite a while now – since my arrival in these parts – and I must admit he is one of the most constant methodical no-nonsense and enigmatic artist I know – doing his thing without being in the slightest buffeted by the storms whipped up by the cultured gentry – in fact irritatingly so, not pandering to the ups and downs of artificial hyperbole – not even participating in the rat-racing ruminations of the marketeers and speculators – but using their wares to reflect upon our condition...

 

As chance would have it there was just a resurgence in attention to the Rote Armee Fraktion as we heard about DDV's B.A.G. Projects – Bastard Art Gruppe – with the arrest of a thrird-generational RAF member Daniela Klette in her petite-bourgeois flat in Berlin, or at least what might seems so apart from the weapons and explosives she still kept in her cupboard... being anyway more of a bank-robber than hardcore lefty, as quite a few of the RAF were, especially the later ones...

...all things (come to) pass,

so too this embassy close to the seat of Dutch government – once a mainstay transatlantic ally and now chastising itself with an unworkable reactionary coalition – even the famous Dutch libertarian attitude down the drain with the rest of thinking Europe – even the Greens in Germany howling for more weaponry... (I for one am of the anti-missle generation of Pertra & der General – today's generation seems to me to be more olive drab than juicy green... but yes)

 

So too DDV, after having dug as far down as he could to find Gordon, filling up the hole with shredded literature – I myself partook in some of the soil from that hole transported all the way to Finland, and assisted in the shredding of the rabbit-hare (“einem zerissenen hasen die Performancekunst erklären”) – as well as the spray-painting of an absent presence in Saint Nicholas town after art-pope Hoet refused to let Danny play – ah those wonderfully repressive times!

Now he has embraced AI while others shirk fearfully as they did with his serial killers in welded cold frames and the softly spoken Thai-boy Slim – for he never gets stuck in one or another rut, but constantly and conscientiously changes - as the weather with it's high and low pressures, sun, sleet and snowballs. Now, after some initial projects with canine portraits and similar dis-figuration, DDV has created a series of automates announcements of his (or rather the system's) work at various important international museum venues around the globe...

Not in fact having anything to do with it at all- and so we too have nothing to do with any of it as well as being ourselves ready-made fodder for the insatiable hunger of marketing mentality's most preposterous dreams – we can be whatever we don't want to be, and nothing will stop us from becoming our worst own nightmare.

All that is left for us to do is to spot the posters at a venue near you – yesseree-bob, take a selfie with you very own DDV exhibition poster at your leisure, become part of a world-wide webbed conspiracy to incorporate yourself in to a n automatically generated reality far from anything that smells of natural habitat, or god forbid, artzoo!

 

Watercooler abandoned by US personel in the former embassy...

slight surprise

 

Quelle belle Surprise

A nice surprise for the beginning of the Belgian tenure of the European Commission was the inauguration of an occasional artwork by Ann Veronica Janssens and Michel François... by now these friends are on the cusp of the Belgian artistic landscape and to my mind merited. Long ago as young and enthusiast beginners we had great times trying out various possibilities... Ann Veronica had been working together with Monica Droste who introduced me at the time I was a green twig just arrived... That is how a wonderful exhibition in the 'inexistent' gallery space came about... what is it, some 36 years ago...

 

Much to my surprise this work, a rare collaboration between the two artists who had formed a couple, then separated, then rekindled the original flame – many years perusing separate careers but often within sight of each other... here too the double-duo aspect being apparent. But the main surprise was the use of cement (or argex) building bricks, a platform of two tiers loosely arranged, just like the exhibition in 1988... so very recognizable or even as a déjà-vu sort of experience when coming out of the underground train station Gare de Luxembourg...

 

The 'Esplanade Solidarnosc' (even solidarity has become but a place-name) used to be the embankment on which the rails ran to and from the Luxembourg station, a green embankment as I remember, having seen it from the old warehouse that once towered above – now Euro-offices – and everything gentrified... The warehouse was on the Rue Godecharle, a large building overlooking the whole Quartier Leopold... there on the 3^rd of fourth floor Ann-Veronica, Monica Droste, Michel François and others shared a studio floor... early to mid eighties I think, since I only saw it after the fact, there to collect remnants of a magician's caravan with Michel Galasso, who had the job of clearing up there.

(online now and then map (interactive)
 

The story of the magician itself also quite something, Michel; Monica and Guy Rombouts and myself made various trips to save what we could – originally from the German magic-circus-caravan Kalanag, it had come into the hands of a Belgian Magician who went bust... it had been sitting there since the sixties or so, and we gleaned quite a few transport-crates and trinkets which over the years were used in different artistic manifestations... a Pandora's box of sorts... 

(kalanag kist nr. 85 )

The work itself was, as mentioned, a platform of two tiers of cement bricks, a sort of podium, stage or plinth, with a narrow trench or interval between the next section which had mounted on it a fence, barrier or screen in the same proportions as the heavy stones, with in it's middle a breach: a breakthrough, a hole as it were, seemingly blown as if by force, a gust or breath, or a stone perhaps, thrown as in 'soixcent huit' – a pavée through the showcase of the established order... a serious play between the hefty stones and the filigree latticework, as if a robust cloud had passed... a scene, a stage, the protagonists unknown, but could easily be me, be you...

On the first level and in the euro-context we have here one has to think of all the border fences going up around us... the lightness of the construction reminds us of hastily constructed border fences in say Poland (we are on the solidarnosc-esplanade are we not?) or Lithuania, the only thing that's missing is the razor-wire... the breakthrough could be any number of migrants, be they war refugees or economic, politically persecuted or in search of that elusive happiness... or a mental escape from the constraints of regulation, regularity, repetitiveness, as reflected by the office windows all around us. A break-out through the barrier of stasis, of inaction, disinterest...

 

 

One thing I am wondering is if it will remain as it is, or be 'used' as it were... in another part of town it would not take long before the whole construction would be used to demolish the gleaming façades around... but I guess they have taken their precautions and / or added another detachment of security people to keep an eye on the thing... it is to my mind provocative enough, especially when seeing the sketch, using a seating block opposite as proverbial, mental, brick (in/out of the wall).

We will have to go back to look and see – anyway I was planning to go th the wonderful Wiertz Museum while we were there, but got sidelined looking for the right spot (the esplanade being a long curves ex-emplacement – we wandered a bit lost in the Euro-quarter before finding the right place, and so didn't have the time.. and while there also have a look at the Rue Godecharle – the few buildings left over from 'our time' slated for demolition too, and also the nearby Musée Camille Lemmonier, which I had not visited since those times 36 odd years ago...