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...