FEATURES BIK VAN DER POL X CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE

BIK VAN DER POL X CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE

De eigenzinnige kunstenaar, CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE Josine van Droffelaar, who was componist en performer Charlemagne Palestine (in 1945 of assistant curator at the Stedelijk Charlemagne Palestine 1947 geboren als Chaim Moshe Tza- in those days. I’m happy to be the dik Palestine, of Charles Martin in “Uncle Appel”.’ bespeelde het carillon van het Brooklyn, New York, tegenwoodig Hendrik Chabot Prijs 2014 van het Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds aan Bik Van der Pol, 16 januari 2015, foto Peter van Mulken van Peter foto 2015, januari 16 Pol, der Van Bik Cultuurfonds Bernhard aan Prins het van 2014 Prijs Chabot Hendrik Uncle Appel. The last one standing. Rotterdamse stadhuis toen Bik woonachtig in Brussel) is een Ame- rikaans componist van minimalisti- ‘I was a pilot at the time.’ Van der Pol de Bart Chabot sche muziek, performer en beeldend You mean a pilot in the sense of Prijs 2014 kregen uitgereikt. kunstenaar, met, zoals Wikipedia het flying? De kleurrijke kunstenaar, die al omschrijft een voorkeur voor ‘knuf- ‘What happened is that I went to felbeesten, cognac en kretek siga- live for almost a year in Sweden, in geruime tijd in Brussel woont, retten’. Palestine, een tijdgenoot van Skåne, which is below Stockholm. vertegenwoordigt in zekere Steve Reich en Philip Glass, heeft It’s in the countryside. I had a few zin de rijke geschiedenis van altijd zijn eigen werk uitgevoerd, in performances zowel op het podium shows of these drawings I was mak- de westerse conceptuele als in kunstcentra, zoals De Appel ing those days with arrows that went kunst waar het Rotterdamse in de legendarische tijd met Wies in all kinds of directions. I was just Smals. Afgelopen jaren trad hij op dealing with directions, because I kunstenaarsduo zo in Rhys Chatham, Z’ev, Oren Ambarchi, geïnteresseerd is. Op verzoek Perlonex, Mika Vaino, Gol, Mondkopf, was doing body pieces where I would van Metropolis M gingen ze Grumbling Fur en vele anderen. Op run into a wall and then into another 8 juli treedt hij op in het Barbican one. It was all about motion. I met met elkaar in gesprek. Art Centre in Londen. an art collector who wanted to buy an enormous drawing. I told him the Door Bik Van der Pol price. And he said: “Well, wouldn’t you like to be a pilot?” I said: “What?” “I have an airplane and a helicopter Bik Van der Pol: Did you perform in and I’m an official instructor. What the early days of De Appel? if I give you lessons, so you get your Charlemagne Palestine: ‘Yes, in the licence, and give you the possibil- very first two years, I think. With ity to fly planes and helicopters? Wies Smals and then at a certain Would you then give one of these moment, she collaborated with big drawings to me for free?” So I Charlemagne Palestine bespeelt het carillon van het stadhuis in Rotterdam, ter gelegenheid van de uitreiking van de van uitreiking de van gelegenheid ter Rotterdam, in stadhuis het carillon van het bespeelt Palestine Charlemagne 34 35 FEATURES FEATURES BIK VAN DER POL X CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE BIK VAN DER POL X CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE

no, no, no”, she said. I remember the Richard Serra made of me and then What was the film about? whole conversation. Wies was always it disappeared.” So I was telling all ‘Like a lot of Richard Serra’s work, it a very tough woman and now she these disappearance stories, but was an enormous thing about noth- was a mother, and she was a tough they are really true. All the films they ing. I’m only joking, Richard, if this mother as well, and several hours did with me, that they hated after- gets into the interview.’ later, they were all dead.’ wards, have disappeared. It just hap- You know that a film was made two We called him ‘Martin Air’, because pened to be like that and now they’re years ago with Nancy Holt about it was a flight company at the time. being revived. In this case, it was a Robert Smithson’s sculpture in But also, Martin Air, you know, ‘air’ 16 mm film that I made with Nancy Drenthe? is a little bit arrogant. It had this Holt. So I was trying to get a hold ‘Yes. What was the name of that double meaning. of Nancy Holt, the widow of Robert organisation? I used to know all ‘They were all a little bit arrogant. Smithson, and then you guys showed those guys in the early seventies. Anyway, Wies had invited me very, up with it. It turned out that when it That organisation that invited Robert very early, in ’73 already. There is first came out, Richard Serra, who Morris to do that piece.’ a video we did together that she was quite well known as a video and Kröller-Müller? hated. This tape is actually a dia- film artist those days, did the scene. ‘Yes, that’s it.’ logue between me and Wies Smals At that time, around ’74, the Nether- I think the Smithson sculpture was that goes on for forty-five minutes. lands were really hot for New York made during the Sonsbeek exhibi- She’s filming me, and in one part I performance art and media art. So tion in the seventies. start to get more and more aggres- very early, Boijmans bought that ‘I was involved with that, because I sive with her and then I take the film from Leo Castelli, who had just did a lot of running pieces in those camera out of her hands and point opened then. There were so many days, outdoors too, like the Island it to her and she’s looking right into artists of their group who were doing Song. I always thought of myself the camera. It’s one of the rare times film and video that Leo Castelli and as the Minotaur in those kinds of that she was filmed, because even Ileana Sonnabend decided: Why sculptural environments. In the piece though she was into performance, not open up a small office and get by Robert Morris (Observatorium, she was very camera shy. She didn’t some equipment? They had enough 1971), when you get to the middle Richard Serra (featuring Charlemagne Palestine and Nancy Holt), Match Match their Courage, 1974, kleur, geluid, 32:27 min., courtesy Ludwig Forum Aken like to be in front of the camera. Yet high-paid artists to afford a stock of there’s a certain place where, if you she ran this art centre for all these Portapaks and somebody at a desk. make a sound, it resonates all of a narcissists which was working per- Robert Rauschenberg and a lot of sudden. People would come in and fectly. There was no competition their high-selling artists were inter- sort of look, and the Dutch, they’re said, “Okay”, and I became a pilot. BIK VAN DER POL need to have a flight plan. It’s very between her and the performers, ested in this stuff. It was not until very polite. So I’m like a gorilla. You Martin, the boyfriend of Josine van Het duo Bik Van der Pol, bestaand complicated, but it was fun. Well, it because she didn’t want to be one.’ the late seventies, that the Castelli- can see where sonically and bodily Droffelaar, who was the assistant uit Liesbeth Bik en Jos van der Pol, was fun until they died. They all died What did you talk about in the video? Sonnabend video company even- Morris’s piece is, with a Minotaur in director of De Appel at that time, werkt sinds 1994 met elkaar aan in that plane crash. I said goodbye to ‘About my work. It’s fabulous. You tually closed and they gave every- your piece.’ was a pilot too.’ een op research gebaseerde kunst- them, to Wies, who at the time was really should watch it. She was great thing to EAI.’ You had a lot of fun with Nancy, praktijk met een sterk historische Martin was in my class at art school inslag. Regelmatig worden verge- with Gerhard von Graevenitz. They and you’ll see what she really looked So how did this piece disappear? apparently. in Rotterdam. We called him ‘Mar- ten kunst- en cultuurgeschiedenis had a son, little Heinrich. I gave him like. It’s called Where It’s Coming ‘Richard and I were friends for a ‘Yes, we had a lot of fun. Everybody tin Air’. op allerlei manieren gereactiveerd. a teddy bear. A new, fantastic Steiff From, and until her death, nobody few minutes and during those min- there was so serious. I was always ‘That’s him. Yes, I’ve known Martin. Op de Biënnale van Venetië presen- teddy bear.’ had ever seen it. Last year we did utes he decided, “Why not have the clown and they were very open We used to fly together.’ teren ze werk in het paviljoen van He was in the plane too? a whole evening at Electronic Arts Charle­magne, he’s so confronta- to clown with me, and that’s a good Mauritius. Ze exposeren momenteel He went to Switzerland I think? in de tentoonstelling Are you talking ‘Yes, he was, just three months old. Intermix, during my blitz in New York tional”. Actually, at that particular thing, because it wasn’t so funny ‘That’s right. He went to Bern. I was to me? In het Wilhelm Hack-museum As was Von Graevenitz, Wies, Josine with the Whitney, with MoMA, with moment, he liked that, and he him- otherwise. I was someone to have there the day they arrived. They came in Ludwigshafen (DE). In voorberei- and Martin. Sonnabend... I was everywhere. And self is a very confrontational person. around if you were getting bored for an opening of a show of Larry ding is een project in Toronto en Martin was flying? we showed the film.’ His works are, like (bangs some- with being serious. It was certain Weiner and Regalia at the Kunsthalle een tentoonstelling in het Perez Art ‘Well Martin and Josine, I suppose. We showed the film you made with thing), but he himself, he’s a monster. that I would break the seriousness, in the Lake of Daniel Buren. They Museum in Miami. Eind vorig jaar They flew from Amsterdam to Bern. Leo Castelli and Richard Serra at So when the space opened, Rich- because I’m allergic to being too werd hen de Bart Chabotprijs 2014 were filming the Daniel Buren, from toegekend. The next morning they decided, at Boijmans. When was it made? ard had placed the piece right near serious. Aude [Charlemagne’s part- their airplane. It was a very heavy breakfast, that they would not go ‘I’ll tell you a funny story. I spoke Leo’s office. In the piece I do a lot of, ner, ed.] says: “But you know you’re World War II airplane, not like the straight back home, but take a lit- about that film to Joan Jonas and “Ha, ha, ho, ho”, and I make all this very serious in your way.” I’m very kind people fly nowadays. I think they tle detour through the Swiss Alps. many different people. Long before noise and after the first week Leo serious in another way; I don’t like rented it. It was a small plane, a four- As one knows now, in hindsight, that Boijmans, before you guys wrote went bananas. He couldn’t stand my official or superficial seriousness. I’m seater, a propeller plane. That’s how wasn’t a very good idea. They didn’t to me that you’d seen it, and I was voice anymore, so they turned the allergic to that. So when things need we all got together, sort of as a bunch have much experience flying in the shocked, because I was looking for sound down and down. And once I to be serious, I am. I don’t laugh at of pilots. We didn’t do so much flying mountains, with its thermal changes this film for a long, long time. Every- had disappeared from their scene, funerals. I’m like François Hollande. together, because it’s very expensive. that create very violent differences body was thinking I’d made up this they decided the piece didn’t exist He’s great at funerals and at memo- So you had to plan carefully, as a in air pressure sometimes. They were story, of making this film. They did anymore. But before they could nix rials, better than he is at every day. group. We left at seven o’clock in the very arrogant-, even the woman I not believe me because I was in a that film, Boijmans and several other He just has the right look. You need morning and brought back the plane was with back then said to Wies, bad mood at the time. They said: places had already bought it, and so to have a good look for funerals.’ at five o’clock in the afternoon, so as “Aren’t you scared to go in an air- “Charlemagne is having delusions.” through you I found out that there Are we still going to see the palace, not to pay an enormous amount. You plane with this new-born baby?” “Oh, I said: “There’s this damn film that was an actual copy.’ here in Brussels?

36 37 FEATURES BIK VAN DER POL X CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE foto's op p. 38 en p. 39: Charlemagne Palestine, Body Work Where It's Coming From Coming It's Where heet is, gemaakt hiervan die video (de Schouten Thijs foto’s Amsterdam, in Appel De in Smals Wies met 1977,, 25 mei performance ‘Maybe we’ll go to the Palais Sto- make the Palais a cultural heritage But I don’t like his area, I’ve chosen clet first. There are two enormous site. Ronald Lauder, the descend- another area, right near the exit of Gustav Klimts in there, not flat paint- ent of the two sons of the Estée the cemetery. The cemetery in New ings, but mosaics. Aude’s grandpar- Lauder fortune, wanted to buy the York that I have the right to be in, a ents commissioned Klimt to make Palais, about six, seven years ago, Jewish one, is wonderful, but it’s one these two enormous mosaics and a for a hundred million dollars. But he hour and ten minutes from New York smaller one. Each mosaic is about couldn’t. Around the same month City. When you leave the cemetery, the size of this room. You’ll see it, it’s that he wanted to buy the whole there’s not even a coffee place. But in the dining room. The building was building, it turned out that there here, there are at least fifteen res- built by Joseph Hoffmann, the most was a little painting, which wasn’t a taurants and twenty bars when you important Art Nouveau architect of part of the Gesamtkunstwerk, made go out. There are people all the time, his time. This palace is considered by Duccio, an Italian from the four- making noise, drinking, eating. Sexy his great masterpiece. The idea, in teenth century. This work was sold people and everything. I love it. So those days, which was from art and…’ to the Metropolitan Museum for fifty- that’s where I want to be.’ Arts and crafts? two million dollars by the family, the (...) ‘I’m a Gesamtkunstler, a total artist, four sisters, of which Aude is one. ‘This is Aude’s grandfather’s house. but the actual term used histori- Aude inherited one quarter of that. This is the palace Stoclet.’ cally came at the time of Art Nou- She gave half of it to her son, and My God. It’s crazy. veau, with architects. The building we found this fantastic space. So ‘It was built between 1905 and 1912.’ that Aude’s grandparents built is she also paid for my studio.’ When you took part in Documenta, the only intact example of an Art Do you like Brussels? was it the one with Harald Szee- Nouveau Gesamtkunstwerk in the ‘Yes. New York isn’t what it was mann or was it before or after that? world. And it’s the most luxurious before. I mean, I miss my sand- ‘I participated in three Documentas, one, because Aude’s great-grandfa- wiches, but that’s about it. I don’t but the only one that really counted ther helped building the railroads in really miss the New York that it has was the last one, 1987, when I built Europe, and Aude’s grandfather was become. In Brooklyn, there were my big Godbear with three heads, living in Vienna with his new wife, maybe thirty artists when I was a six metres high, in mohair. It was who came from a family of artists. young kid, now there are sixty thou- the same year that Andy Warhol Aude lived there from when she was sand. I don’t feel any connection and Joseph Beuys died. That year twelve until she was about twenty- anymore with any town. We go to they decided that the Documenta four. Then she married Flagier, who so many different places, but Brus- would have a real performance and recently died. At her birthplace, now sels is a nice place to come back installation part. My piece was in a lives Herman Daled, who founded to. It’s perfect. I’ve even chosen my park, and then eventually on a road. Wiels. He’s a famous collector of cemetery here. It’s next to the the- Everybody wanted it in front of the conceptual art. We now want to atre. Broodthaers is already there. Fridericianum and Manfred Schneck- ) 38 39 FEATURES BIK VAN DER POL X CHARLEMAGNE PALESTINE

Charlemagne Palestine, Godbear, 1987, vlak voor de opening van Documenta 8 in 1987

enburger, the artistic director, and I it the worst piece he had ever imag- have no provenance for all my works, had a terrible dispute about that dur- ined. Thanks to ZDF, who filmed it at nothing that proves that they’re mine. ing the whole summer. In those days, the opening, the bear became the Nothing that proves that they were there was a woman called Elizabeth mascot of the eighth Documenta. still mine. So the liquidators came Yappe who came from Cologne. It made Schneckenburger furious, and took the whole gallery apart, She had a performance gallery in because for the whole summer, because it was in debt for about ten Cologne that was quite well-known. whenever they would show what million. Not only mine, but a whole So she was appointed the perfor- was happening at Documenta, the bunch of works became prisoners mance and installation curator of bear was there like a logo. It was in in a PricewaterHouse Coopers liq- Documenta under Manfred Schneck- the newspapers every few days. The uidation of the situation. From 1993 enburger. She loved my work and most important piece of that par- or 1992 to 2000, it was owned by asked me to do a piece, thinking that ticular Documenta was Walter De the liquidator purchaser, which is a I would make a performance, but I Maria’s One Kilometre. And so what guy who goes to liquidations. Sort of had already plans for about three or did you expect the helicopters and a hedge fund, and Pricewaterhouse four years, with Steiff, the company the television to look at?’ was a very famous one. I was eventu- which is also not so far from Kassel, What happened to the bear after- ally able to buy my own works back in Germany. They had invented the wards? for about thirty thousand dollars. All teddy bear, after the Jewish couple ‘Afterwards, my gallery went bank- of my works. I mean, thirty thousand from Brooklyn invented it, where I rupt and then it mysteriously burned dollars was a lot to ask Aude for. But was born, in that neighbourhood. I after being stored in Germany in one for an artist of my pedigree, it was Studio van Charlemagne Palestine, foto Bik Van der Pol got to know the head designer, who of the most prestigious art storage nothing. So, you know, we finally was the great-nephew of Margarete places near Düsseldorf.’ bought all my works back. He sent Steiff, the woman with polio that It wasn’t insured? it with a truck, he was very correct. invented the teddy bear in Germany.’ ‘All the capital that came into the gal- We got all the works back, except How big was the bear? lery went immediately into paying off some of my works that his former ‘Six metres high. It’s in that cata- the liquidation of the bankruptcy of Brazilian girlfriend had stolen: some logue. I’m starting to rebuild them in the gallery, so I got nothing. I just got of my very important works, and we smaller versions and they’re getting a telephone call saying, “Your bear is don’t know what happened to them bigger and bigger again. Now they’re destroyed”. I was leaving works there yet. It’s still out there somewhere.’ standing instead of sitting as they without any paperwork, in Geneva. used to be. Schneckenburger found One day, the gallery closes and I

40 41