Form Vision Hans Theys Form Vision Artists on Art Tornado Editions 2019 To Tamara Van San In 1983, a fellow student handed me this Banda copy, suggesting it might be interesting for me – as an aficionado of art and literature – to study the writings of Kafka without interpreting them. The origin of the book you are holding now lies within this generous gesture. Thirty years later, when I accidently rediscovered it, I realised that the text quotes a book by Susan Sontag, translated and typewritten by an unknown hand. Everyone has a sort of individual form vision. In all the greatest artists the seeds of this form vision has been present even in their early work, and to some extent their work has been a gradual unfolding of this rhythm throughout. (…) It’s something the artist can’t control – it’s his make up. (…) The less conscious you are of your own individual form rhythm, the more likely it is, I think, to get richer and fuller and develop. Henry Moore, 1941 What is important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more. Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all. (…) The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means. Susan Sontag, 1964 ‘We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us.’ (Hamlet to Ophelia, 1603) Table of contents 15 Introduction 17 About Chance and Tolerance Thinking of Isi Fiszman 25 Edible Mayonnaise Thirty questions for Rogier Van der Weyden 29 Imperial Yellow Remembering James Lee Byars 33 Uncovering the Weapons Interview with Raoul De Keyser 41 I Am a Maker A wayward conversation with Raoul De Keyser 49 On Old Ghosts and Things that Don’t Pass by Guide to a superb Luc Tuymans exhibition 57 The Eyebrows of the Clown Conversation with Luc Tuymans 83 About Socles for the Night Conversation with Berlinde De Bruyckere 97 On Doubt and Openness Conversation with Berlinde De Bruyckere 107 Homecoming Interview with Elly Strik 113 On Dark Sugar Loaves and Becoming a Raven Conversation with Elly Strik 9 127 Glass Tears 219 Narcissus’ Bucket Conversation with Marlene Dumas Dr J.S. Stroop about Marcel Broodthaers 133 The Discrete Charm of Pyramids 231 For Stroop, who is often impotent Conversation with Tamara Van San Letter from Panamarenko to Hans Theys 141 A New Visual Language 235 Pop Has Flopped! Conversation with Max Pinckers Panamarenko about Pop Art 155 Wanderings of a Photographer 238 A Little More about Pop Art Interview with Sébastien Reuzé Letter from Panamarenko to Hans Theys 177 A Kind of Cleaning Lady 239 Knockando! Brief conversation with David Claerbout Conversation with Panamarenko 181 Witness for the Prosecution 261 In the Beginning there Was the Knife Listening to Philippe Vandenberg Conversation with Bernd Lohaus 189 Boots and Slippers 269 Six Stamens Conversation with Ronald Ophuis Conversation with Bernd Lohaus 197 Pockmarked Obstacles Reflecting 275 A Lump of Reality Conversation with Ronald Ophuis Conversation with Peter Buggenhout 203 An Extra terrestrial 279 On Spontaneous Self-combustion Conversation with Ronald Ophuis Nocturne about Carole Vanderlinden’s drawings 207 Why I Paint as I do 285 Mon seul désir Letter from Ronald Ophuis to Hans Theys Conversation about Carole Vanderlinden’s drawings 209 Layer after Layer 289 The Spectator Doesn’t Do Shit Conversation with Robert Devriendt Conversation about an exhibition by Walter Swennen 213 Concealed Stories 307 Long Live Housewives ! Conversation with Robert Devriendt A mini-conversation with Walter Swennen 10 11 309 Elementary Escaping 415 All about Angie Brief conversation with Walter Swennen Conversation with Stefan Dreher 315 A Diamond Cutter with a Sense of Humour 423 Holes and Bumps On the watercolours of Damien De Lepeleire Conversation with Erwin Wurm 323 It Never Hurts to Have a Giacometti at Home 429 All About Penelope Conversation with Damien De Lepeleire Jerry Gorovoy about Louise Bourgeois 333 Grandpa Pisshead Exposed with Can Opener 433 All about Snow White Conversation with Dennis Tyfus Paul McCarthy’s form vision 353 My Knee’s Pierced Needs 439 Beyond Annette A meeting with Dennis Tyfus Alberto Giacometti in London 359 I Do Things 445 A Misunderstanding Conversation with Danny Devos Frank Auerbach in Tate Britain 363 When the Fluttering Anus 449 Glued Fragility Conversation with Kati Heck Fifteen minutes with Tracey Emin 369 Sculpting Time 453 Benchmarks in a Disenchanted World A meeting with Ann Veronica Janssens Frank Maes about Royden Rabinowitch 379 Paper-thin but Indestructible Borders Four questions for Michel François 387 Steeped in History Conversation with Johan Creten 395 Good, Fast and Bright White Conversation with Guy Rombouts 409 Love is Bling Conversation with Guy Rombouts 12 13 INTRODUCTION When, a few years ago, a Cuban art critic asked me what I thought was specific to Belgian art, I replied that it would be a sign of navel-gazing to believe that Belgian artists are more prone to bricolage than their foreign colleagues or have more feeling for the surreal than the French, the Spanish or the South Americans. But if there is one thing in which we do excel, I thought, it is in the acceptance of diversity. Might this idea also be based on short-sightedness or an optical illusion? Quite probably. Moreover, when I tried to link this supposedly exceptional diversity to a long democratic tradi- tion, a Catholic indulgence and a great willingness and elasticity on the part of the countless collectors, I was told by my interloc- utor that this was a typically bourgeois conviction. That is certainly possible, because I am a bourgeois. In any case, the value of this anthology seems to lie mainly in the variety of approaches. This alone seemed reason enough for bringing these conversations together, in which I, together with the artists, go in search of their specific artistic form vision. The underlying theme of this book is the counter-intuitive insight that artists attach less importance to so-called ideas than is generally accepted. After all, there are but few ideas, yet an infinite number of forms. Of course, artists think through ideas, but also through words, letters, images, drawings, anecdotes, memories, stories, colours, sounds, patterns, rhythms, materi- als and techniques, all of which come together in ‘an experi- mental courtship of the things themselves’ that hopefully leads to ‘accidents’, which in turn produce objects and images that could never have been predicted. Artists think with form, not with a separable ‘content’ or ‘meaning’. The meaning arises afterwards, in the viewers (who can also be the artists them- selves) when looking at or listening to the finished works. In total, I have spoken at length with more than 200 artists over the past four decades. The texts in this book are multiple ways to deal with my findings. If possible, they have been proof- read by the artists in question. 15 ABOUT CHANCE AND TOLERANCE Thinking of Isi Fiszman It is with great sorrow that I address you, distant reader in an increasingly strange and empty world, about ancient things that endlessly renew themselves, such as art and death. ‘Thanks to death the world remains eternally green, young and fresh,’ Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself (in a world that did not yet know any readers). How could he know that the world would incessantly grow older, greyer, dirtier, shabbier, coarser, flatter, uglier, more stupid and more malodorous? And now Isi Fiszman has also evaporated. Right after I left him last Saturday, having spent a poignant day just talking and walking, he fell asleep and never woke up. an exceptional collector Not many people know who Isi Fiszman (b. 1938) is or was, not even those who belong to a Belgian art world that, in part, owes its extraordinary diversity and radical nature to his endeavours. He was a collector who mattered, who made a difference, and who made that difference possible through his unwavering support of a radical gallery like the Wide White Space (where he purchased work from almost every exhibition), by financing Huis A and the famous magazine Pour, and by giving numerous artists the opportunity to work undisturbed, by allowing them to do their own thing, and to be who they wanted to be. In the 1960s, he was the first to collect the work of Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Panamarenko, Hugo Heyrman, Bernd Lohaus, Daniel Buren, Carl Andre, James Lee Byars, Christo and many others. They weren’t yet the famous artists 17 that we know from contemporary books and badly curated grasping the world that produced these artefacts and the vision exhibitions, but simply people who took a different stance to of their makers.) the world. In recent decades, he supported artists such as Angel It was different with Fiszman. When he visited Andy Warhol Vergara and Lise Duclaux. in New York, he asked the artist which of his works was the hard- During the opening of an exhibition Fiszman offered to buy est to sell. ‘Most Wanted Men’, replied Warhol: one of his most some of Broodthaers’ jars on the condition that he could smash beautiful, poetical and political works. And Fiszman bought it. them. Broodthaers stated that he temporarily suspended his S.M.A.K. owns a masterpiece by Carl Andre, consisting of artistic conscience and gave Fiszman permission to drop the thin metal pipes that the artist had rescued from a demolished jars, provided he returned the shards.