In the vestibule with Jef Cornelis

Michèle Thériault These texts accompany the exhibition

In the vestibule with Jef Cornelis

Television programs Presented in collaboration directed for the Belgische with Argos, Centre Radio en Televisie (BRT) for Art and Media network from the 1960s () to the 1990s

Curator June 16 – Michèle Thériault August 12, 2016

Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery Jef Cornelis and the medium of television

Jef Cornelis is a Belgian director of a vast number of films and programs for the Flemish Belgian Radio Television net­ work (BRT—now the VRT).1 From 1964 to 1996, he directed more than 100 films on a broad array of topics related to the areas of contemporary culture and art, Flemish landscape and architecture, literature and music. These films and programs are compelling to us today for their experimentation with the televisual format, technique and style, their choice of subject matter and in the way debate and conflict played out. Indeed, many are outrightly prescient. This is all the more surprising for a contemporary viewer, in that they were all produced by a public television network and not independently, something that would be unthinkable today. Although Cornelis studied at the Film Academy in Amsterdam it was his experience living away from Antwerp, his hometown, and his interest in French cinema at the time that impelled him to pursue film work. He was 22 when he

1. Extensive information on and anal­ ysis of Cornelis’s work for television is available online at ARGOS, Centre for Arts and Media (Brussels), which has the Cornelis’s television archive for viewing www.argosarts.org. See also Inside the White Tube: a Retro- spective View on the Television Work of Jef Cornelis curated by Andrea Cinel http://expo.argosarts.org/?lang=EN. Another rich source of information is the research website created by Koen Brams http://jefcornelis.be.

5 was hired by the Artistic and Educational Programmes section or proposed by him to the network.2 He negotiated earnestly of the BRT in Brussels where he was soon given free rein to to obtain what he deemed essential (multiple mobile camera make a film about the Park Abbey Abdij( van Park Heverlee, crews used for sports events; filming from a helicopter; using 1964) near Leuven, one in a number of prize-winning films satellite links; creating a new program format; using different that reveal an incisive and probing use of the camera in its film stock; building unusual film sets; working with a specific dislocation of the subject from centre stage in favour of what technician, scriptwriter or commentator). The success of a exceeded, escaped or was marginal to it—a strategy that project was dependent on the team he was able to put together marked his whole career. Cornelis was a great admirer of Alex­ and its commitment to his approach. Intense and rich intel­ andre Astruc who coined the term caméra stylo as defining an lectual exchanges with a constellation of collaborators with auteur theory of filmmaking that would become associated whom he worked repeatedly were crucial to giving shape to with the cinema of the Nouvelle Vague. He does indeed use the complexity of his framework and discourse. He developed the camera to turn architectural details, volumes and passages long-term relationships with the architectural historian and into the protagonists of his film, as he would with artworks critic Geert Bekaert with whom he made socially critical urban and artistic contexts, thus giving his subjects an autonomy films, the writer Georges Adé who probingly interviewed artists that is pressed onto the viewer. in many of his films on exhibitions and large events, the teacher Cornelis was motivated by a relentless curiosity for the and curator Chris Dercon, who provided him with scripts and medium of television and its communicative properties and an investigative approach to his subjects and Bart Vershaffel formats combined with a profoundly inquiring mind. Topics a polemical philosopher who co-hosted the controversial and ranged from featuring contemporary art and events, architec­ ill-fated Container talk-show series along with the art historian tural heritage, urban planning, bodybuilding, sentimentalism, Lieven de Cauter. exoticism, magazine culture, parapsychology, musical associa­ Although he was not always successful at realizing his tions, cultural policy, intoxication and trance music. Fascinated projects—the interviews done by Koen Brams and Dirk Pültau by different forms of knowledge and social constructs and with Cornelis (available at the research website jefcornelis.be) how they intersect with contemporary culture and society, attest to how politics at the network did not always play in his he explored the televisual format to stage, frame or give free favour— the BRT nevertheless offered him, for over thirty years, rein to their encounter in a critical and often provocative by way of a scattering of supportive superiors and colleagues, a manner. His desire to foster debate, to render here and now space of his own in which he was able to explore the televisual the crux of an exchange, and to bring image and place together medium as a critical site for experimentation. The BRT at its lead him to realize live films and programs using satellite links in the 1980s, such as in the series Icebreakers (Ijsbreker, 2. See the interviews collected 1983-84) and in the marathon six hours filmThe Longest Day by Koen Brams and Dirk Pültau: http://jefcornelis.be/interviews.php (De langste dag, 1986). and particularly “No Question Cornelis was extraordinarily single-minded in imposing that Television Equals Politics” his way of working and his concept of how a topic or subject on the battle to realize the series Container: http://jefcornelis.be/ should be broached in film whether the project was assigned interview_06.php.

6 7 creation in the early 60s shared the utopian values of public broadcasting endeavours at the time practicing openness and improvisation within a society that was questioning institutions, social conventions and colonial power well into the 70s. Over the years the possibilities for critical experimentation disappeared and Cornelis left the BRT after realizing his last film The Colours of the Mind (De Kleuren van de geest) in 1997. Cornelis refuses the term director to define his work and rightly so. He was a realisator: a maker of films and, as a number of critics have stated, a televisual essayist. In his practice he actively worked through ideas—something we can hardly say about any television network director today—one that was engaged and took position in relation to the viewer and the conventions and limitations of his medium, and that let conflict, irresolution and indeed failure be constitutive elements of his work. In the last decade, his work has been increasingly pre­ sented and discussed in the context of contemporary art (ironically there is very little place for it in television today): in art academies and museum symposia and in significant exhibition contexts, notably Inside the White Tube: A Retro- spective View on the Television Work of Jef Cornelis (ARGOS, 2016), In Focus: Jef Cornelis at the Liverpool Biennial (2014), Barely There, Part 1 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (2011) and Are You Ready for TV? at MACBA Museu d’art contemporani (2011, Barcelona). Many of his programs do indeed address contemporary art, artists, exhibitions, cultural policy and events and are, from today’s perspective, signifi­ cant for what they reveal about exhibition making, artistic ethos, and the politics of events. However, this work should be experienced and studied in the context of Cornelis’s entire output particularly by artists, curators, academics and the wide community of cultural workers because of how he opened up for himself, and others, a space for a counter-practice within the communicational technology of his time.

8 Programmes and commentaries

Five programmes presented from Monday to Friday 10:30 to 5:00 pm 26 films playing continuously on two monitors

Please consult ellengallery.concordia.ca for viewing schedule Programme 1 11 films, duration: 5 hrs. 30 min. 2. : Musée 3. Jacques Charlier, 1972 d’art du XVIIe siècle, 1969 16 mm transferred to video, B&W, 16 mm transferred to video, B&W, 4 min. 56 sec. Cornelis’s early films on artists, often in a solo exhibition con­ 4 min. 58 sec. French; English subtitles text (at Wide White Space and at A379089 for example) done Dutch and French; English subtitles The Belgian artist Jacques between 1968 and 1972 after which he stopped working on Cornelis films the closing of Charlier’s artworks criticize, both contemporary art to take it up again in 1983. Included is an Broodthaers’ Musée d’art du XIXème conceptually and aesthetically, Pop Art inquiry on the state of art teaching at three institutions and Siècle – Département des aigles du and Nouveau Réalisme. He looked at Musée d’Art Moderne in his residence his own reality and showed it as it is. an early documentary on the collecting practices of three in Brussels by the director of the Charlier worked for several years at the Belgian collectors. Zeeuws Museum of Middleburg Piet Provincial Technical Service (STP) in van Daalen, the trip to Antwerp Liège. This experience influenced his that followed and the opening by artistic practice as he started to decon­ Piet van Daalen and guests (Johannes textualize STP photographs and doc­ 1. Marcel Broodthaers °1924, 1972 At the exhibition he presented more Cladders, Herman Daled) of Section uments, namely images of the town, 16 mm transferred to video, B&W, than 300 objects and images that du XVIIème siècle – Département roads, drain pipes and water supply 5 min. 6 sec. related to “The eagle from the Oli­ des Aigles at the exhibition space schemes, and present them in different Dutch and French; English subtitles gocene to the Present.” Broodthaers A379089 (co-founded among others exhibition projects. The exhibition made use of museographical aes­ by Cornelis and Kaspar Konig). Documents du STP (Documents of the On September 27, 1968, the thetics and methods to underline how Cornelis makes visible how Brood­ STP) took place at the Royal Museum Belgian poet, filmmaker and artist these can convert everyday objects thaers integrated the vocabulary of of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 1972. Marcel Broodthaers opened his into ones that have a mythical dimen­ museum display and conservation— In Cornelis’s film, we first notice fictionalMusée d’Art Moderne – Dépar- sion. But in many of these ensembles crates, inscriptions, display vitrines, the exit of an office building and then tement des Aigles, Section XIXème he also incorporated a notice stating: identification—in his practice and Charlier explaining why this situation Siècle (Museum of Modern Art, Eagles “This is not a work of art.” how collectors, curators and museums is important for him and what his Department, Section of the 19th Cornelis first introduces the art­ re-enacted their roles. position as an artist is. As he states: Century) in his house in Brussels on ist’s practice and preoccupations, “I make myself a sort of intermediary Rue de la Pépinière. The museum then Broodthaers guides us through between things that really happen then appeared in various guises and his exhibition, discussing with the and the world of art.” His mediation at a variety of venues until 1972, when reporter Georges Adé what turns an shows people what they can under­ Broodthaers permanently closed it object into art—or why it does not stand; Charlier considers this as after opening his Galerie du XXème turn into art. ARGOS an important document because in Siècle (Gallery of the 20th Century) our contemporary society, leaving a against the backdrop of Documenta factory or an office is a common and V (September 1 – October 8, 1972) normal action. ARGOS in Kassel. At the press conference where he announced the closure of the museum, Broodthaers declared: “A fiction allows to grasp the truth and at the same time to understand what is hidden behind the truth.” Cornelis’s film opens with Broodthaers sitting at the entrance of his exhibition (Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles, Section des Figures: Der Adler vom Oligozän bis heute, May 15 – July 9, 1972) in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.

12 13 4. Daniel Buren, 1971 5. Drie blinde muizen 6. , Antwerpen 18 7. James Lee Byars, 16 mm transferred to video, B&W, (Three Blind Mice), 1968 April – 7 May 1969, 1969 World Question Center, 1969 5 min. 40 sec. 16 mm transferred to video, B&W, 16 mm transferred to video, B&W, Video, B&W, 1 hr. 3 min. 28 sec. Dutch and French, English 38 min. 57 sec. 32 min. 30 sec. English subtitles Dutch; English subtitles English In 1969, Byars conceived a work An incisive and clearheaded The Three Blind Mice of the Cornelis shows views of the called The World Question Center, analyst of the art scene, Daniel Buren English nursery rhyme run free until American artist James Lee Byars’s which consisted of an attempt to col­ participated in a number of Cornelis’s the farmer’s wife cuts off their tails exhibition at White Wide Space lect questions from some of the films on artistic events. Georges Adé with a carving knife. Three Blind Mice in Antwerp preceded by a procession ‘100 most brilliant minds’ of the time. interviews the French artist on the was the title of an exhibition at the of participants clothed in white fabric. On November 28, 1968 this perfor­ occasion of his solo exhibition—simply van Abbemuseum of three important Byars talks with Walter Van Dijck mance was broadcast live on BRT. entitled Buren (11 May - 5 June, 1971)— collectors (Fritz Becht, Hubert about his practice and the influence of The artist asked the same question— in front of the Wide White Space Peeters and Martin Visser) of primarily Shintoism and poetry from a decade namely “Could you present us a ques­ Gallery in Antwerp. Buren applied his American and European Pop Art, spent in Japan, and his youth and tion that you feel is pertinent with motif, namely the alternation of white Minimalism and at the travels in the United States. Cornelis’s regard to the evolution of your own and coloured 8.7cm wide stripes, time. Cornelis films them in their direction steadily and quietly reveals knowledge?”—to a number of intel­ inside and outside the gallery along living room, eating with their family at Byars’s obsessive quest for perfection lectuals, artists and scientists. A circle the sidewalk on the front façade of the dinner table, in the company of and beauty through repetitive ges­ of men and women wearing an outfit the gallery. their children and beside their silent tures and the ritual of joining together designed by the artist surrounded In the film, fragments of the wives talking about their reasons for in elaborate and measured collective him on the set. His various interlocu­ interview alternate with views of the collecting, how they started and performances. tors were either present in the room exhibition. Adé assumes the part constructed their collection, and their or contacted over the phone during of the man or woman in the street and relationship to the artists. This film the broadcast. asks simple, but sharp questions conveys to us today a different, The programme was presumably that explore the foundation of Buren’s understated fascination for art that recorded simultaneously on one 2” aesthetics and conceptual frame­ seems oddly to leave behind (or hide) tape and on two 1” Philips tapes (VPL work. Buren explains his practice, his the logic of the market and the 8 in. IC 1800 ft.), an early use of video position regarding the art market, the dynamic of wealth. technology on television. In 2001, one way his work relates to the environ­ of the original 1” tapes from the col­ ment—outside and inside the gallery— lection of Herman Daled was digitized and how the public should experience and restored by Argos and Packed, his installation. Contrasting with Centre of Expertise in Digital Heritage these reflections and concerns, are (Brussels) in collaboration with AV Cornelis’s images of people walking on Works (Haarlem). ARGOS the sidewalk next to the gallery. The passers-by ignore Buren’s site-specific installation.

14 15 8. Richard Hamilton, 1971 9. 3 x Kunstonderwijs 10. Daniel Buren (Palais Royal), 1986 11. Little Sparta, et in Arcadia ego, 16 mm transferred to video, B&W, (3 X Teaching Art), 1983 16 mm transferred to video, 1988 36 min. 30 sec. (broadcast in 1987) colour, 18 min. 16 sec. Video, colour, 41 min. 45 sec. Dutch and English, Viceo, colour, 1 hr. 3 min. 46 sec. Dutch and French; English subtitles English spoken English subtitles Dutch; English subtitles For the installation Les Deux This was Cornelis’s last film with Cornelis films an artist talk by Jef Cornelis wanted to make a film Plateaux (The Two Levels, 1985 – 1986), Chris Dercon and one made because Richard Hamilton at his exhibition at about art education. Developed with Daniel Buren placed a grid of 260 black another film with James Coleman the Palais des beaux-arts in Brussels Chris Dercon, a frequent collaborator and white striped cylinders of differ­ could not be made. Cornelis’s interest in 1971. The talk is preceded by a five- during those years, and in conversa­ ent heights in the elegant courtyard of was in Finlay’s garden Little Sparta minute montage with sound in which tions with Dan Graham, Daniel Buren the Palais Royal in Paris. The installa­ whereas Dercon was more inter­ the camera meanders through works and John Baldessari who were all art tion, commonly referred to as Buren’s ested in understanding his complex by Hamilton. The artist describes his teachers, the film was realized under Columns, turns the venue into a sort use of symbols and references in his relationship to representation and the condition that Cornelis could of chessboard. Moreover, it establishes work (Finlay was at the center of a his use of photography and painting. get the outdoor broadcasting vehicle a dialectic between the ground level controversy at that time concerning He exposes his manner of working used for sports events and three of the courtyard and the level under­ a commission in Paris for the Bicen­ by describing the process of inter­ cameramen and sound technicians. neath, and changes in light permit the tenary of the French Revolution.) vening on a polaroid series of himself Cornelis felt that only this set up installation to be perceived differently How you enter a film is important taken by Francis Bacon that he tries would give him the freedom to accom­ through the day. for Cornelis, and this one opens with to render in the manner of Bacon modate a complex context of students, This film alternates between views a call made to Finlay from a red (who, at the request of Hamilton but teachers, directors, guest artists and of the installation Les Deux Plateaux and telephone box on the side of a country on the advice of his dealer, refuses curators all interacting at once. an interview with Daniel Buren: who is road in Ireland. The visit was made in to transform “into” Bacons). Through With Chris Dercon as a guide, very precise about how he relates to his the late fall in the cold when the attempts and failures Hamilton Cornelis had three artists (Panama­ site-specific work. After analyzing the garden was covered with frost. The explores all at once the question of renko, Guillaume Bijl and Willy general constraints of the site, he formu­ sound track that accompanies the visit art making at the intersection of skill, van Sompel), three art critics (Lieven lates a response to it: the 260 cylinders is ominous creating a tense atmo­ originality, the copy, appropriation, de Cauter, Adriaan van Raemdonck provide a sort of visual echo to the sphere as Finlay takes them around style, value and authorship. As Ham­ and Bart Verschaffel), three gallery columns surrounding the courtyard and the garden. ilton later discusses the distinction owners (Joost Declercq, Benoit create a three-dimensional space The film ends with Finlay angry between Fine Arts and popular art by Angelet and Annie De Decker) and without obscuring the existing architec­ with Dercon for posing the questions referring to Warhol, Cornelis inte­ three museum directors (Jan Debbaut, ture. Or, as he puts it, “the location of his relationship to the Third Reich grates his own film from 1970 on a Jan Hoet and Wilfried Huet) pass (outside or inside) where a work is seen in his work, which Finlay considered Warhol exhibition. half a day in the offices and studios of is its frame (its boundary).” unfair and a form of professional Cornelis captures Hamilton’s fid­ three higher art education institutions Ironically, the aesthetic analy­ abuse. Finlay never gave his permis­ geting as he stands awkwardly before (the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in sis of Buren’s intervention at the site sion to air the film and although it his audience in the middle of the gal­ Gent; the Royal Academy of Fine Arts was overshadowed by a lawsuit and was never shown on television it was lery. The camera moves around him to in Antwerp; the Sint Lucas Higher Art mounting public passion—from the presented in an exhibition context focus on the audience and the filming Institute in Brussels). Chris Dercon announcement of Buren’s project in July in 1991. apparatus repeatedly appears in the boldly poses uncomfortable questions 1985 until the conclusion of the trial frame. At the end the audience has left and makes ironic comments. The con­ in December 1992, there were endless and Hamilton, complicit with the tech­ versations between the artists, discussions about the work. The instal­ nical team, smiles and asks, “Is that curators, directors and teachers reveal, lation became a battlefield between enough?”. at times, an antiquated system, a lack local and national authorities, occasion­ of experimentation and confused or ing hostile arguments between left- frustrated students. and right-wing politicians, leading to debates in the Council of State and the French Parliament, and a lawsuit in a Paris Court. In 1986 alone Les Deux Pla- teaux was the subject of 225 articles and forty-five different reviews. ARGOS

16 17 Programme 2 1 film, duration: 6 hrs. 20 min. Programme 3 6 films, duration: 5 hrs. 30 min.

Cornelis’s filmic commentaries on important large-scale inter­ 1. De langste dag Amidst these activities, Cornelis (The Longest Day), 1986 set up a network of satellite links national exhibitions such as Documenta 4 (1968) and 5 (1972), Video, colour, 6 hrs. 15 min. 48 sec. during the opening: this enabled art­ Sonsbeek 86, the Munster Skulptur Projekt (1987) and the Paris Dutch, French, English, Italian; ists, organizers, critics and the English subtitles public to act and interact live through Biennale (1985) reveal the politics and tensions that shape the medium of television. Remarkably, those events. Included is a round table on the state of the arts June 21 1986. With over six hours this circuit was based on one heli­ in led by Chris Dercon. of live television—hosted in the BRT copter and two mobile camera teams studio in Brussels by the Belgian that set up at several locations. curator Chris Dercon, the Italian The programme did not adopt a point critic Germano Celant and the Greek of view on contemporary art as its In these documentaries on Documenta 4 and 5, Cornelis theorist Denys Zacharopoulos—the starting point, but rather an idea about programme De Langste Dag (The the way images work. Art can suggest, conceptualizes a way of appropriating the event, sidestepping Longest Day) was one of the main suppose and create assumptions, so and questioning the definitions of exhibition makers, but also elements of the art manifestation how about television? Does art tolerate Initiatief ’86, an amalgam of exhibi­ live television and vice versa? The of the medium of television as a subject. He undermines the tions simultaneously unfolding at programme refuses to catalogue authoritarian position offered to him by his medium and he several venues in the city of Ghent. art and it does not offer explanations impels the spectator to judge for him or herself. His stance is Initiatief ’86 came about when a or guidelines, creating instead an dozen of Ghent art associations and open communication model geared the one of the inquiring visitor. The commentary is spare; put galleries started a project for which towards action and activity, reflection into perspective and completed with accompanying inter- three international curators—the and discussion, intervention and French Jean-Hubert Martin, the Dutch reaction. It visualizes without being views. In doing so Cornelis avoided a perspective clouded Gosse Oosterhof and the German reproductive, without being an image by mystifications and myth building. Kasper König —were invited to make or representation. It does display, their personal selection from contem­ however, its own activity as a visual porary visual arts in Belgium. This medium, an activity that does not 1. Documenta 4, 1968 going through an internal generational resulted in three exhibitions at the express itself in signs of cultural value, 16 mm transferred to video, B&W, conflict and a debate on the fragile St. Peter’s Abbey. Jan Hoet, director but in images of an audiovisual 53 min. 19 sec. relationship of aesthetic judgment and of the Museum of Contemporary Art, culture. ARGOS Dutch, French, English, German; democratic forms of reaching a developed a second component to English subtitles consensus. In interviews with Sol this project, namely Chambres d’amis, Lewitt, Joseph Beuys, Harald Szee­ for which he invited fifty Belgian and When Documenta 4 takes place in mann, Allen Jones, Christo, Martial international artists to create a work 1968 the international art world is Raysse and Robert Rauschenberg, in as many private homes as possible. entangled in an authority crisis. At the among others, Cornelis and inter­ The participating organizations also time, artistic director Arnold Bode viewer Karel Geirlandt act the seized the opportunity to develop saw things differently.Documenta 4 everyman and situate themselves on their own activities. The Museum of was overcome with controversy and the side of the bewildered spectator. Contemporary Art exhibited its col­ debate. The politicization of society in lection for an international public and the late 1960s made itself felt in the Belgian artist Wilfried Huet set up Kassel—red flags and groups chanting an event of his own with a number of slogans meant that the opening colleagues at the socio-cultural centre speeches could not be held. The place Vooruit, entitled Initiatief d’amis. occupied by American artists was also criticized. Moreover, Documenta 4 was

18 19 2. Documenta 5, 1972 3. Beeldende kunst in België 4. Spaziergaenger mit Hund 5. Een Openbar bad voor Munster 16 mm transferred to video, B&W (Visual Arts in Belgium), 1986, (Walker with dog) – Sonsbeek 86, (A Public Pool for Munster) 1987 and colour, 53 min. 19 sec. Video, colour, 58 min. 42 sec. 1986 Video, colour, 40 min. Dutch, French, English, German; Dutch, French, English; Video, colour and B&W, Dutch, German, English; English subtitles English subtitles 30 min. 18 sec. English subtitles Dutch, English; English subtitles Documenta 5 in 1972 could The programme Beeldende kunst Cornelis films another large- have gone into history as the first in België, 1986 (Visual Art in Belgium, Sonsbeek 1986 begins with scale artistic event with Chris Dercon instance of an exhibition as a 1986) is a recording of a panel Sonsbeek 1971, also filmed by Cornelis, as scriptwriter, and focuses on the spectacle. Directed by Harald Szee­ discussion that took place in the Royal and it shows very poor black and white artwork but through the mediation of mann from Switzerland, art made Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. images of the opening ceremony the artist and flâneurChristian -Philipp its way back to the museum. The main To a certain extent, the programme is shot directly off television. Cornelis Müller who walks from one work to issue at hand was the economic, a prequel to De langste dag (1986). confused temporalities by seamlessly another contextualising each one and political and media significance of Chris Dercon leads an international joining Sonsbeek 1971 with another its site within local German history. the event for Kassel. It was as if the panel in which renowned art curators edition of Sonsbeek, fifteen years later Each work is a narrative overlaid with avant-garde was buried for good. and critics participate, namely Barry scripted by Chris Dercon. In 1971, a sometimes more troubled history. The significance potential of art was Barker, Bernard Blistène, Laurent Cornelis films conversation and At intervals, a dancer interacts with individualized and proclaimed a Busine, Bice Curiger, Jan Debbaut, protest over the elitism and costs of some of the sculptures. The film matter of the artists on the one hand— Frans Haks, Jan Hoet, Kasper König, the event, along with artists explaining ends on an interview by Dercon with envisioned as individual mytholo­ Bernard Marcelis, Jean-Hubert Martin their work (Oldenburg, Buren, Klaus Bussman and Kaspar König, gists—and a responsibility of the and Wim Van Mulders. Smithson). In 1986, he films in full the director of Skulptur Project in curator on the other. Artist-curator on As all of them are involved to a colour and with only ambient sound a his office discussing publicness, the one side, artist-professional on the different extent with Belgian art, they succession of objects isolated in the fragmented condition of the artist, other: this constellation was to are asked to discuss and answer an landscape and identified by running the unpopularity of such a project and deter­mine the Documentas in the apparently fundamental question: texts at the bottom of the frame, only the dialogue with the museum. All decades to come. Although this film “What is the significance of the phe­ Dercon in a single instance enters the the while in the background Müller brings an outlook on trends of the nomenon of visual arts in Belgium in frame and presents a glass sculpture seated at a desk, seems to be doing moment, such as conceptual art and 1986?” But the story turns out to be by Dan Graham. The reportage ends his accounts. kitsch, it can’t be considered merely as more complicated. Dercon asks the with an interview by Dercon with a report of a historical event: it is also panel members to put the new interest Sonsbeek curator Saskia Bos. The a possible approach to the phenom­ in Belgian art in a broader context subjects are fiction and the transpar­ enon of ‘Documenta’ as a whole. and to evaluate the promotional tools ency of glass, an element of many Texts by Yves Aupetitallot from that the regional governments have projects at Sonsbeek. ARGOS the set of DVDs co-produced by set up: Did curators and critics change bdv (bureau des vidéos) (Paris) with their view of Belgian art? Or is it due Argos, Centre for Art and Media (Brus- to a new approach of the Belgian sels), JRP|Ringier (Zurich) and artistic scene? Or is it a matter of the Le Magasin (Grenoble), with the sup- quality of the works of art? In the end port of the Centre national des Arts how can one define an artistic scene plastiques (Paris). nationally ? ARGOS

20 21 6. Biënnale van Parijs Programme 4 4 films, duration: 4 hrs. 10 min. (Biennale of Paris), 1985 Video, colour, 1 hr. 7 min. 40 sec. Dutch, English, German, Two television series initiated by Cornelis in which he experi­ French, Italian and Spanish; mented with format: Ijsbreker (Icebreaker) (1983-1984) that English subtitles ran for 22 episodes and the controversial Container (1989) For the first time the Paris Bien­ that was canceled after 10 episodes. Their aim was to foster niale was held in 1985 at the recently a free debate of ideas. opened Grande Halle in the new Parc de la Villette —the thirteenth edition since its creation in 1959. Organized by an international team of curators and In the series Ijsbreker (Icebreaker, 1983-1984), Jef Cornelis art critics including Georges Boudaille used satellite links— an advanced technology at that time— and Gérald Gassiot-Talabot (French), Kasper König (German), Alanna Heiss as a way to render the play between various ideas and dis- (American) and Achille Bonito Oliva cussions and to experiment with unconventional televisual (Italian), the Biennale was a platform for frameworks. Three locations and as many participants were both established and up-and-coming artists active in the mid-1980s such as confronted to one another in a discussion on a contempo- Georg Baselitz, Daniel Buren, Richard rary topic. Cornelis wanted to achieve simultaneity in time Deacon, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Anish Kapoor, Anselm Kiefer, Bertrand and image. This resulted in a creative confusion. Because Lavier and Lawrence Weiner—most conversations were taking place in different locations, con- of them filmed installing their work. trol was quickly lost and digressions rife thus leaving the Cornelis is both interested in the location of the Biennale at the newly spectator confused and lost. designed open park on the site of the old Abattoirs and by the politics of an event such as this. He lets the 1. Ijsbreker 01 : Panamarenko sels interfacing with the two live feeds. curators and the artists speak freely (Icebreaker 01: Panamarenko), 1983 Panamarenko presented his research thus revealing strategic maneuvering, Video, colour, 48 min. 48 sec. on magnetism while Hirschfield, Adé differences and tensions. He docu­ Dutch; English subtitles and Roelants, somewhat perplexed ments the conversations held during and hesitant, offered comments the preparatory phases of the event This first broadcast in the series and questions. The program reveals about the revival of figurative art, the Ijsbreker was devoted to the artist Panamarenko’s elusive, child-like role of museums and television, the Panamarenko. Cornelis featured single-mindedness as he selectively individual nature of artistic experience, Panamarenko frequently in his answers or redirects questions or and reveals more specifically the strat­ programs on art. The artist who built comments. The program format puts egies employed by the organizers to flying machines that were widely forth an early attempt at opening up address the stakes and debates at the exhibited at the time, was fascinated art making to other disciplines and moment of this event. by aeronautics and magnetic fields. registers of thought. Text by Yves Aupetitallot from Panamarenko and his mother were the set of DVDs co-produced by filmed at the artist’s workspace in bdv (bureau des vidéos) (Paris) with Antwerp, the author Georges Adé at Argos, Centre for Art and Media (Brus- his home in Michelen with Herman sels), JRP|Ringier (Zurich) and Roelants, philosopher of science, and Le Magasin (Grenoble), with the sup- Charles Hirschfield, professor of port of the Centre national des Arts thermodynamics in the studio in Brus­ plastiques (Paris).

22 23 2. Ijsbreker 16 : Lichamen – 3. Ijsbreker 19 : Verzamelen van The series Container (1989) became a legendary television Toonbeelden (Icebreaker 16: kunstvoorwerpen (Icebreaker 19: programme because of its format, the openness of the debate The Body – Model Images), 1984 Collecting Art Objects), 1984 Video, colour, 71 min. 34 sec. Video, colour, 1 hr. 8 min. 50 sec. and its intellectualism. The subject of sustained criticism it Dutch; English subtitles Dutch; English subtitles was removed from the air after 10 episodes. Cornelis cre- ated a self-contained structure namely a container, with one Icebreaker 16: The Body – Model In this episode two collectors are Images explores the topic of “body cul­ brought together—one a painter who side thrown open, which he had designed by the architect ture”. During the live broadcast three is a collector of Japanese swords in Stéphane Beel and set up in a studio. It was a lab for ideas different sites are connected with sat­ Antwerp, the other an art photographer ellite links: a center for bodybuilding, who collects vernacular objects in and debate on the most wide ranging of cultural and phil- a photo shoot for a fashion magazine, Eindhoven—with an art historian and osophical topics led by the philosophers Lieven de Cauter and the studio in Brussels, where the restorer from the Royal Institute of and Bart Verschaffel that usually ended in an inconclusive Belgian philosopher Rit Van den Bergh Artistic Heritage and an art dealer questions a culture which she feels specializing in Japanese Netsuke both manner. Cornelis had it broadcast late at night, “at a time is lapsing into narcissism and imita­ located in Studio 3 of the BRT in no one wanted, the non-time of television.” tional behaviour. The programme is Brussels. Each collector tells the story conceived as a comparative study of of why and how he collects revealing a number of aspects of contemporary very different attitudes. Awkwardly body culture, and focuses in partic­ the collector of vernacular art barely 4. Container 10 : Exotismen documents of culture? Are exoticism ular on the opposition between the addresses the subject in his sin­ (Container 10: Exoticism), 1989 and racism branches that grow on the “decorative” world of fashion models gle-minded determination to discuss Video, colour, 57 min. 36 sec. same tree? Is exoticism at the root of and the “muscular and healthy” world his own photographic practice. Dutch; English subtitles its own caricature? Is it fundamentally of bodybuilders. It all quickly turns This results in the other guests possible to move beyond exoticism? into an unreal clash between various calling him to order and embarrassing The last episode of the series is ARGOS subjective positions and mind frames. interruptions. The disjunctive about exoticism. In the panel discus­ ARGOS exchanges address questions of sion the philosopher Lieven De Cauter, fetishism, pleasure, expertise, the historian Eddy Stols, the anthro­ knowledge, authenticity, forgeries, pologist Paul Vandenbroeck and the and market value. philosopher Bart Verschaffel discuss the predominantly Western fascination with exotic cultures communicating very different attitudes and viewpoints on the subject. Exoticism often gets in the way of an objective understanding of other cultures and is also considered an intellectually incorrect term. It confirms and reproduces deep-rooted stereotypes and representations, it creates dream worlds that influ­ ence our perspective, making us see things the way we want to see them. Accordingly, we can consider exoti­ cism as intercultural counterfeiting. Is exoticism a projection mechanism for repressed fears and longings? Might exotic objects be perceived both as documents of barbarism and

24 25 Programme 5 4 films, duration: 3 hrs. 25 min. 3. Pau Brasil : Je vindt niet, wat je 4. De Kleuren van de geest zoekt (Brazilwood: ‘You don’t find (The Colours of the Mind), 1997 what you are looking for’), 1992 Video, colour and B&W, 42 min. Four films realized in the 70s and the 90s that show Cornelis’s Video, colour, 57 min. 14 sec. 39 sec. (format 16:9) broad range of interests (from the social meaning and Portuguese; English subtitles Dutch; English subtitles impact of the street and the highway to the hybrid culture “You don’t find what you’re De kleuren van de geest (The of Brazil) including Cornelis’s last film for the BRT on the looking for” is a phrase that is found colours of the mind) was broadcast on phenomenon of trance music De Kleuren van de geest (The on an artwork by Brazilian artist Cildo October 28, 1997, and was Cornelis’s Meireles. It captures the difficulty of final programme for the BRT. A visual Colours of the Mind, 1997). defining Brazilian culture, its par­ essay about trance in music, iconog­ ticular hybridity in its long relation­ raphy and disembodiment in history, ship with European and Portuguese Cornelis meanders through epochs 1. De straat (The Street), 1972 2. Rijkweg N1 (Highway N1), 1978 cultures. Conceived at the time of the and regions, cultures and artistic 16 mm transferred to video, B&W, 16 mm transferred to video, colour exhibition American Bride of the Sun practices. He refers to old prints with 39 min. 30 sec. and B&W, 42 min. 45 sec. at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts horrifying spiders and melodies as English Dutch; English subtitles in Antwerp this project was realized antidote to their bites, as well as to the by Cornelis with Chris Dercon, who European paintings of the fifteenth With sound and image, One in a series of films in which wrote the script. Developed around and the sixteenth centuries that depict Jef Cornelis and screenwriter Geert Cornelis used helicopter shots to a series of Europeans and Brazilian Moorish dances, the Southern Italian Bekaert, with whom he made a enhance the camera’s exploration of texts attempting to define Brazil read Tarantella and the Northern African number of architectural and “land­ context and the relationships between by Brazilian artists, writers or critics, Gnawa music. scape” films, evoke the deterioration places and views. Highway N1 links the film is interspersed and over­ Is there a link between contem­ of the street, once public, into a Antwerp to Brussels, a road layed with music, still images of early porary electronic dance music and the fragment of an unnatural, ruthless well-traveled, which has undergone representations of Brazilian natives various kinds of healing rituals that production system. This film is related profound changes over time. Cornelis and landscapes, film clips of contem­ are inherent to traditional folk dances? to the exhibition De Straat. Vorm van and Geert Bekaert, muse on the social, porary cinema (among which an early In the 1990s, Trance music—“trance” samenleven (The street. A way of living cultural and political effects of Levi-Strauss ethnographic film shot referring in this instance to a state together) that took place at the van the highway focusing on the stretch on location), contemporary art works, of hypnotism and heightened con­ Abbemuseum in Eindhoven from June between Kontich and Mechelen. views of Sao Paulo and its biennial. sciousness—was a genre of electronic 2 to September 24, 1972. The exhi­ Cornelis and Bekaert divided the film The film, in its subtle juxtapositions music that became an international bition assigned a central role to ‘the in seven parts each addressing in and camera work, gives expression phenomenon. It seems that attempts user’. It was hoped that raising issues a commentary its distinctive ecology to the formal and social tensions in are made to breathe new life into concerning the environment and the (doors and windows, its non-motor which Brazilian culture finds itself and the ancient art of healing making use way it was planned and designed, related activities) or its relationship to communicates the contingent nature of innovative technological equipment. would activate public awareness and the environment (boundary, what lies of a hybrid identity. All in all, the ancient European dances, participation in cultural and social beyond, its edges). The resulting filmic the still active North-African esoteric processes. The street was an expres­ essay is both philosophical and systems and the recent techno rituals sion and manifestation of society political in its montage of images and are expressions of a single desire: to itself, and it is probably for this reason words. The highway embeds itself in be possessed. In some way, today that Cornelis refused to take part to the landscape, shaping lives and social dancing becomes again a way to the exhibition and instead proposed practices while it appears to deplete abandon one’s body and to link the to broadcast (precisely on September the social and cultural fabric of mind to a ‘Greater Unity.’ ARGOS 14, 1972) his film on Flemish television. communities. As a result, the exhibition was not confined to the walls of the museum, reaching out over the airwaves in order to involve television in an actual social process. ARGOS

26 27 Design: Karine Cossette

© Michèle Thériault, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, ARGOS, Centre for Art and Media (Brussels)

ISBN 978-2-920394-99-5

Support: Canada Council for the Arts

In the vestibule with Jef Cornelis was realised in collaboration with ARGOS, Centre for Art and Media (Brussels).

Legal Deposit Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec Library and Archives Canada, 2016

Acknowledgements: Nathalie Blais, Andrea Cinel (ARGOS), Karine Cossette, Hugues Dugas, Margot Lacroix, André Lamarre, Rolf Quaghebeur (ARGOS), Jean-Louis René, Robin Simpson and Yasmine Tremblay.

LEONARD & BINA ELLEN ART GALLERY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY 1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West, LB-165 Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8 [email protected] ellengallery.concordia.ca