Anne-Mie V an K Erc Kho
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N° 2 FALL-WINTER 2020 WWW.LOFFICIEL.BE Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven Anne-Mie Van Galila Barzilaï-Hollander Gabriel Kuri, Eric Croes, Alice van den Abeele, Dimitri Jeurissen N°2 Fall-Winter 2020 - 9,50 € L’OFFICIEL ART BELGIUM N°02 N°02 L’OFFICIEL ART BELGIUM Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven: Riot girl Interview by Sarah Schug Photographer Mireille Roobaert Kaleidoscopic, hypnotizing animated drawings and photographs dance across a wide screen, flowing into each other in perfect rhythm with throbbing psychedelic soundscapes. Floating from abstract to figurative and back again, the dreamlike sequences are layered with fragments of philosophical text, from thoughts on neural Darwinism and to what extent perception is influenced by personal values to quotes from Nietzsche and Marcuse. Complex, slightly obscure, and definitely thought- provoking, the film is Anne-Mie Van ANNE-MIE VAN KERCKHOVEN: Kerckhoven’s newest work; it’s on view at “I THINK THAT AS AN ARTIST Brussels contemporary art center Wiels as YOU PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE WITHIN THE part of the group show Risquons-Tout, COMMUNITY. IT’S SOMETHING THAT POLITICIANS AND which runs until 10 January. Cerebral and SCIENTISTS FAIL TO visually stunning at the same time, it’s UNDERSTAND.” characteristic of the artist’s extensive oeuvre, which is deeply rooted in counterculture. 126 PORTRAITS FEATURES 127 L’OFFICIEL ART BELGIUM N°02 N°02 L’OFFICIEL ART BELGIUM “For many years, in the 80s, I worked under the acronym AMVK - and the only reason I did that was because I didn’t want people to see right away that I was a woman.” In Van Kerckhoven’s elaborate universe, SARAH SCHUG: It’s been a challenging more open, following our instincts, and less innovative techniques and themes revolving year for everybody, to put it mildly. How like machines who just do their jobs. I hope around women, gender, technology, and have you experienced the last months? this is a moment to rethink and reboot. I see science, often socially critical, converge. ANNE-MIE VAN KERCKHOVEN: At first, it a bit like a seizure. Active since the 1970s, at the age of 68 I was almost relieved that everything came she shows no signs of stopping and still has to a halt. I was able to work in peace and How has the corona crisis affected your a punky, girlish aura, having preserved the had so much more time on my hands for my personal projects? attitude of the underground. Just this year, film. But that feeling didn’t last very long - [Curator] Kasper Koenig had asked me to she performed with her long-time husband, the situation became too complex and quite make a giant flower and herb carpet on Danny Devos, as Club Moral, an institution in isolating, and on top of that, my mother Basel’s Messeplatz on the occasion of the Antwerp’s experimental music scene since passed away. I am still recovering. I’ve been 50th anniversary of Art Basel. I had already the 80s. Her big, colorful studio in the city’s finding Antwerp quite depressing, especially done something similar for the 500th birth- Borgerhout neighborhood, just around the with the current evening curfew. It’s been day of the Antwerp town hall. My plan was to corner from Zeno X - one of Belgium’s lea- a dark atmosphere. Recently, I was able to make something related to alchemy, because ding galleries, which has been representing have dinner again with a few friends, and Basel, back in the 14th and 15th centuries, her for more than 30 years - is full to the that was very uplifting. We don’t need a lot was pioneering in the field of medicine. First, brim with artworks new and old, books, paint, to get better, actually. I was told the project would be moved to brushes, and all kinds of knick-knacks accu- September, which would have been quite a mulated over the years. Van Kerckhoven Are you worried about the effect the pan- challenge, because the seasonal flowers are comes here every day, although she has a demic will have on art-making and the very different. After all, it will all take place in second studio in her home. “Often I start art world in a larger sense? June next year. At the end of the festivities, at my house and then continue over here,” No. Art will find its way. Especially now, the flowers and herbs, which are grown in she says. “This one is computer-free, which people are realizing how important it is. I trays of pots, will be handed out to the locals. was a conscious decision. It’s very impor- feel there is a shift taking place. There has It’s a project that is critical of the economic tant to me. Here, it’s quiet, and I work with been a lack of spirit, recently, and maybe, realities of the art world. There is no way to my hands. It’s like a different compartment everything will become more human again. commercialize this work; it ends as a present of my head.” Perhaps we’ll become more like animals: for the city. It’s a symbolic gesture. 128 FEATURES PORTRAITS 129 L’OFFICIEL ART BELGIUM N°02 N°02 L’OFFICIEL ART BELGIUM “In an ideal world, it’d be the way Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev imagined it. Living in a community, where you work and study with like-minded people, where you don’t have to deal with money questions.” The group show at Wiels you’re partici- impossible - I was almost hoping to catch in the air that I was very receptive to. I had pating in was able to open as planned, the virus so that I would have an excuse for been attracted by logic and abstraction from fortunately. Can you tell me more about not finishing it. a very young age. I was good at math and the film you’re showing there? finding solutions in a logical way, and at fin- I just finished it last week – or so I thought. You’re quite a pioneer when it comes to ding a new logic. I read a lot of scientific Last night I woke up thinking about seve- incorporating digital methods into your books that I didn’t necessarily understand ral little things I still need to improve. It’s work. You were using computers long but found very interesting. I also had a subs- 33 minutes long and recounts an evolution before they were a common fixture in cription to the New Scientist. These publica- in 12 chapters. In a way, it’s the history of people’s homes. What attracted you to it? tions made me think about the world and the how the brain evolves, from a newborn until When I was still a student at the Antwerp future, and for my works, I borrowed words the end. How it evolves through perception, Academy, I was involved with a group of and ideas from them. They inspired me. creativity, and imagination. The film works students, artists, and scientists who were with 76 images from my archive, going back interested in fringe theatre, Fluxus Art and Why did you choose art, and not science? to the 70s - mainly drawings that came right Deutsche Welle filmmakers like Fassbinder I’d wanted to go to the Art Academy since from my subconscious. I made variations and and Hans-Jürgen Sieberberg. We did per- the age of nine. It was a fixed idea that didn’t animations of these drawings and found formances together and organized under- go away. Even as a small child I would look 12 key ideas inside of them. The evolution ground events. One of these people was Luc at photos in Paris Match of all these existen- of a human being, this thought that you can Steels, who was working on his doctorate tialists and artists, and I wanted to be a part be whatever you want… In the end, there are in linguistics and knowledge representation. of this world, maybe even more than wanting not that many options available. Like they The latter has been a subject that has kept to be an artist. say in Hollywood: There is a limited number its grip on me over the years. He asked me of tales to tell. Every story has its roots in the to create footage for an animation to pres- Where did this come from, at such a chemistry of the mind that invents it. The film ent his doctorate. We used a video system young age? is very abstract. I’ve been working on it for that doesn’t even exist anymore. Unfortu- My father was an artist who abandoned his five months, in a very intuitive way. At one nately, the movie has been lost. It was the art, and my uncle, who lived with us, was as point, I had to turn the logic upside down. 70s, when video, computer, and the digital well. But they were always creative, in every The whole process got really difficult, even were groundbreaking. There was something aspect of life, and my mother’s sisters, too. 130 FEATURES PORTRAITS 131 L’OFFICIEL ART BELGIUM N°02 N°02 L’OFFICIEL ART BELGIUM For me, it was a normal way of being. I had ‘art world’ didn’t value women artists as I never stopped. Did you know pin-ups were a very complicated inner life, even as a kid. highly as themselves. As I already touched painted on bombs? There was this commo- I remember hearing my dad say ‘Anne-Mie, upon, women in general were considered dification of desire, which is part of capi- she’s an artist’.