H INTERNATIONAL <H>ART is a young and fast-growing Belgian print magazine for contemporary art. It wants to keep up with the contemporary expressive art scene in an alert and accessible way. Now in its third year, <H>ART starts working more internationally. That’s why we offer a <H>ART International section, with contributions in English or French. Therefore we selected some good international writers and/or critics, who use their expertise to report about the contemporary expressive art in their region or country. It wouldn’t be only the reviewing of a certain artist or exhibition (although it is allowed when it is particularly interesting), but the critical pointing to new artistic trends and evolutions in the art scene the # critic likes, linked to social, political and economical context. art On the other hand, Belgian photographer Jean-Pierre Stoop pictures the most relevant and interesting contemporary art events of the Belgian contemporary art scene. 63 www.kunsthart.org A dark current runs through the London art world THE EMERGENCE OF THE OCCULT Against a darkly-clouded twilight stoops an elderly tree. From one branch, hanging by a rope, a raven; skewered oddly by another a lightly bloodied fish. In the foreground a coterie of mythological creatures teem and jabber: a crimson-eyed goat, an electric blue skeleton, a long- haired red-skulled monkey, an eagle-headed warrior, an axe wielding goblin. At their head, a crazed, semi-clad figure puts a light to a caul- dron. Smoke billows backwards, and a scorching medieval glow illumi- nates a richly yellow-robed figure, arms crossed under folds of fabric, head bowed and cowed. JOHN STARK, FEAR EATS THE SOUL‚ OIL ON PANEL, 50X60CM, 2010 © THE ARTIST HENRIJS PREISS, ‘NO. 232’, ACRYLIC AND VARNISH ON WOOD, 2009, 244CM X 220CM © THE ARTIST The painting is ‘Fear Eats the Soul’ by seem to be gaining more attention ment of much of the art coming out of Castle’. Not only did he stress the I think a Blakean relationship to the London-based contemporary artist today”. But why now? And why here? it. But it’s not all dark misery and end- importance of seeing things in new and systemic is beginning to emerge, one John Stark. It’s on show at Charlie In ‘The Demon-Haunted World: Science less references to Freud’s ‘unheim- unusual ways – he took project man- that combine order with passion, sin- Smith London as part of an exhibition as a Candle in the Dark’, first pub- liche’; certain artists around London at agers on the local council on “imaginary cerity with irony. In Blake’s epic Jeru- entitled ‘Demonology’. Elsewhere in the lished in 1995, American astrophysicist the moment can, thankfully, see the journeys” for example – but also in hav- salem, Los declares: “I must Create a gallery are weirdly anthropomorphic Carl Sagan writes: “I worry that, espe- funny side. By its very nature, a sym- ing fun. “Everyone’s really up for this,” System, or be enslav’d by another ceramic jugs, a kind of clockwork wellied cially as the Millennium edges nearer, bol is about the potential for duality of he’d said, “because it’s basically a party.” Man’s; I will not Reason and Compare: devil, mysterious, dark, photographic pseudo-science and superstition will meaning, and this is one of the funda- And what a party it was! With Chrome my business is to Create.” images and strange symbolic collages. seem year by year more tempting, the mental elements of British humour. Hoof taking to the stage all clad in sil- Today, artists are constructing their Just down the road on the same night siren song of unreason more sonorous The double-entendre, the pun, even ver as if all the baddies from Doctor own personal systems of meaning and is the opening of Boo Saville’s latest and attractive. Where have we heard it irony itself: all rely on the fact that a Who had got together for a bit of a jam, belief. Symbolism is intensely personal, solo show at Trolley Gallery. ‘Totem’ before? Whenever our ethnic and word or image can mean several differ- and Coates himself tottering about but of course rooted in belief systems of consists of two series of paintings national prejudices are aroused, in ent things according to context, inten- sporting a real horse’s head, it was def- yore. This is unavoidable but also some- examining death, and the way that dif- times of scarcity, during challenges to tion, the attitude of the viewer etc. initely a spectacle. Funny and ridicu- thing worth celebrating. As Boo Saville ferent cultures respond to this most national self-esteem or nerve, when we In October 2009, for example, David lous – yes, but ultimately it was also a puts it, “There is certainly a sense of universal of everyday occurrences. agonize about our diminished cosmic Marron had a wonderful solo show at strange and fantastically thrilling jour- helplessness in the futility of life but I Amongst the skulls and the odd heads place and purpose, or when fanaticism GV Art in Marylebone. Throughout the ney. One that meant something. think that actually that can be libera- and the mummified figures, the most is bubbling up around us – then, habits various downstairs gallery rooms twelve tion. As an artist I have constructed a affecting work – because the hardest to of thought familiar from ages past horrific, ochre, corpse-like figures loom- TRANSIENT TREND belief system for myself, which enable read – is entitled ‘Meme’. Made by reach for the controls. The candle flame ed, lurched, hunched, stretched, grab- me to deal with this futility.” applying household bleach to blackout gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. bed and pointed at the unwary visitor. Interestingly, Marron and Coates pres- Henrij Preiss may be seen to exempli- canvas, this is an eerily blank work. Like Darkness gathers. The demons begin Each one of these life-size zombie-type ent very different reasons for what is fy these very processes: “My paintings perhaps the Turin Shroud, death is to stir.” creatures represented a different char- currently taking place in the London represent a sense of order. What I do is there, but you can’t know exactly where. Might this hold a clue? Certainly there’s acter, so there was The Mother – a multi- art world. For Coates, “it simply reflects remove the particular stories or narra- A few weeks previously, at the London a prejudice and worry afoot. Words like armed monstrosity carrying a baby in what’s going on in society really. There’s tives, and take the underlying frame- Art Fair, I came across the works of ‘terrorism’ or ‘recession’ are every- one hand – and The Arbiter – a wailing a need to believe in something else, par- work, so that I end up with what you Latvian/Russian contemporary artist where we look. “At times of scarcity,” figure hunched in a cage. These are ticularly now after the collapse of con- could call symbolic archetypes, both in Henrijs Preiss, exhibiting in the UK Boo Saville explains, “we reach for com- direct, raw and uncompromising works, sumerism and capitalism. But people particular motifs and in the geometri- with Sesame Gallery. Behind a lush red fort”. And comfort is often associated shocking and powerful, and yet – to my are reluctant to engage in things like cal structures. I then layer these into curtain hang a host of paintings on not with logic but with something more surprise at the time – humour emerges. religion or New Age self-help, so ritual the paintings to create objects that board – in bold reds, blacks, gold and primitive or child-like. These works are actually quite hilarious. can serve that purpose.” address a form of universal geometry, cream – that feature an instantly famil- It’s perhaps interesting here to look at My favourite figure – and the artist’s Marron on the other hand says it’s or a basic symbolic language, which is iar vocabulary of esoteric symbolism. artists like Nick Laessing, Kit Craig, too, he said when I spoke to him – is “probably just another transient trend. common to all human visual systems.” You recognise it immediately but can- Ryan Leigh, and – to a lesser extent – ‘The Senile’. A baffled looking figure People will always be drawn to look at New orders emerge, rooted in those of not know quite from where. Pagan pen- Keith Tyson, whose works all explore sporting a blue hospital coat points the apparently strange whether some the past, straddling science and psy- tagrams, cabalistic diagrams, Byzan- the boundaries between the arts and vacantly into the middle distance. The art oddity, some misshapen person or a chology, Freud and Darwin – unique tine icons: all overlap in layers of the sciences. Leigh’s work fuses the expression is as if he has just remem- traffic accident. People are compelled and personal, but accessible through abstract composition. And yet the refer- aesthetics of these two traditionally bered something frightfully important, to look.” the medium of the symbol. Can they ential specificity has been removed, disparate disciplines – the use of graph but in attempting to articulate this fact, As much as I agree with Marron here – answer all our questions? No, nor leaving these images empty and mean- paper a particularly neat motif here: “I has completely forgotten whatever it and as much as I love his work – I don’t should they. “I believe in science and ingless, and all the more powerful for it. like to use graph paper for a number of actually was.