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 Charle magne, 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.