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Corneille was born in 1922 in Liège, Belgium as Cornelis van Beverloo. He was active from the beginning within the group and besides painting he also published poetry in the Cobra magazine.
Corneille and Karel Appel, who where wartime friends, often worked togheter in the appartment of Karel Appel in Amsterdam. Corneille who was poetic and less aggressive was influenced by Klee and Miro. He began collecting African art after the group dissolved in 1951 and moved to Paris. In his work these primitive artifacts became evident. His works begin to take an imaginative style, like from a birds eye view landscape, stylized forms and exotic birds. |
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Did you ever take the time to think about the memories that once where so important to you…I did.
Being a little boy, my mother used to make all kinds of things involving characters that were a part of our dreams. Somehow these memories of my early childhood have made a big influence on the visuals I wanted to share with other people. One can never forget the child we once used to be and hopefully remain for the time that is granted to us. I myself had to discover that the adult world and childhood are not that far apart, meaning that no matter the age we will still remain children of our time. Coming to think of it, it will never be about the characters or the colors or the visual impact, all I do care about is the joy you hopefully will experience looking at a piece of art that happened to made by me. I don’t sell art, I don’t sell paintings, I just hope I can bring a little bit of color into your life. Wouldn’t it be nice to discover or rediscover the child within yourself that you once used to be, and knowing that, pass on the virtuous that once were and always will remain important. As a little boy I discovered that the road has more marks than the road marker. I’m pretty sure that eventually our roads will lead to our same destiny. Don Ken |
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He refers to himself as 'the most Colombian of Colombian artists', probably because his works are representative of his Columbian roots. Settled in Paris now, Fernando Botero Angulo was born on 19 April 1932 in Medellín, Antioquia, Colombia. A field painter and sculptor, he is best described as a neo-figurative artist, and came into the limelight when he won the first prize at the Salón de Artistas Colombianos in 1952.
Fernando Botero has been called an abstract artist, choosing colors, shapes and proportions on intuitive aesthetic thinking. He has created parodies of the works of Albrecht Dürer, Pierre Bonnard, Diego Velázquez. And critics have named his figures 'large people' as the exaggerated proportions and corpulence of the human and animal figures in his paintings and sculptures stand out strongly, painted as they are in bright decorative hues. His paintings and sculptures (notably monumental bronzes) typically include individual and family portraits, nudes, equestrian figures, bullfighting scenes and still-life. To this he responds: "An artist does not know why he is attracted to certain kinds of form. The position is adopted position intuitively and it's only later that you analyse it." Fernando Botero lost his father when he was just two years old and did not visit museums or have any other cultural experiences during his childhood. But by the age of 16, his first illustration was published in El Colombiano, the Colombian newspaper. He paid for his high school education at the Liceo de Marinilla de Antioquia by earning through illustrations. His personal exposition was held in 1952 in Bogotá at the Leo Matiz gallery. He also won the IX edition of the Salón de Artistas Colombianos in the same year and went to Europe to study the arts. He attended the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, was strongly influenced by Velázquez, Goya, Diego Rivera and admired the frescoes in Florence. In 1956-57, he went on a visit to Mexico where muralism influenced him. He lived in New York City (1960-73) before moving to Paris. Since the 1990s, his work gained darker shades as the drug-fueled guerrilla warfare raged in Colombia. He created paintings and drawings of kidnappings, massacres, torture and death. And the theme continues in paintings that depict the abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. |
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Huang Yin’s Art and Life - by Shen Wei As a person from the same generation as Huang Yin, when recently I went to her studio and stared into her new works, it felt like there was something unsettling within them. So I decided to calmly think it over and realized that those small sensitive details might be frustration stemming from some conflict between her experiences and her soul. The theme of “pain” is not new in the history of Chinese contemporary art, but it often becomes simplified as the direct result of societal change. For example, “scar art” that depicts the reality of the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution and “cruel youth” interpreted as the capitalistic circumstances which young artists faced from the late 1990s. But the issue is much more complicated than that. The previous generation of artists had reason to use their memories of the Cultural Revolution to gain recognition, but the artists born after 1970 create art not directly based on events in society but rather closely related to their personal lives. They are diverse to the point that sometimes the differences within the same generation are far greater than those between different generations. Therefore if we simplify these sensations to the societal element, then the word doesn’t fit the meaning. Therefore, it becomes even more important to understand the artist’s personal experiences and growth. Huang Yin’s childhood was like a dream and this might be due to the societal environment of the 1970s, but we must not forget that a child’s world and an adult’s are very far removed from each other. She could only rely on her own limited knowledge to imagine the obscure world in which she lived. Also, more importantly, remember Freud’s psychological theory, it’s those trifle matters in childhood that may determine the artist’s direction in the future. It’s easy to see that the red scarf she draws has no political significance. Perhaps, artists often use red scarves with soldiers or use them to symbolize politics and relate it to specific events in history, but in the case of Huang Yin, she’s never directly drawn political expressions such as “Red Guards,” “Great Criticism,” “portraits of leaders”, because in her works, the red scarf is only a symbol of how one individual feels about that time, chasing after oneself in the past. As the artist reports, she couldn’t do without painting these pieces and even if there are other themes of her own interest she cannot not face them until after these works are complete. For Huang Yin, self-reflection is an extremely strong desire, therefore, the creation of this series is a remembrance of growth and reflection; at the same time, it is a starting point for reflection on where one comes from and where one’s going. This element has always been hidden within her works, and on certain quiet nights, one can feel it creep upon them. If the audience or the critics pay attention to her creative history, they can easily become aware of this hidden element. Within her early works of the late 1990s, we discover a gentle but sad quality. Her later “Dog” series, pieces ike “Romeo,” “Injury,” “Compromise,” “Bride,” and “Angel,” all have something in common: some small body parts have a small ‘+’ shaped band-aid over an injury. Within the same series, in the piece “Juliet,” there’s a very small almost unnoticeable tear hanging off the corner of her eye. These traces of pain are not very obvious to the eye; sometimes they appear in the corner of the painting, not drawing any attention to them. These small details are exactly the “pain” that the artist feels compelled to draw. The pieces mentioned above have once been studied as pieces of feminist art by two female students, but I look at them from a more individual perspective. From a theoretical angle, women are perhaps more emotionally developed and more sensitive than men but this does not accurately describe the artist’s new works, because in this day and age, men also express their feelings of pain. Therefore, I think that the traces of pain may not be representative of a typical female perspective but rather are about the artist’s experiences of growing up. From the fervent 1960s to the decadent 1970s, the world was made up of America’s hippy generation, student movements in France, and China’s Cultural Revolution, a complicated scene of many layers, creating memories of a romantic and enthusiastic time period. Born in the early 1970s, it’s as though Huang Yin has caught the last car on this speeding timeline. Her childhood years were in sync with the last years of the Cultural Revolution but her family was free from the chaos. In her mind, the Revolution was just a far away, romantic broken red piece of history. The artist’s memories of the Revolution are very vague; she only has flashes of a distant relative walking in the street holding a small red flag. Therefore, in the eyes of this little girl, unaware of the events of the world, the 1970s with their experiences of love and hate, their joys and pains like those of the “intellectual youth”, were like a warm lovely dream, a kind of utopia-like dream which has firmly planted itself into her mind. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, China’s economy and culture were going through a revolutionary change, at the same time as this change deeply affected Chinese society and the lives of the common people, it’s no doubt that a young and impressionable adolescent Huang Yin was also greatly affected. Her dream-like childhood was interrupted, and the new icon Mickey Mouse started to charge the red scarf which soon turned into an old dream. However, this “charging” does not mean that Mickey Mouse wanted to destroy it, but quite the opposite, from start to finish, the mouse is smiling and has a friendly expression, and very quickly blends into Huang Yin’s life. Many years later, artists finally understood: the values the mouse represented have already quietly disappeared at that time. These events lied deep within her heart until now as she uses them as motivation for her new artwork. Thus, “what makes us swing two oars” becomes a heavy haze, the spirit of the young pioneers are surrounded and being commanded by mice, and hence live between two different values of life intensely colliding with each other. We call this kind of change a “collision”, but it does not mean that value and sensibility are completely opposed with one another. In other words, unlike the earlier generation or the later generation, these new artists don’t naturally identify with “idealism” or “Mickey Mouse” culture. Huang Yin happened to grow up in this alternate time period, facing a new environment. From then on, artists have left the imagination that they grew up with and the red light rays of their ideals have slowly dissipated, losing their original tendencies. Before she could feel the warmth of ideals, she was awoken by an unexplainable reality, and grew up within two different values bound together. The combination of the “three constantly read articles”, cigarettes, dice, smiles, tears and a smashed tomato, these strange images appropriately express her feelings and retrospect of the past. The difference is more focused within the art pieces with subjects of the ocean or sailing. The painting is covered in ocean blue and a gloomy mood comes spilling forth. In pieces like “Forever,” the young pioneer with its back towards the onlookers is swinging a couple of oars while the little boat sails towards the unknown ocean horizon. In this painting, the pioneer is not a political symbol but rather represents the way Huang Yin remembers the 1970s. When we stand in front of the canvas, softly humming “Let our generation swing the oars”, a ballad that has captured the spirit of a generation, youth is not revealed in its original glory and passion but instead as a loss and solitude. As a person of the same age, Huang Yin and I share the same love for the movie “The Truman Show”. In the end, Truman decides to escape the place where he grew up—a stage broadcast live to the whole world— by sailing away on a small boat, racing towards an unknown utopia. Here, we can see the intertextuality between this film and Huang Yin’s paintings, it’s fantastical but unknown. Huang Yin was destined to leave the bright red rays of light, perhaps the artist herself has never focused on what the bright lights actually are, but have always felt its warmth, allure and energy, like an unfulfilled fantasy. Within a revolution created by time, space and society, she’s bound to leave everything she had, like Truman, and face another unknown world. Therefore, Huang Yin must leave the made-up adult world that she’s imagined, must give in to her spiritual weaning and grow up. I think those things that deserve our praise are actually the pain of growth. The artist has recently added a new element to her new works: she has added a curtain around the frame. The curtain has transformed the way the audience views her works, and has also transformed the direct relationship the artist had with her own work. The addition of a curtain has created a new space, similar to the space created while looking through a window, stage or television, further separating the audience and the ocean within the painting by using the method of “watching”; this also disconnects the artist herself from her own history. If we intentionally regard the gloomy ocean and the pioneer with his back towards the onlookers as Huang Yin’s personal changes which had taken place during her youth, then the curtain definitely separates them. The artist is in a distant place, objectively and calmly thinking, it’s as though she’s peeking into her own growing years. Behind all this her reluctance to be involved is hidden, but she can’t directly face this conflicted feeling. Other two pieces also has scenes of looking out the window at a small boat going forward with no intention of turning back. One day, when Huang Yin was standing in her studio deep in thought, I saw a similar scene: the artist herself was standing among her works, facing me with her back, and her paintings at a far distance. It was as if future, present and past were all captured at that moment and at that time, I suddenly understood the meaning of “Forever” and “On the Road”. In her new works or even in her unfinished pieces, we see some enormous balloons. These balloons are depicted as very thin and extremely delicate, to the point that the slightest bit of outward pressure could cause their demise. It’s these balloons that bear the weight of the young pioneers. Young people are almost completely oblivious to the world under their feet, let alone the events of the future. This feeling of risk happening at any moment drifts onto the canvas, and if we look carefully enough, we’ll discover a hidden hand reaching out from the canvas outside corners or sides. This is similar to the famous photograph of Marilyn Monroe where the mysterious hand actually belonged to the mouse—this is the common theme among Huang Yin’s new works. Within the eyes of the newly graduated generation of artists, for example, the cartoon character of Mickey Mouse has become the icon of positive values. Some of these icons also appear within Huang Yin’s new artworks but they hold a more complicated and ambiguous implication, hence, it is their appearance that rapidly changes our society’s culture, and has greatly impacted the artists’ adolescence. Perhaps these are the experiences that artists hope to express through their art. Like the delicate balloons and the steady red scarf, the cigarette within the work “Moved” is obviously full of emotion, standing alongside the Little Red Book; the smile on the face of the mouse within “Solicitude” and the young pioneer’s stiff expressions are opposite of one another; the smile and the face of tears within “Good” are completely contrary. After seeing Huang Yin’s art, while I was writing this commentary, I also thought about the value of these paintings. What place could these pieces of individual experience and emotion hold in contemporary Chinese art? I unintentionally placed her works under a certain rather farfetched category because they evoke very different emotions, absolutely not just how pain is depicted but also personal issues rooted in the present, addressing also past memories. At some point in time they will secretly prick you, but can popular art of the consumer generation do that? Shen Wei Shen Wei is a renowned Chinese choreographer, director, dancer, painter and designer. Shen Wei is recognized for his vision of an intercultural, interdisciplinary, original mode of movement-based performance, and his innovative blend of traditional Chinese opera, dance and music with Western performance art such as ballet. |
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Igor Tcholaria (1959, Ochamchiri, Georgië), heeft de kunstacademie van het Instituut voor kunst en industrieel ontwerp in St. Petersburg doorgelopen. Hij is bijzonder geïnspireerd geraakt door vernieuwende meesters als Picasso, Modigliani en de Franse Impressionisten. Het officiële Sovjet-beleid trok echter een strakke lijn met betrekking tot de getolereerde kunst en stelde individuele artistieke inbreng niet op prijs. Zo werd Tcholaria ineens bestempeld als een kunstenaar met “on-officiële” ideeën, waardoor hij de Academie moest verlaten. Deze onvoorspelbare positie en zijn onzeker bestaan kwam tot een einde toen Gorbachov aan de macht kwam en het ijzeren gordijn langzaam maar zeker afbrokkelde.
In het vroege stadium van zijn carrière heeft Tcholaria de meesters die hij zo bewonderde altijd goed geobserveerd en deze observaties verwerkt hij nu in zijn huidige werk. Zijn doel is niet om te imiteren maar te parafraseren. Tcholaria wil de essentie van de Impressionisten, Picasso, Modigliani en Chagall uitfilteren en hieraan zijn eigen nuance geven. Qua kleurgebruik is Tcholaria bijzonder uitgesproken, dit is misschien een consequentie van de ‘donkere’ jaren die hij heeft meegemaakt in de Sovjet Unie. De kleuren knallen van het doek, maar creëren door de zorgvuldig gekozen en rake vormen een gebalanceerd geheel. Met zijn schilderijen wil Tcholaria een aanstekelijk en verwarmend optimisme uitstralen, door middel van de rijkdom aan kleuren en onderwerpkeuze. Zijn onderwerpen beslaan dromen, maar ook kleine, alledaagse dingen, die toch intens gelukkig kunnen maken. Hij wil hiermee die momenten vastleggen waarop men zich intens gelukkig voelt, maar tegelijkertijd wil hij deze ook creëren voor de toeschouwers van zijn werk. De dikke lagen verf tonen ook zijn eigen enthousiasme en gedrevenheid in het vervaardigen van de doeken. |
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She draws contours which she puts down in paint later on. In “boxes”, as she says herself. Very unique. Makes me think a bit of the pixels forming a digital image. Afterwards she adds fragments of colour. Bowie, Jagger, Monroe, Che Guevara, Madonna, Diana… Icons she looks up to and whose life she has studied in great detail.\nHow do you typify the life of such a person? What do you put down on the canvas? Profusion is fatal. A selection thus needs to be made. Bowie… 2 large heads covering all but the entire canvas and a small figure, a shape, at the top right. Bowie, drawn by 2 personalities, one masculine and one feminine. And further to subtly confirm this discord: 2 eyes, so typical for all who know this rock star, of different colours.\nJanice devours biographies, always starts a couple of works at the same time – in this manner she actually lives in the midst of the persons she admires – and finishes these works as she finds inspiration or gains new insights. It concerns parallel lives and worlds, so that (artistic) fertilisation is always in the air. At times Janice paints impulsively, at other times very deliberately. She spends many laborious hours at finishing the contours.\nWhat does she find inspiring about Lady Di? The things she did for the poor. It sounds a bit naive, or perhaps rather: simplistic, but `this is exactly what is inherent in stardom’. The tragic nature of her life, she says, first a dream wedding and then a hell. The bipolarity, the ups and downs, the fight against hierarchies and the relentless media attention, a battle you cannot possibly win. Revolt… A feeling regularly surging within Janice. She sympathises with the protagonists of her works. She also paints the revolt against injustice with a certain level of cynicism. In her fantasy, Lady Di is crucified and the crucifix is covered with the Union Jack. They killed her. Didn’t they? Janice does not hold back; even when she is talking she does not: straight from the shoulder. But she switches from seriousness to roaring laughter in no time. Once again the bipolarity also present in her works.\n\n“I revolt from time to time”, she says. “I was in such a mood at that time. Well, I won’t paint the Beatles at times like that. When I painted them, I was in a rare pleasant mood. That’s just the way it is. My mood is in harmony with what I put down on the canvas. Just look at the Flower Power, the flowers on the clothes, the gestures of peace…”. She also respects figures such as Madonna and Freddy Mercury because they break taboos. In the case of Marilyn, her destiny. Fatal beauty. Or was it vanity that killed her? Naivety, perhaps?\n\n“No, don’t nag”, she finally says. “I won’t use any more colour. I don’t care about aesthetics! Sometimes you will find the traces of an original drawing from which I deviate later on. A position, a single attribute or a reference should suffice. It is all about a feeling I want to express. A feeling that summarises an entire life!”
Johan De Bruyne When you first glance at Janice Devali’s paintings you think to yourself, “Another pop-idol portrait painter,” but upon closer inspection you begin to see true artistic talent. You see the artist’s personal feelings and emotions in the faces and figures in each painting; you realize they have a unique distinct expression of how the artist sees them as people. She paints them true to her own thoughts. Mao has been painted and printed so many times with the same semi-Mona Lisa smile. Janice Devali, after a trip to China, a different Mao in her mind, a sadder, older, defeated man. Her painting of Princess Diana shows her as a strong, firm figure embracing the flag of her nation, rather than the usual smiling Lady Di. She also made two Sarkozy paintings, In addition to seeing a full Sarkozy face we witness him dressed as Napoleon and riding a horse with Carla Bruni by his side as Joan of Arc. The second painting of Nicolas Sarkozy, in my opinion, is one of the strongest, with an especially well proportioned nude painting of his wife, Carla Bruni. In the artist’s mind Sarkozy is strong and proud, and does not care what other people say or think. Most of Janice Devali's work features a black outline of the person; not the straight simple lines of Matisse or Klee, but a unique form of outline created by a slow tedious painting style forming an almost pixilated look. Depending on the person being painted, Janice Devali will occasionally fill in these unique lines or outline them with a bit of color, while other times leaving them open. When Janice Devali interjects color to her paintings it’s not to finish a canvas but with the total thought of why she sees the color; the blood from Princess Diana’s shoulder as if she had been crucified. The red Napoleon-esque hat worn by Sarkozy is there as if to say, “Look at me!”, and the lower portion of the Beatles painting lends an aura of youth and teenage happiness: this is the way Janice Devali thought of the Fab Four. When you ask Janice Devali why she does not paint her friends and family, she simply says, “I can’t, because they exude different feelings and emotions every day; I would have to change each painting every night. With pop idols, I don’t know them; I’ve never met them. I have one firm thought about them and can express that in the faces and figures of the total canvas.” I have seen many artists paint icons of their day but they all seem to be from someone else’s impression. Janice Devali paints today’s world idols filled with her own personal emotions and feelings in their faces and in her personal way of outlining her subjects. The art world has just begun to be aware of this fine young painter’s uniqueness and the public will soon realize what a great painter she is. The writer Dom Taglialatella has been a force in the international art world for over 35 years. He has lectured at the University of Delaware, Ryder University, and Bucks County College. He has been quoted at length in many important art journals and has written prefaces for catalogues on the CoBrA artist and Van Gogh from the Brabant period. |
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Karel Appel, born in Amsterdam, was a Dutch sculptor and painter. In the period following World War II (after 1945) he helped to pioneer a physical, unrestrained style of painting in Europe. His work was combined by a touch of childlike figures distinguished by violent colors and thick paint application.
Karel Appel studied from 1940 to 1943 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After the war in the Netherlands, the expressive work of French artist Jean Dubuffet drew his attention. This primitive imagery style was a big contrast with the more geometric, more formal work that was in Europe at the time. In 1946, he was included in an exhibition entitled Young Artists at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum. This is when Karel Appel first aroused public interest. Appel helped in 1948 to form an experimental group called Cobra, this together with a Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky, a Danish artist Asger Jorn and the Dutch artist Corneille. Finding inspiration in children's drawings, in folk art and prehistoric art, Cobra glorified instinct and opposed rigorously intellectual approaches to art, aims it held in common with a similar movement in the United States, abstract expressionism. Karel Appel was commissioned in 1949 to paint a mural. This mural was for the cafetaria of the City Hall of Amsterdam. He made a painting of bitterly smiling children in wild colors. The employees who took their meals there were so disturbed that the City Council had to order to cover it over, this despite protest by the artistic community. Appel became well known for his stormy and humorous painting style in 1950 when he moved to Paris, France. In 1954 Karel Appel was awarded the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) prize at the Venice Biennale exhibition. The first prize at the Guggenheim International exhibition was given in 1960 to him. He began working with three-dimensional forms late in the 1960's. He began to live and work part of each year in New York City in 1972. In 1982 he collaborated with American poet Allen Ginsberg on a colorful series of paintings and visual poems. Karel Appel created sculptures combining plaster, wood and found objects since 1990. |
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In Liu Yujun’s painting series entitled Unidentified Liquid most of the canvas is dominated by images of women combining the temperament of traditional Chinese women and the character of modern Chinese urban women. More specifically, Liu Yujun has created a series of unique images of ‘beautiful women’ by enlarging and changing the forms in an invisible manner and by expanding and synthesising in two opposite directions. In the first direction he focuses on the image of imperial palace maidens, the traditional Chinese beauties. In this respect Liu Yujun adopted some characteristic features , such as the slanting eyes with single eyelids and the traditional hairstyles from ancient Chinese paintings of imperial palace maidens, to emphasise the characteristics of Chinese women. In the opposite direction Liu Yujun specifically focused on the coldly elegant features of modern urban women, such as the cold and indifferent eyes, the heavily made-up lips, the smooth and shining skin, the slightly opened and seductive mouth and the characteristic postures and expressions. I suppose that this is the actual perspective from which Liu Yujun ingeniously integrates the most traditional and most modern aesthetic elements, two completely opposite aspects, into the images of ‘beautiful women’ in his paintings. This is clearly related to his deep insight in and exact representation of both the gender characteristics and the cultural nature of images of Chinese women. From the perspective of artistic expression Liu Yujun again combines the oldest artistic methods with the most popular forms of expression from modern times in his series Unidentified Liquid. It is remarkable that each of the paintings in this series by Liu Yujun contains images of a blue liquid in a variety of forms. This images seem to be abrupt as there is no logical or semantic connection with the other images in the paintings whatsoever. We furthermore find that Liu Yujun has changed the blue liquid into an ‘unidentified liquid’ to name these paintings, which mainly deal with Chinese women, and thus avoids the important to a certain extent and dwells on the trivial. Perhaps this is exactly where the problem lies. By calling the blue liquid ‘unidentified liquid’ and by using this name as the theme of this series of paintings even though this liquid does not dominate the works, Liu Yujun went beyond merely painting ‘beautiful women’. Liu Yujun illustrated this point in A Painter’s Oral Account: ‘here, the blue liquid symbolises a sense of insecurity’. If we look at the semantic and aesthetic relationship between different images in this series of paintings in a comprehensive manner, we find that this liquid, regarded as the central theme by Liu Yujun, indeed plays an important role in determining the aesthetic importance and meaning of the paintings. This is because from an aesthetic point of view the blue liquid, suddenly appearing out of nowhere, gives the static representation vitality and vigour. The meaning of the enigmatic blue liquid seems to be mysterious and ambiguous, all the more because this liquid has no connection with the images of beautiful women whatsoever. Perhaps it is exactly this indescribable meaning that makes Liu Yujun see the blue liquid as a symbol of insecurity. In my view, however, the blue liquid appearing in the paintings or on the faces and bodies of the beautiful women is essentially negative in meaning. The argument of Liu Yujun is only one viewpoint out of many negative meanings. This is because if we have a look at these numerous negative meanings we doubtless discover landscapes that are not as beautiful as the ‘beautiful women’ in these works. Perhaps the reality is exactly the opposite. The negative interpretations embodied in the series Unidentified Liquid precisely originate from the negation of beauty and result in different forms of denial of modern society and culture. This is in my view the real meaning of the series Unidentified Liquid and it is also a point of special importance and distinctive value in contemporary art. |
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De verhalen over de oorlog en het nazisme die zijn grootvader hem vertelde en die hij als kind met verbijstering aanhoorde, hebben Olivier Pauwels niet alleen als mens getekend, maar beïnvloeden ook zijn beeldend oeuvre. Hoewel hij sinds een 15-tal jaar gedreven bezig is met schilderen en met het maken van sculpturen, lijkt zijn artistieke productie nu pas op kruissnelheid te komen. Een cruciaal moment in deze prille artistieke loopbaan was toen de jonge kunstenaar (met een background die zich in de skate- en graffiti-wereld situeert én een grafische opleiding) middels een schoolopdracht bij toeval in de ban geraakte van… poppen. Dat hij zich voor zijn allereerste creatie op papier-maché moest beroepen is slechts een voetnoot. Het was het grasduinen op zolder dat zou leiden tot een verterende fascinatie voor poppen en de bizarre, dreigende wereld die hij op basis van die troetels zou gaan scheppen.
Immers vond hij er niet alleen maar poppen. Zijn zoektocht naar het nodige materiaal voor zijn allereerste plastische schooltaak reveleerde tegelijk ook tal van in onbruik geraakte instrumenten en toestellen, een oude radio bijvoorbeeld. Hij haalde die apparaten uit elkaar, linkte onderdelen ervan (raderwerkjes, plaatjes, boutjes, maar ook codes) aan de idee van een soort wezen dat je probleemloos zou kunnen manipuleren. Zonder het te beseffen was zijn eerste cyberpop geboren. En terwijl behoorlijk bevreemdende creaturen onder zijn blijkbaar erg vaardige handen aanvankelijk mondjesmaat gestalte kregen, stelde hij vast dat wat hij vorm had gegeven (hem) bijwijlen ook deed huiveren. Onverminderd spookten grootvaders verhalen door zijn hoofd, over oorlog en brainwashen, van een uitverkoren Arisch ras tot het klonen in functie van macht en (ver)geldingsdrang. Hij beet zich vast in de materie en aanverwante lectuur zou zijn argwaan voor de ergerlijke pretentie van het Westen in verband met experimenteren nog meer voeden. De arrogantie waarmee in ons gecultiveerde deel van de wereld wordt geclaimd dat het leven en de natuur indien nodig wel even naar de hand kunnen worden gezet, irriteert hem mateloos. Verhalen, wetenschappelijke literatuur, (vak)kundigheid, gedrevenheid en fantasie zouden allengs leiden tot een bijzonder eigenzinnig en authentiek oeuvre. Aan de rand van de stad (Oostende) zondert de jonge kunstenaar zich af in het ruim atelier en bouwt er aan een geheel eigen wereld die eigenlijk één grote waarschuwing is voor wat er zich buiten afspeelt : oorlog, geweld, macht, geldgewin, fundamentalisme… En terwijl hij gedreven kleine, bizarre wezens naar zijn hand zet wordt de wereld er niet beter op. Kunst kan de wereld niét redden! Pauwels' verhalen, visioenen en zijn visie op hoe de wereld evolueert krijgen vorm in bevreemdende en intrigerende creaturen die onmiskenbaar appelleren aan misstanden, wreedheden en ingrepen, omdat elementen ervan en attributen zo herkenbaar zijn. Zoals auteur Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, 1932) lang geleden voorspelde hoe de toekomstige "ideale" maatschappij uit categorieën zelf bedachte en geschapen Alfa's, Bèta's en Gamma's zou bestaan, zo is ook de jonge kunstenaar bezig met het vormen van een eigen artistieke gemeenschap met angstwekkende geweldpotentie. Uit onze wegwerpmaatschappij recupereert hij moeiteloos tekens die hij in zijn creaturen incarneert. De klassieke pop dient als basismodel voor zijn artistieke meute. Hij haakt ledematen uit elkaar en creëert een volslagen nieuw wezen. Kiest een pose. Als dat voor elkaar is, wordt de creatie in polyester gegoten. Gevonden en gerecupereerde elementen worden op het lijf geënt of onderhuids, goed zichtbaar ingeplant. Hij "kloont" naar hartelust. Zijn ondertussen dermate verfijnd technisch vermogen laat hem toe ook heel subtiel met lichtsignalen te werken of bepaalde lichaamsdelen of attributen in beweging te brengen. Zo ontstaat het gevoel dat misschien ooit eens het hele wezentje tot de actie zou kunnen overgaan. Ontsproten aan gerecupereerd materiaal zijn ze al behoorlijk gehavend en hoeven dus nergens nog bang voor te zijn. Ze zouden onvervaard naadloos uitvoeren wat hun maker beveelt. Ooit, ergens, misschien. Alleen een zucht hebben ze vandoen om tot de actie over te gaan. En wat als het om duizenden exemplaren zou gaan en hij/iemand ze pakweg mensengroot zou maken? Olivier Pauwels maakt tot de verbeelding sprekende cyberpoppen die de wreedheden van vroeger, vandaag en morgen in zich dragen en de kijker tot nadenken moeten stemmen. Zo stelt hij met lede ogen vast hoe zijn zoontje van vier al urenlang aan de buis gekluisterd zit. Zijn troetel is niet langer een pop of een beer, maar een… televisiescherm! Ook de eigen, intieme leefwereld voedt het artistieke proces en mondde onlangs uit in een creatie die hij "Television-baby" doopte : een grote pop die nog wel een beer in de hand houdt, maar de snoet van de troetel is vervangen door een tv-scherm. Het grote beeld staat op een hoge sokkel die bestaat uit op elkaar gestapelde video's met termen als "violence" en "porno" op. Wie weet, waarschuwt de kunstenaar, komt na de digitale identiteitskaart ooit de chip. En ondertussen dijt Pauwels' artistieke meute serieus uit. Alles is maakbaar in deze wereld, zegt hij. En als je zoveel soldaten kan maken en manipuleren, dan verdwijnt straks misschien ook het laatste greintje moraal, want wat je dan naar het front stuurt kan je amper nog mensen noemen. Het zijn eigenlijk robots. In het atelier tasten we enkele van zijn cyberbaby's af. Het wordt almaar duidelijker hoe de maker ze van binnenuit kan sturen. Het is speuren op en in het lijf, naar nummers, codes, artistieke tatoeages en hun handelsmerk: "BOHI", het in een heel bijzondere typografie vorm gegeven pseudoniem voor Olivier Pauwels, de stempel van de maker… Tussen creaturen en dozen en bakken vol onderdelen ook literatuur. "Landing in Normandië", "De bevrijding", "Oorlog te land"… ik lees de titels van dikke ruggen af. En toch is Olivier Pauwels geen doemdenker. Hij verwittigt dan wel voor wat zou kunnen gebeuren, maar koestert nog altijd wat schoon is, zowel van buiten als binnenin. Hij schept een bijzonder duale artistieke wereld, want naast de niet mis te vatten boodschap en de wreedaardige uitstraling, blijven zijn geesteskinderen ondanks alles ook een beetje pop en troetel en zijn ze verdomd goed gemaakt. Bovendien is er vaak dat snuifje humor, hun houding (tussen dans en krijgs), een punkkapsel, zwemvliezen, een kokette helm, extra dunne beentjes… Heel belangrijk lijkt het me dat Olivier Pauwels niet vervalt in routine. Zijn wezens blijven verrassen, telkens weer, zijn telkens weer dan dat tikkeltje anders. Zijn fantasie is grenzeloos. Zijn ook technisch zeer verfijnde mixed media schilderijen vullen de wereld van zijn beelden perfect aan. Maar het zijn vooral zijn spitante assemblages die mij zowel qua fantasie, technisch vernuft als originaliteit doen denken aan kleppers als Vic Gentils en Panamarenko. Johan Debruyne |
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Pierre Alechinsky, who was born in 1927 in Brussels, Belgium, studied at the Brussels Academy of Architecture. He had a strong impact on Cobra. Being the youngest member of the Cobra group and participant in the 1949 exhibition, Alechinsky was also active in the Cobra publications. In Brussels there is a building he refurbished, this building became the scene of many Cobra activities.
The group dissolved in 1951 and that's also the year when he moved to Paris and were he's still living at this time. His greatest passion was Japanese calligraphy, it also gave him inspiration. Alechinsky was entranced by the art of bookmaking, this passion he fulfilled in his 40's by studying typography, illustration and engraving at the School of Decorative Arts in Brussels. In Paris he shows his lithographs at the Galerie Maeght. In 1949 his future as an artist was launched as an active member of the group Cobra, this after he met Christian Dotremont. After studying calligraphy in Japan in 1955, he worked on canvases spread onto the floor, which he painted with Japanese hosehair calligraphy brushes. Alechinsky is known to speak about his left hand as "the one that has known only liberty and pleasure". He paints, even still today, with his left hand, this to be true to the spirit of the Cobra movement. The work of Alechinsky can always be recognized by the funky black and white graphics in cartoon-like borders who seem to restrain within the central canvas a violent explosion of color and form. These graffiti-filled window frames draw one's attention towards the eye of the storm. Later works show more free-flowing serpentine lines to entice and seduce. |
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A first look at Zhu Yan’s oil paintings and one is filled with a sense of bemused wonderment. Things filled his canvas that were familiar only to the old or middle-aged, yet Zhu Yan is barely thirty; the heartbreaking elements of his work, pulled from the violence of revolutionary China, would have been nothing more to him than crisp pages of history books, closely tied with faded blurry photographs of that turbulent era.
Instead, the China in which Zhu Yan lived and learned, and learned to love was the China well in the grip of an enormous transformation to the global superpower we know today. With the advent of a market economy and popular culture, came a massive proliferation of visual images via the Internet and other forms of mass media. Animated and cartoon characters became subjects of artistic expression that formed the predominant visual experience of most of the younger generation. How stark the contrast then, when one turns from the subjects and colour moods of Zhu Yan’s paintings to other artwork typical of his generation. The question is then: what has driven this young artist to gain inspiration from these historical images so far removed from what should have been the influences of Zhu Yan’s youth? Evidently this cannot be explained from the singular standpoint of Zhu Yan’s surrounding reality. Instead, we should examine Zhu Yan’s creative motives, treading carefully through truths and misconceptions, reality and myth. Zhu Yan himself has spoken of his grandfather as an ardent collector of badge pins from the time of the Cultural Revolution (Institutional Revolution). These badge pins constituted his grandfather’s entire spiritual life. Consequently, the daily contact with these red badge pins of varying sizes and makes yet bound with a similar theme formed a lasting impression on the young Zhu Yan’s visual memory. However, such a familial influence would have only existed on a very personal level, limited to the confines of his household, and therefore cannot be fully credited for the development of his artistic sensibilities. One cannot discount the social environment of Zhu Yan’s youth, with its blatant commercialism, the ubiquitous advertisements, accessible decadence, computer games, popular culture, and other external social factors that too would have left an impression on the boy. At this point, the environmental and psychological bases of Zhu Yan’s paintings are questionable. However, on a second, more searching appraisal of his works, there arises a growing attraction to their dramatic layouts, the unique idiosyncrasies of the characters portrayed, and the singular choice of background objects, and earlier doubts begin to waver. It is undeniable that Zhu Yan’s paintings are populated with myriad images commonplace only to the elder generations of Chinese people, like red scarves, badge pins from the Cultural Revolution, the uniformly ear-length hairstyles, red curtains, even red flags. The compositions of his paintings, however, are less rigid, not tied down to any one style. In some the overall design is that of the grand pyramidal structure typical of art produced during the Cultural Revolution. In others the artist has adopted a parallel composition of background and subject, in some even a diagonal distribution of objects of interest. Neither is his perspective bound to two dimensions, instead emphasis is sometimes given to a perspective relationship binding the fore, middle, and background of the painting. Even more liberties are taken with the proportional relationship between the subject characters and their surrounding objects, which become as the artist’s playthings humorously overlapped and scattered at will to create a world of interwoven reality, history, experience and memory that challenges our very sense of the time-space continuum. The characterizations of the people that come to life under Zhu Yan’s brush are crucial to setting the overall ambiance and tone of his paintings. Both men and women invariably have similar expressions on flat, round faces. Their hairstyles differ only between the genders; the men are almost bald, whilst the women sport short hair. They are clad in pea-green shirts and bluish-black trousers, an obvious reference to the stereotypical appearances of Chinese people thirty years ago. On the other hand, the proportion of the subjects’ limbs is deliberately flawed, and their bodies naive, clumsy and rounded – evidently a product of the graphical language of cartoons and comics. In his works, the solemnity of public symbols and historical identities are harmoniously blended with adorably childish expressions. It becomes apparent that these are Zhu Yan’s efforts to create a visual representation of his perception of history and memory from the standpoint of his contemporary environment and visual understanding. Zhu Yan’s paintings also frequently feature fundamental tools of artistic education, such as easels, spotlights, still life pedestals, plaster geometric forms and more, which share canvas space with distinctly historical or cultural objects and images. It is a seemingly nonsensical association; however, there is an underlying sense of the unmistakable influence of contemporary culture on the creative endeavours of a young artist, barely in his thirties. Zhu Yan is, on a conscious level, more inclined towards portraying the history of the tumultuous era that came before his time, which he would only ever learn about second-hand, in the words of stories told to him in childhood. Zhu Yan’s upbringing and exposure to the popular youth culture of his generation is more implicit in the titling of his works such as “I Will Shoot You If You Do Not Obey”, “You Can’t Play Video Games Every Day”, “Foundations”, “On A Certain Day in a Certain Month in a Certain Year”, “The Initial Sketch Must Be Precise”, “Because You Are a Good Child”, and “As Long As You Are Willing to Climb Up”. Based on this and the discussion above, it can be concluded that Zhu Yan has not completely severed all connections to present-day reality. On the contrary, it is precisely the modern-day influences he has received that have spared him the burden of history and the bridle of traditional teachings that have constrained the ways in which the older generations explore historical events and express their memories. Zhu Yan is therefore able to deploy with ease in a single painting various events and memories taken from vastly different time periods and locations, creating the effect of a stage play that is at once dramatic and jocular. History, and all its weightiness, is in his hands transformed into a toy he manipulates at will, much like the flying darts that filled the sky and the badge pins that spread across the ground in his painting, or even the randomness of his spatial compositions. Attempting to understand and re-enact historical events via contemporary habits of perception comes naturally to young artists like Zhu Yan. History is never stagnant, but is refreshed with each generation, retraced and evaluated from the point of view of the present, creating a seemingly contradictory yet necessary contemporary history. Without this process, this perpetual rebirth, history would belong solely to the past, rendered rigid and lifeless, and not dynamic and alive. Whilst it is imperative that any interpretation of historical events is held to facts not capable to change, there must be a constant reminder that history should always be left open to commentary by all future generations, and even better, that it should be expressed with artistic exaggeration. Zhu Yan has not chosen subjects that the majority of his peers would have, such as fictitious characters from cartoons and animations; instead he draws inspiration from the history and memories of a time that preceded his own. This is no reason for criticism, as every artist is entitled to his personal penchant and muse. A final note: it is important to observe the way in which he presents historical images not directly linked to him in any way. It is therefore comforting to realise that Zhu Yan has found his own standpoint and artistic medium in which to express himself. Gao Ling 4 March 2008 Gao Ling is a well-known Chinese art critic. |