2016 eng if you kill demons k van den broek w davidts [m fi 35]

‘If you kill the demons, then there can be no more angels.’

Repetition and contradiction in the work of Philippe Vandenberg

Koen van den Broek in conversation with Wouter Davidts

Wouter Davidts (WD): Gallery Baton, your gallery in Korea, has invited you to curate an exhibition of work by Philippe Vandenberg, who died in 2009. Could you first tell us a little about Philippe Vandenberg’s life and work, before elaborating on your selection?

Koen van den Broek (KvdB): I first became acquainted with Philippe Vandenberg in the mid-1990s, while a student at the Academy in Antwerp. He was well known on the Antwerp scene, which revolved around Fred Bervoets and the gallery De Zwarte Panter.

His work was very current. The New Wild style of painting, with the Neue Wilden in Germany as the main exponents, was still very prominent. His work charmed me, because it was unruly and free. At the same time, it annoyed me sometimes, because it could also be very melancholy. In addition to the personal themes, many of his paintings were loaded with historical references.

WD: Did you meet the artist in person?

KvdB: Indeed. I met Philippe Vandenberg once, in my studio at the HISK [Higher Institute for Fine Arts] in Antwerp. But the meeting did not end well. Upon entering the room, he stepped across the works on paper that I had placed on the floor. Because he felt that an artwork needed to be connected to the earth, he thought it was normal to walk on top of them. I politely asked him to leave. Philippe Vandenberg was completely absorbed with his own vision, which he also projected onto other artists. That made him, I think, an individualist and a loner.

WD: In the critical and historical reception of Philippe Vandenberg’s oeuvre, his melancholic character receives a great deal of attention. I am amazed by the fact that you have deliberately avoided showing this side of his personality in the exhibition.

KvdB: In any case, I always find the work more interesting than the individual, and this holds true for all artists. I don’t like the mystification of the person behind the work.

Moreover, I think it is important to show a different side to Philippe Vandenberg in an international context, because it says more about the versatility of the artist, the scope of his mind, and the depth of his work. I dare to compare Philippe Vandenberg with artists such as Mike Kelley, Bruce Nauman or Martin Kippenberger, all of who have very extensive oeuvres.

WD: Can you characterize, in a few sentences, Philippe Vandenberg as an artist?

KvdB: His work is distinguished by a continuous interaction between the individual and the wider world. As an artist, he plays a kind of table tennis, a constant game of pingpong between himself and world at large. This makes his work both highly personal and universal at the same time.

WD: Philippe Vandenberg was a prolific painter, and his oeuvre is substantial. How did you begin making a selection for the exhibition?

KvdB: Even though he painted a great deal, he never stopped drawing, sketching and writing. From this abundance of work, I made a personal selection, as an artist. I’m not really a curator. The selection is based on traces, on the idea of being on the move – an aspect that is also important in my own work. Philippe Vandenberg tried to express his psychological universe through words and images. Sometimes, he did this very literally, by writing his thoughts, or certain arguments, directly onto the canvas. But he also expressed his ideas as constructions, as traces, as paths that lead ‘from A to B’. He could reveal these trajectories but, at the same time, could also conceal them. There is undoubtedly a humorous side to his methodology.

WD: When people first become acquainted with the work of Philippe Vandenberg, they sometimes find it difficult to understand that this large and diverse oeuvre is the product of just one person. He painted works with swastikas and abstract images, as well as cartoonish paintings depicting Yasser Arafat and Bosch-like scenes of men fucking donkeys. He not only pursued a wide range of themes, but also adopted many different styles of painting.

KvdB: I find it harder to understand artists who always do the same thing, or who succumb to repetition. Scarcity is often nothing more than a kind of marketing ploy. To me, it’s extremely logical: a day consists of twenty-four hours. If, as an artist, you immerse yourself in research and explore everything, then there is simply a lot to convey. Many great artists, think of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse or Andy Warhol, have considerable oeuvres. When Lucio Fontana was once asked how long it took to make his work, he replied, ‘seventy-five years’. I think Philippe Vandenberg often tired of things, and then decided to do the very opposite. One thing led to another. After he had produced very narrative works, he switched to abstraction. But this abstraction is often deceptive. The exhibition contains a number of canvases that were painted over multiple times, until the final image came to resemble a layer of mud that looks as though it could be scraped off. It is important to also realize that countless other images lie above and below the surface. The yellow and orange monochromes (Untitled, 1999-2004, Untitled, 1999, 2002, 2004) are all about paintings. Some contain swastikas underneath, or another aspect of his imagery (Untitled 1994-2004). They are not actually monochromes in the classic sense of the word.

When you show these works in conjunction with paintings that have a fresher and more minimal aspect, a different story emerges. You gain a better understanding of the artist’s quest. The strength of Philippe Vandenberg’s work lies in its contradictions. It is as though he is saying: if you kill the demons, then there can be no more angels. Here, I am thinking about the rather minimal works with the blue lines, some of which are dotted (Untitled, 2003). The lines simultaneously represent acceleration and deceleration, as well as direction: they occasionally intersect and form the shape of a crucifix. You feel the need and the urgency of the paintings. None of his work is very polished. He simply didn’t have the time. He might have had this inclination, but ultimately you feel his compulsion to simply get the image onto the canvas.

WD: You have also made a selection of drawings.

KvdB: The drawings reveal a great deal about the subject matter of the paintings.

Because the canvases were painted over so often, the stories are multi-layered. You can discover the different facets by looking at the drawings. They illuminate a lot about what is going on beneath the monochrome surface, or in the period during which the work was created. I am only showing one sketchbook, therefore, dating from 2004 – this is also the era from which most of the works in the exhibition date. By presenting a complete sketchbook, I wish to show the speed at which he worked, as well as his passion and intensity. Philippe Vandenberg was something of a pit bull, in that he refused to let go. He kept on going. A single sketchbook is rich enough in its own right, and it will tell you everything about his lifetime’s endeavour. You will discover his way of working. In the drawings, after all, you encounter the same processes as in his paintings. The act of painting over the canvas until the bottom layer becomes invisible, the repetition, are also evident in his drawings. In these, too, he often works over the same image again and again. You find texts, but ultimately they are illegible. It is as though he wishes to speak or propose something, but at the same time, is unable to do so. He seems to want to nullify, or camouflage, the image.

WD: The destruction of the image is a recurring motif in Philippe Vandenberg’s work.

His oeuvre seems to consist of distinct series in which he builds upon a specific theme, completely exhausts its possibilities, and then abandons it and moves onto the next thing. It is as though this was a strategy through which to try and formulate something.

Only he did it so often, that he consumed his resources.

KvdB: Indeed. Philippe Vandenberg felt the need to over-formulate, so that the work became overdone. Perhaps it is akin to the blackened remains of the biscuit that you forgot to take out of the oven. I want to show the obsession, and the roads down which he purposefully trod. The path that Philippe Vandenberg took was so intense that a great many artists have, or once had, an affinity with his work.

WD: In addition to the larger themes, is it true that you particularly want to show the searching figure of Philippe Vandenberg? After all, he was an artist who, by incessantly working, was constantly asking questions. But he never formulated a reply, and seems to have been preoccupied with asking the same questions over and over again.

KvdB: In a sense, it is a cliché that goes for all great artists: asking questions, but not providing the answers. More importantly, Philippe Vandenberg was uncompromising.

As a young artist, he had immediate success. He broke through internationally and was represented by a gallery in New York. But that did not stop him from radically changing direction at a certain point – perhaps because he was bored, but more likely because he had thought more widely. Yet this decision was greeted with a huge amount of opposition. Moreover, his career crashed shortly afterwards. That process left many scars, both literally, in the work, and also in the man. But what I find particularly significant is that he did not forsake his position for a long time. He refused to make concessions to the market or the prevailing trends. As an artist, you have no other choice.

Transcription and initial editing: Cootje Veelenturf Final edit: Wouter Davidts

Translation to English: Helen Simpson