‘I DON’T WANT TO MAKE PEOPLE ANGRY’ (Stef Lernous/Abattoir Fermé – The Utopia Parkway Files, part 3)

They’ve made their mark. That’s for sure. There’s absolutely no one like Abattoir Fermé. Director Stef Lernous and the guys from his Flemish theatre company are celebrating their tenth anniversary, these days, with a book and a special theatre marathon: The chaostrilogy. We know about the horror and the flesh, in Abattoir Fermé’s performances, but what about beauty? How strange a concept is that in Lernous’ universe? Part 3 of The Utopia Parkway Files on beauty. ‘Am I selling SM to an audience by means of beauty?’

BOOK OF THE MONTH (1): Sherlock Holmes with a camera in Calabria

Don’t worry, your beloved Utopia Parkway isn’t suffering from some sort of delusion of grandeur and turning into Oprah Winfrey, all of a sudden. But there’s just too many great art books coming out and going unnoticed. From now on, I’ll be picking one favorite amidst all those new releases, every month. I’ll try and steer clear of the obvious and the exhibition catalogues. I’m happy to be getting some expert advice too: the good folks from the wonderful Bozar Shop in Brussels have agreed to help me by staying on the lookout for the really interesting new releases. My pick for November is Libero, an intriguing book by Dutch photographer Petra Stavast about a derelict house in a small Italian village. 

Xavier Hufkens welcomes Chili Peppers’ long lost uncle

Just a little leg, in marble. A gigantic, melting house. A big chocolate-like guy with a big pumpkin instead of a head. A little guy in a purple suit, without a head. And lots of ‘paintings’ with embroidered words. Going to Erwin Wurm’s exhibition at Xavier Hufkens (Brussels) feels like stepping into a fairy tale written by an artist with a tendency towards the absurd. The Austrian artist is mostly known for his ‘one minute sculptures’, for which he lets people pose for one minute with everyday objects in quite a strange way. He just shot Claudia Schiffer with a yellow broom between her legs for the German edition of Vogue (for more of those weird pictures, click here), and the Red Hot Chili Peppers based their video for Can’t stop on his work (Flea calls Wurm his ‘long lost uncle’; for more about that video click here; for the video, click here). Had a busy week? Feeling grumpy? Go and check out Wurm’s lovely Desperate philosophers at Xavier Hufkens (till December 3). Even Swiss rock star Stephan Eicher did, during last night’s opening.

Swimming pools, vaults and bitches: going ‘Underground’ with Johan Simons

Halfway through Underground I had almost screamed ‘STOP!‘. At the end I felt too worn out to applaud. But one day later I thought: wait a minute, was it really thát bad? And I found myself thinking again about Johan Simon’s new play for NTGent & Theater Antigone, based on Elfriede Jelinek’s Die Kontrakte des Kaufmanns.

Boxing gloves and uppercuts: Sam Dillemans shows 230 (!) paintings in Antwerp

A parking lot in Antwerp. Indoors. Jabs and uppercuts everywhere. This is the output of Flemish painter Sam Dillemans: more than 230 paintings; most of them made during the last six years. Portraits, kissing couples and boxers. It’s an impressive display of industriousness. But I’m not sure that I would call myself a fan. 

Charlotte Vanden Eynde: an eerie princess in a blue dress

A blond girl in a light blue dress, on heels. I’ve barely begun to watch her, when it happens: a hand moves over her body as if it has a mind of its own. And I realize that I’m glad that she’s back. There’s not that much happening in Charlotte Vanden Eynde’s I’m Sorry It’s (Not) A Story, but her minimalism is pure and well-thought through. Little gestures and simple movements make for a surprisingly fascinating performance.

Theatre, slapstick, music and a shot of vodka

Stan’s 20th anniversary birthday bash marathon? It proved to be a pretty addictive affair. Theatre, a bit of slapstick, a little dance and music. They even threw a circus act in, and served us all a shot of vodka and a glass of wine, in between the acts. Wonderful. I heard some Martin Crimp, Carole Fréchette, Oscar Wilde and Thomas Bernhard. Filip Jordens sang some of his Jacques Brel-songs and Koen Augustijnen danced a little duet with Jolente De Keersmaeker from Stan. I saw the Dutch theatre company Dood Paard arriving on stage with backpacks and tents. And the complete cast of the new KVS/Olympique Dramatique-production were reading a part of Titus Andronicus from their textbooks. A great atmosphere, lots of smiling faces, minestrone after midnight… I would have loved to stay the night. But there’s just too much going on at other places this weekend as well: the Amperdans-festival in Antwerp, The state of things at Bozar. So I left, and got some sleep. Too bad. I wonder, as I’m writing this, what they are doing on stage, right now, at the Kaaitheater. Mmm… should I go back?

Here, there and everywhere: theatre marathons and anniversaries

Two of Belgium’s more renowned ‘alternative’  theatre companies are marking special anniversaries with special performances. And funnily enough they both are planning marathons to celebrate those anniversaries. Mechelen-based Abattoir Fermé is staging a ‘marathon-remix’ of their Chaostrilogy for their 10th anniversary: 4 hours of apocalyptic theatre. They are bringing it to 9 cities in Belgium and Holland. Antwerp-based Stan (Stop Thinking About Names) is having a 24-hour (!) marathon in Brussels with lots of guests (Kaaitheater, October 16) and Antwerp (Monty, October 31), for their 20th anniversary. Not really a marathon man? There’s a new book about Abattoir Fermé as well: Anatomy – 10 years of slaughtering (in Dutch and English). I went to the book release party yesterday and I can assure you: if you haven’t been to an Abattoir Fermé-performance yet, just leafing through this book will certainly pique your curiosity.

‘TRUTH IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN BEAUTY’ (Antony Gormley – The Utopia Parkway Files, part 2)

 

Vaseline and clingfilm. Renaissance and quantum mechanics. The Hubble space telescope and the Acropolis. Ask British sculptor Antony Gormley about ‘beauty’ and those are some of the things he will bring up. Quite surprisingly, beauty isn’t important to him at all. But in an other way… it nevertheless still is. ‘Maybe the most beautiful things are fugitive.’ I interviewed Gormley while he was in Brussels for his Xavier Hufkens-exhibition. You’ll find his thoughts on beauty after the jump.

 

Seven knights desperately trying not to fall off the earth

Sometimes it’s like Lego. There are pieces that you like, and bits that you don’t like. Lapsit exillis, the new performance by French-German director Ingrid von Wantoch Rekowski  (at Théatre National, Brussels) certainly has some fascinating elements, such as its striking decor and its strange music (organ), but it was the acting that didn’t really convince me.

 

Trisha Brown: an evening in the presence of greatness

That little moment of wonder. That’s one of the things that makes me spend so many nights in theatres. You’re looking at a performance and suddenly you realize that everything in that performance is right. That it couldn’t be any other way. That every move those dancers make almost automatically leads to the next, right movement. You almost feel it in your own body as well. Am I being too poetic here? Whatever. I was really impressed by two of Trisha Brown’s pieces, yesterday at deSingel in Antwerp: her classic Set & reset (‘83), on that hypnotic Laurie Anderson-score, and her brand new L’amour au théâtre on music from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie. With Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham gone, there aren’t that many legendary choreographers left, these days. So don’t let that Trisha Brown-weekend at Antwerp’s deSingel slip by. There’s a repertory evening tonight, and her company is performing some early works at 4 and 7 PM tomorrow. Trisha Brown will even be there herself. Dance critic Pieter T’Jonck is interviewing her tomorrow at 5.15 PM. More info here. (photo credit: Paul B. Goode)

Can we please have some of that Turner Prize hoopla over here too?

Young Belgian Painters Award? Can you name this year’s winner? Right. Let’s face it: nobody cares. Except for the art world. That’s why I love the British Turner Prize: everybody cares. Just the other day the exhibition of this year’s contenders (Enrico David, Roger Hiorns, Lucy Skaer, Richard Wright) opened its doors at the Tate Gallery, and whoosh… reviews and discussions everywhere. One artist has an atomised jet engine on display. Well: the BBC-site immediately tells you in detail how it is possible to reduce an engine to dust-like particles (here). I even found one newspaper critic blogging about the quality of the Turner Prize-reviews of his colleagues (here) and about nothing else (he even got lots of comments on his post). What I particularly liked as well is how one artist (Richard Wright) tried to outwit the others by adding a last minute painting to his show: some red dots, thereby referring to the artistic sabotage of the great William Turner in 1832 when he and his arch rival John Constable were showing their paintings side by side (read article from The Times here). Can we please have some of that hoopla over here too, next year? Oh, and one other thing, that has nothing to do with the Turner Prize: The Times has a webcam these days at the Anish Kapoor-exhibition in London. You can watch on your computer at home how a cannon-like installation shoots bullets of dark crimson paint on the white walls of the Royal Academy (here). Modern technology. Love it.

Sexties: voluptuous women and adult comics

I have a slight problem with comic strips in a museum. I like to read them, for sure, but somehow it feels strange to have just some pages out of a book hanging on the walls of a museum. There’s too much missing. But I must confess: the people at Bozar  (Brussels) have tried their best to make Sexties a pleasurable experience. Of course, it’s about voluptuous women and sex. That helps. But there’s more. They’ve really tried to encapsulate in a lively way the world of four legendary authors: Guy Peellaert, Jean-Claude Forest (Barbarella!), Paul Cuvelier and Guido Crepax. You get a giant colorful wall painting and a Harley Davidson in Peellaert’s room and a couple of ancient sculptures in Cuvelier’s room. You hear Serge Gainsbourg and Bob Dylan. But it’s in the impressive room in black and white of Italian author Crepax that Bozar really proves that the universe of a comic book author can be brought to a museum. It almost looks like a comic strip boudoir. Pretty soon Europalia China will be invading Bozar. It’s good to have this little antidote to that.

Want to see Brooke Shields? Come to Brussels!

Let me tell you a funny story about my job as a journalist. For the Belgian newspaper I’m working for, I had to write a story about a big controversy at the Tate Gallery in London: a picture of a naked, young Brooke Shields was regarded as being obscene and described as ’soft kiddy porn’. While I was writing about the Tate Gallery, last week, I suddenly remembered having seen a naked Brooke Shields at the Controverses-exhibition at Botanique, Brussels, just a couple of days before. Could it be that? Yes: I was right, it is exactly the same picture. Spiritual America, taken by Gary Gross and later on used by Richard Prince. Want to know the funny part? The Botanique hasn’t even received the slightest complaint about it. In the meanwhile the picture has been removed by the Tate Gallery. So one piece of advice to anyone who wants to see what all the fuss is about: come to Brussels. Controverses is on till November 22. You can read my review here. You’ll find my newspaper article about the Brooke Shields-picture in Brussels (sorry, only in Dutch) here.

Hurry to Strombeek for Hans Op de Beeck

I know I should be sending all of you to Brxl Bravo this weekend, but as my brain has this little wicked streak, I’d like you to get out of Brussels and head for Strombeek-Bever, just on the outskirts of the city. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I’m a proud member of the Facebook-group ‘I was cool enough to do Airfix-models when I was 8′, or with the fact that I’ve always been a fan of those wonderful, simple La Linea-cartoons, but… eumh… During this weekend and this weekend only the cultural centre of Strombeek is showing (world première!) the new video of Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck, Staging silence, on a big screen (and in a loop, so you can go whenever you want). It’s a beautiful, clever and often funny video in black and white (20 or so minutes), based around abstract, archetypical settings. You see two arms assembling and taking down miniature decors of airport lounges, office spaces, city blocks and desolate landscapes. A thermos flask turns out to be a building, a castle suddenly becomes a birthday cake, a lightbulb becomes the sun. Op de Beeck shows you how he ’stages’ the reality, but nevertheless you take his miniature scenes for real. Later this month this video will be shown during the Kunstfilm Biennale in Köln. Don’t miss this opportunity to be the first to discover new work of this truly gifted artist. (photo: copyright Hans Op de Beeck / Xavier Hufkens)

‘BEAUTY IS THE MESSENGER’ (Gilbert & George – The Utopia Parkway Files, part 1)

Beauty. What do contemporary artists, choreographers, actors and directors think of it? Is it important to them or not? I told you about my little project on beauty yesterday. Today I’m proud to announce that I will be kicking off The Utopia Parkway Files with… Gilbert & George. I got to talk to the English artists when they were in Brussels for their Jack Freak Pictures-exhibition at Baronian Francey. (It’s still on, more info here.) Want to know about beauty as a means to hypnotize a viewer, or about the spunky blossoms they adore, then read on.

Utopia Parkway proudly presents: ‘On beauty – The Utopia Parkway Files’

Beauty. It’s a concept that has been intriguing me for quite some time now. Hence my ABC: ‘Utopia Parkway – Art, beauty & culture’. Beauty is one of the first things the general public will look for, or will feel touched by, almost automatically, when visiting an exhibition or watching a play. But for many in the art world it’s a suspicious, yes even reprehensible concept. Just the other day I read a review in which a play was criticised for being just too beautiful. So I decided to do something about it. Why not ask artists, choreographers, actors and directors what ‘beauty’ means to them? Is it important to them or not? Do they loathe the concept or not? From tomorrow onwards I will be posting one of these short, exclusive interviews or statements every once in a while. Hope they’ll bring some clarification, contradiction and confusion. Stay tuned.