{"id":19105,"title":"Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven - 2012 - A Disaster [EN, interview]","dimensions":"3 p.","date_begin":null,"material":"","art_status_id":13,"legal_status_id":47,"category_id":168,"platform_id":1,"deleted":false,"asset_count":1,"stream_count":0,"collection":"Hans Theys Archive / Archief Hans Theys","cached_tag_list":"","publishing_process_id":1,"annotation":"","date_end":null,"reference":"","stream_count_app":10,"permalink":"anne-mie-van-kerckhoven-a-disaster-en-interview","description_ca":"","short_description_ca":"","description_it":"","short_description_it":"","cached_primary_asset_url":null,"cached_actor_names":"Hans Theys","hide_from_json":true,"prev_platform_id":null,"description_uk":null,"short_description_uk":null,"description_tr":null,"short_description_tr":null,"mhka_works":false,"category":{"en":"Interview","nl":"","fr":""},"poster_image":null,"poster_credits":null,"translations":[{"locale":"en","short_description":"","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n__________\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nHans Theys\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cb\u003eA Disaster\u003c/b\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cb\u003eAnne-Mie Van Kerckhoven about her student years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts\u003c/b\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nAnne-Mie Van Kerckhoven: I studied at the academy from 1970 to 1974. When I was twelve, I wanted to be a sculptor\u0026mdash;a boy\u0026rsquo;s dream. My parents wanted to apprentice me to the sculptor Albert Poels, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like doing work for him till I was fifteen. I was very keen to go to the Academy, but my parents wouldn\u0026rsquo;t let me. Furthermore, the people who did the study counselling at school and who advised us on a career, thought I was too clever for \u0026lsquo;decorative arts\u0026rsquo;. I had no choice: I had to go to a comprehensive school. Saint Luke in Brussels wasn\u0026rsquo;t an option either. I asked if I could take evening classes, but even that was out of the question. After three years in Saint Lutgardis in Antwerp, I chose to bide my time in the Holy Sepulchre Boarding School in Turnhout. After that I enrolled at the Academy in Antwerp, where I started to study graphic design. The entrance exam went very well. Mark Macken, sculptor and then director, said, \u0026lsquo;She\u0026rsquo;s got talent\u0026mdash;we\u0026rsquo;ll teach her the rest.\u0026rsquo; Mrs Prijot wanted me to study fashion with her, but I simply wanted to learn new techniques as I went along with drawing, and I also wanted to work with text.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; In short, you could say that for me the academy was really dreadful. Heart and soul I was a free artist and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t cope with the assignments they imposed on us. And I simply didn\u0026rsquo;t understand them. Almost invariably I didn\u0026rsquo;t understand what they expected from me. Teachers from other departments later said that I should have chosen free monumental arts, because I loved to make large works that involved a lot of work.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; At that time, photography was not yet considered a real art, but as a subject it was already on the curriculum. During my second year the photography department was founded\u0026mdash;an offshoot of the graphic design department. I decided to stick to graphic design, because I wanted to continue drawing, but in fact I learned a lot from the photography teachers Jos Hermans and Paul Ausloos.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eWe had a few really good teachers. Drawing from a model was taught by various teachers, including Wilfried Pas. That was really useful. He didn\u0026rsquo;t say a lot, but he taught me a few things that were essential and that served as a basis when later I started to teach myself at the Academy in Ghent. He taught us that you had to think from the middle of the joints, and that being aware of those points you got contact with depth.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eMy main teacher in the studio was Piet Serneels. Working with him was a disaster. For some reason the man had a problem with me. He comments were invariably discouraging. It became so bad that in the last year I left the classroom when he entered. I regret that now, because much later I discovered that my grandparents, who ran a reception hall, once had commissioned a design for a mural, but they had never paid him. When I discovered this, I was really furious with my grandmother. I was already active as an artist at that time, and on several occasions I had experienced myself this non-commitment for projects that were abandoned in the end. Furthermore, a large draft for the mural hung in father\u0026rsquo;s study and as a child I couldn\u0026rsquo;t keep my eyes of it. For me it was a fascinating graphic masterpiece with beautiful shapes and mysterious colours, with the gouache perfectly applied. It is precisely this man I had wanted to meet!\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; My class started with twenty-six students; in the last year there were four of us left. Much to Serneels\u0026rsquo; discontent, these were all women. He called us the goats\u0026rsquo; class and often claimed that he was wasting his time and knowledge on a class with women only, because once we got our degree, we would marry, get children and never do anything with art for the rest of our lives. I considered that particularly insulting.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Serneels wasn\u0026rsquo;t the only one with this kind of views. In Antwerp it was considered good taste not to take women serious in the world of art. In my eyes, all men in Antwerp misbehaved towards their wives. It was no coincidence that my first serious boyfriend came from Aalst, and my husband Danny Devos from Vilvoorde. Then of course, women didn\u0026rsquo;t have many female artists to look up to in the history of art, or on the contemporary art scene for that matter. Meret Oppenheim and Niki de Sainte-Phalle. That was it. There weren\u0026rsquo;t any classes on contemporary art, either. History of art was mainly about African tribes, so to speak. And Serneels\u0026rsquo; ideal was Paul Klee.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Our teachers were also particularly influenced by the style of advertisements in Central and Eastern Europe. Their admiration was justified. These adds were splendid, but a wider and more contemporary horizon would have been more stimulating. It was taboo to try out drawing techniques that were reminiscent of the illustrations in \u003ci\u003eAvenue\u003c/i\u003e, a Dutch magazine that was very trendy at the time.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; The year I arrived at school, the artists\u0026rsquo; ball had been banned. That was really a pity, for they were famous and I had looked forward to them. There was also this idea at the time that an artist had to drink a lot in order to be one of the crowd. So I started drinking myself, until I got cirrhosis at the age of twenty-four. In fact, I drank mainly to prove myself that I could if I wanted to. And to rebel against my upbringing. Not so much to prove myself as an artist. Until I got this disease, which made me bedridden for three months, in complete quarantine, I had reconciled myself with the fact that I would simply become the wife of an artist. But after those three months I had made up my mind. Right away after graduating I went to work in a restaurant but already in 1974 I exhibited my drawings in Ercola.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; I have few fond memories of my last years at the academy. When my work was marked down and I asked why, that caused problems. Apparently you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t ask that sort of questions. But how could you possibly do better if you didn\u0026rsquo;t know what you did wrong? For my graduate thesis I wanted to organize a campaign with as point of departure an animation film with clay pigs that grew in a flower pot. My subject was Stresnil, a medicine that is administered to pigs when they are taken to the slaughterhouse. But making animation films was banned in the Academy in Antwerp and Serneels considered a medicine for pigs a disgraceful subject. In the end I graduated on a work about Norwegian legends and myths.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eSo, the Academy turned out differently than I had imagined. Perhaps people who had Joseph Beuys as a teacher have more interesting stories to tell. My schooling was a rather muddled matter. But that was probably also my fault. Bearing in mind Mark Macken\u0026rsquo;s promise, for a long time I was convinced that I had learned too little at the Academy. But perhaps that is precisely how it always works: you learn things from the crumbs you pick up here and there.\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eMontagne de Miel, November 12\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e 2012\u003c/p\u003e\r\n"},{"locale":"nl","short_description":"","description":"\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n__________\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nHans Theys\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cstrong\u003eEen verschrikking\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nAnne-Mie Van Kerckhoven over haar verblijf aan de Antwerpse academie\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nAnne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (\u0026deg;1951): Ik studeerde aan de academie van 1970 tot 1974. Toen ik twaalf jaar oud was, wilde ik beeldhouwer worden, een jeugddroom. Mijn ouders wilden mij in de leer doen bij de beeldhouwer Albert Poels, maar ik had geen zin om tot mijn vijftiende werk voor hem uit te voeren. Ik wilde dolgraag naar de academie, maar dat mocht niet van thuis. Bovendien vonden de mensen van het PMS, die je moeten begeleiden bij je beroepskeuze, mij te slim voor de \u0026lsquo;sierkunsten\u0026rsquo;. Ik moest en zou naar de humaniora gaan. Sint-Lukas in Brussel mocht ook niet. Dan vroeg ik of ik niet naar de avondschool mocht, maar ook dat was uitgesloten. Na drie jaar Sint-Lutgardis in Antwerpen heb ik ervoor gekozen mijn tijd tot mijn achttiende af te wachten in het Heilig Graf pensionaat in Turnhout. Nadien heb ik mij meteen ingeschreven aan de academie van Antwerpen, waar ik uiteindelijk grafische vormgeving ben gaan studeren. Het toelatingsexamen verliep heel goed. Beeldhouwer Mark Macken, de directeur, zei: \u0026lsquo;Talent heeft ze, de rest zullen we haar wel leren.\u0026rsquo; Mevrouw Prijot wilde heel graag dat ik bij haar mode kwam studeren, maar ik wilde alleen maar al tekenend nieuwe technieken leren, en met tekst werken.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eSamengevat zou je kunnen zeggen dat de academie een verschrikking voor mij is geweest. Ik was in hart en nieren een vrij kunstenaar en begreep niets van dat werken met opdrachten. Ik begreep die opdrachten ook niet. Ik snapte meestal niet wat van mij werd verwacht. Leraars van andere richtingen zeiden achteraf dat ik Vrije Monumentale had moeten kiezen, omdat ik graag grote dingen maakte waar je lang aan moest werken.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eFotografie werd nog niet als een echte kunst beschouwd, maar wij konden dat wel al studeren. Tijdens mijn tweede jaar ontstond de afdeling fotografie als afsplitsing van de grafische vormgeving. Ik besloot bij de grafische vormgeving te blijven, omdat ik het tekenen niet wilde afzweren, maar ik heb veel geleerd van de leraars fotografie, Jos Hermans en Paul Ausloos. We hadden enkele heel goede leraars. Modeltekenen kregen we onder meer van Wilfried Pas. Dat was heel leerzaam. Hij zei niet veel, maar die enkele dingen die ik bij hem heb geleerd, hebben later gediend als basis toen ik zelf tekenleraar werd aan de Academie van Gent. Hij leerde ons dat je moest denken vanuit het middelpunt van de gewrichten en dat je aan de hand van het besef van die punten contact kreeg met de diepte. Mijn belangrijkste atelierleraar heette Piet Serneels. Onze samenwerking was een ramp. Om een of andere reden had de man een probleem met mij. Hij was altijd verschrikkelijk demotiverend. Dit werd zo erg dat ik het laatste jaar altijd de klas verliet als hij die betrad. Nu heb ik daar spijt van, omdat ik veel later heb ontdekt dat mijn grootouders, die een feestzaal beheerden, eens een ontwerp voor een muurschildering bij hem hadden besteld, maar hem nooit hebben betaald. Toen ik dat later vernam, ben ik echt woedend geworden op mijn grootmoeder. Ik was toen al kunstenaar en had al enkele malen ondervonden hoe vrijblijvend dikwijls wordt omgegaan met afgewezen ontwerpen. Al die jaren spanningen, zonder te begrijpen waar ze vandaan kwamen! Bovendien hing dat grote ontwerp in het bureau van mijn vader en als klein kind al kon ik er mijn ogen niet van afhouden. Voor mij was dat een fascinerend grafisch meesterwerk van mooie vormen en mysterieuze kleuren, onberispelijk geschilderd in plakkaatverf. Juist die man had ik willen leren kennen!\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eOnze klas startte met 26 studenten, in het laatste jaar waren we maar met vier meer. Tot grote onvrede van Serneels waren dat vier vrouwen. Hij noemde ons de geitenklas en zei meermaals dat hij het zonde vond om zijn tijd en kennis te verspillen aan een klas met alleen maar vrouwen die later toch zouden trouwen, kinderen krijgen en nooit meer iets artistieks verrichten. Ik voelde dat aan als een verschrikkelijk affront. En Serneels was niet de enige. Het was in Antwerpen bon ton om vrouwen op artistiek gebied niet ernstig te nemen. In mijn ogen gedroegen alle Antwerpse mannen zich slecht tegenover hun vrouwen. Het is niet voor niets dat mijn eerste serieuze vrijer uit Aalst kwam en mijn man Danny (Devos) van Vilvoorde. Kunsthistorisch en ook op hedendaags gebied hadden vrouwelijke kunstenaars ook niet veel voorbeelden. Meret Oppenheim en Niki de Sainte-Phalle. Dat was het. We kregen ook geen les over hedendaagse kunst. Onze kunstgeschiedenis ging over Afrikaanse stammen, bij wijze van spreken. En het ideaal voor Serneels was Paul Klee. Onze leraars waren ook heel erg be\u0026iuml;nvloed door de manier waarop reclame werd gemaakt in Midden- en Oost-Europa. Terecht. Die praktijk was van een enorme kwaliteit, maar een bredere, meer eigentijdse horizon zou stimulerender geweest zijn. Het was taboe om tekentechnieken uit te proberen die leken op wat bijvoorbeeld aan illustraties deed denken uit \u0026ldquo;Avenue\u0026rdquo;, een Nederlands toen erg hip tijdschrift.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eHet jaar dat ik arriveerde, hebben ze de artiestenbals afgeschaft. Dat vond ik echt spijtig, want die waren vermaard en ik had er naar uitgekeken. Toen heerste ook de idee dat je als kunstenaar heel veel moest drinken om erbij te kunnen horen. Dat deed ik dan ook, tot ik op mijn 24\u003csup\u003este\u003c/sup\u003e het begin van levercirrose kreeg. Ik dronk toen echter wel hoofdzakelijk om mezelf te bewijzen dat ik het kon als ik het wilde, ook als rebellie tegenover mijn opvoeding. Niet zozeer om me te bewijzen als kunstenaar. Want tot die ziekte, waardoor ik drie maanden alleen in quarantaine in mijn bed moest rusten, had ik me er bij neergelegd dat ik gewoon de vrouw van een kunstenaar zou worden. Na mijn ziekte stond mijn besluit echter vast. Na mijn studies ging ik meteen werken in een restaurant en in 1974 stelde ik al tekeningen tentoon bij Ercola.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eIk heb niet veel goede herinneringen aan de laatste jaren van mijn academietijd . Als ik weinig punten kreeg en ik vroeg waarom, gaf dat problemen. Blijkbaar mocht je daar niet naar vragen. Maar hoe kon je dan vooruitgang boeken? Als eindwerk wilde ik een campagne maken met als basis een klei-animatie met geboetseerde varkentjes die in een bloempot groeiden. Mijn onderwerp was het geneesmiddel Stresnil, dat ze aan varkens geven als ze naar de slachterij gebracht worden. Animatiefilms mochten in de Antwerpse Academie niet gemaakt worden en een geneesmiddel voor varkens vond Serneels een beschamend onderwerp. Ik ben dan afgestudeerd met een werk over de Noorse sagen en legenden. Later kreeg ik gelijkaardige problemen met mijn tekeningen. In de kunstwereld kreeg ik niet de kans die te exposeren, gedurende jaren raadde iedereen uit mijn omgeving het me af, mijn galeriehouder, maar ook Danny. Uiteindelijk wilden Filip Luyckx en nadien Dirk Snauwaert ze tonen, maar daar zijn 20 jaar overheen gegaan. Het nieuw soort werk waar ik nu mee bezig ben, roept ook weer weerstanden en reserves op, maar gelukkig nam mijn galeriehoudster in Berlijn het direct op in een show die nu loopt. Werk moet getoond worden, en moet reacties kunnen uitlokken. Het moet een leven kunnen leiden.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eJa, de academie, dat is niet geworden wat ik me er indertijd van voorgesteld had. Ik kende mensen die les kregen van Jozef Beuys, die hadden verhalen te vertellen. In mijn geval was mijn opleiding een warrige zaak. Het lag waarschijnlijk ook aan mij. Denkend aan de belofte van Marc Macken heb ik lang met het idee geleefd dat ik te weinig aan de academie heb geleerd. Maar de afdeling waarin ik moest terechtkomen, bestond toen nog niet, vrees ik. Gelukkig heeft een goed verstaander maar een half woord nodig. En misschien gaat het altijd zo: dat je dingen bijleert op basis van kleine kruimels die je hier en daar oppikt.\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eMontagne de Miel, 12 november 2012\u003c/p\u003e\r\n"},{"locale":"fr","short_description":"","description":"\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n__________\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nHans Theys\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cb\u003eA Disaster\u003c/b\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cb\u003eAnne-Mie Van Kerckhoven about her student years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts\u003c/b\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nAnne-Mie Van Kerckhoven: I studied at the academy from 1970 to 1974. When I was twelve, I wanted to be a sculptor\u0026mdash;a boy\u0026rsquo;s dream. My parents wanted to apprentice me to the sculptor Albert Poels, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like doing work for him till I was fifteen. I was very keen to go to the Academy, but my parents wouldn\u0026rsquo;t let me. Furthermore, the people who did the study counselling at school and who advised us on a career, thought I was too clever for \u0026lsquo;decorative arts\u0026rsquo;. I had no choice: I had to go to a comprehensive school. Saint Luke in Brussels wasn\u0026rsquo;t an option either. I asked if I could take evening classes, but even that was out of the question. After three years in Saint Lutgardis in Antwerp, I chose to bide my time in the Holy Sepulchre Boarding School in Turnhout. After that I enrolled at the Academy in Antwerp, where I started to study graphic design. The entrance exam went very well. Mark Macken, sculptor and then director, said, \u0026lsquo;She\u0026rsquo;s got talent\u0026mdash;we\u0026rsquo;ll teach her the rest.\u0026rsquo; Mrs Prijot wanted me to study fashion with her, but I simply wanted to learn new techniques as I went along with drawing, and I also wanted to work with text.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; In short, you could say that for me the academy was really dreadful. Heart and soul I was a free artist and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t cope with the assignments they imposed on us. And I simply didn\u0026rsquo;t understand them. Almost invariably I didn\u0026rsquo;t understand what they expected from me. Teachers from other departments later said that I should have chosen free monumental arts, because I loved to make large works that involved a lot of work.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; At that time, photography was not yet considered a real art, but as a subject it was already on the curriculum. During my second year the photography department was founded\u0026mdash;an offshoot of the graphic design department. I decided to stick to graphic design, because I wanted to continue drawing, but in fact I learned a lot from the photography teachers Jos Hermans and Paul Ausloos.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003eWe had a few really good teachers. Drawing from a model was taught by various teachers, including Wilfried Pas. That was really useful. He didn\u0026rsquo;t say a lot, but he taught me a few things that were essential and that served as a basis when later I started to teach myself at the Academy in Ghent. He taught us that you had to think from the middle of the joints, and that being aware of those points you got contact with depth.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003eMy main teacher in the studio was Piet Serneels. Working with him was a disaster. For some reason the man had a problem with me. He comments were invariably discouraging. It became so bad that in the last year I left the classroom when he entered. I regret that now, because much later I discovered that my grandparents, who ran a reception hall, once had commissioned a design for a mural, but they had never paid him. When I discovered this, I was really furious with my grandmother. I was already active as an artist at that time, and on several occasions I had experienced myself this non-commitment for projects that were abandoned in the end. Furthermore, a large draft for the mural hung in father\u0026rsquo;s study and as a child I couldn\u0026rsquo;t keep my eyes of it. For me it was a fascinating graphic masterpiece with beautiful shapes and mysterious colours, with the gouache perfectly applied. It is precisely this man I had wanted to meet!\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; My class started with twenty-six students; in the last year there were four of us left. Much to Serneels\u0026rsquo; discontent, these were all women. He called us the goats\u0026rsquo; class and often claimed that he was wasting his time and knowledge on a class with women only, because once we got our degree, we would marry, get children and never do anything with art for the rest of our lives. I considered that particularly insulting.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Serneels wasn\u0026rsquo;t the only one with this kind of views. In Antwerp it was considered good taste not to take women serious in the world of art. In my eyes, all men in Antwerp misbehaved towards their wives. It was no coincidence that my first serious boyfriend came from Aalst, and my husband Danny Devos from Vilvoorde. Then of course, women didn\u0026rsquo;t have many female artists to look up to in the history of art, or on the contemporary art scene for that matter. Meret Oppenheim and Niki de Sainte-Phalle. That was it. There weren\u0026rsquo;t any classes on contemporary art, either. History of art was mainly about African tribes, so to speak. And Serneels\u0026rsquo; ideal was Paul Klee.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Our teachers were also particularly influenced by the style of advertisements in Central and Eastern Europe. Their admiration was justified. These adds were splendid, but a wider and more contemporary horizon would have been more stimulating. It was taboo to try out drawing techniques that were reminiscent of the illustrations in \u003ci\u003eAvenue\u003c/i\u003e, a Dutch magazine that was very trendy at the time.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; The year I arrived at school, the artists\u0026rsquo; ball had been banned. That was really a pity, for they were famous and I had looked forward to them. There was also this idea at the time that an artist had to drink a lot in order to be one of the crowd. So I started drinking myself, until I got cirrhosis at the age of twenty-four. In fact, I drank mainly to prove myself that I could if I wanted to. And to rebel against my upbringing. Not so much to prove myself as an artist. Until I got this disease, which made me bedridden for three months, in complete quarantine, I had reconciled myself with the fact that I would simply become the wife of an artist. But after those three months I had made up my mind. Right away after graduating I went to work in a restaurant but already in 1974 I exhibited my drawings in Ercola.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; I have few fond memories of my last years at the academy. When my work was marked down and I asked why, that caused problems. Apparently you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t ask that sort of questions. But how could you possibly do better if you didn\u0026rsquo;t know what you did wrong? For my graduate thesis I wanted to organize a campaign with as point of departure an animation film with clay pigs that grew in a flower pot. My subject was Stresnil, a medicine that is administered to pigs when they are taken to the slaughterhouse. But making animation films was banned in the Academy in Antwerp and Serneels considered a medicine for pigs a disgraceful subject. In the end I graduated on a work about Norwegian legends and myths.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003eSo, the Academy turned out differently than I had imagined. Perhaps people who had Joseph Beuys as a teacher have more interesting stories to tell. My schooling was a rather muddled matter. But that was probably also my fault. Bearing in mind Mark Macken\u0026rsquo;s promise, for a long time I was convinced that I had learned too little at the Academy. But perhaps that is precisely how it always works: you learn things from the crumbs you pick up here and there.\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003eMontagne de Miel, November 12\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e 2012\u003c/p\u003e\r\n"},{"locale":"ru","short_description":"","description":""},{"locale":"de","short_description":"","description":"\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n__________\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nHans Theys\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cb\u003eA Disaster\u003c/b\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cb\u003eAnne-Mie Van Kerckhoven about her student years at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts\u003c/b\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nAnne-Mie Van Kerckhoven: I studied at the academy from 1970 to 1974. When I was twelve, I wanted to be a sculptor\u0026mdash;a boy\u0026rsquo;s dream. My parents wanted to apprentice me to the sculptor Albert Poels, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t feel like doing work for him till I was fifteen. I was very keen to go to the Academy, but my parents wouldn\u0026rsquo;t let me. Furthermore, the people who did the study counselling at school and who advised us on a career, thought I was too clever for \u0026lsquo;decorative arts\u0026rsquo;. I had no choice: I had to go to a comprehensive school. Saint Luke in Brussels wasn\u0026rsquo;t an option either. I asked if I could take evening classes, but even that was out of the question. After three years in Saint Lutgardis in Antwerp, I chose to bide my time in the Holy Sepulchre Boarding School in Turnhout. After that I enrolled at the Academy in Antwerp, where I started to study graphic design. The entrance exam went very well. Mark Macken, sculptor and then director, said, \u0026lsquo;She\u0026rsquo;s got talent\u0026mdash;we\u0026rsquo;ll teach her the rest.\u0026rsquo; Mrs Prijot wanted me to study fashion with her, but I simply wanted to learn new techniques as I went along with drawing, and I also wanted to work with text.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; In short, you could say that for me the academy was really dreadful. Heart and soul I was a free artist and I couldn\u0026rsquo;t cope with the assignments they imposed on us. And I simply didn\u0026rsquo;t understand them. Almost invariably I didn\u0026rsquo;t understand what they expected from me. Teachers from other departments later said that I should have chosen free monumental arts, because I loved to make large works that involved a lot of work.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; At that time, photography was not yet considered a real art, but as a subject it was already on the curriculum. During my second year the photography department was founded\u0026mdash;an offshoot of the graphic design department. I decided to stick to graphic design, because I wanted to continue drawing, but in fact I learned a lot from the photography teachers Jos Hermans and Paul Ausloos.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003eWe had a few really good teachers. Drawing from a model was taught by various teachers, including Wilfried Pas. That was really useful. He didn\u0026rsquo;t say a lot, but he taught me a few things that were essential and that served as a basis when later I started to teach myself at the Academy in Ghent. He taught us that you had to think from the middle of the joints, and that being aware of those points you got contact with depth.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003eMy main teacher in the studio was Piet Serneels. Working with him was a disaster. For some reason the man had a problem with me. He comments were invariably discouraging. It became so bad that in the last year I left the classroom when he entered. I regret that now, because much later I discovered that my grandparents, who ran a reception hall, once had commissioned a design for a mural, but they had never paid him. When I discovered this, I was really furious with my grandmother. I was already active as an artist at that time, and on several occasions I had experienced myself this non-commitment for projects that were abandoned in the end. Furthermore, a large draft for the mural hung in father\u0026rsquo;s study and as a child I couldn\u0026rsquo;t keep my eyes of it. For me it was a fascinating graphic masterpiece with beautiful shapes and mysterious colours, with the gouache perfectly applied. It is precisely this man I had wanted to meet!\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; My class started with twenty-six students; in the last year there were four of us left. Much to Serneels\u0026rsquo; discontent, these were all women. He called us the goats\u0026rsquo; class and often claimed that he was wasting his time and knowledge on a class with women only, because once we got our degree, we would marry, get children and never do anything with art for the rest of our lives. I considered that particularly insulting.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Serneels wasn\u0026rsquo;t the only one with this kind of views. In Antwerp it was considered good taste not to take women serious in the world of art. In my eyes, all men in Antwerp misbehaved towards their wives. It was no coincidence that my first serious boyfriend came from Aalst, and my husband Danny Devos from Vilvoorde. Then of course, women didn\u0026rsquo;t have many female artists to look up to in the history of art, or on the contemporary art scene for that matter. Meret Oppenheim and Niki de Sainte-Phalle. That was it. There weren\u0026rsquo;t any classes on contemporary art, either. History of art was mainly about African tribes, so to speak. And Serneels\u0026rsquo; ideal was Paul Klee.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Our teachers were also particularly influenced by the style of advertisements in Central and Eastern Europe. Their admiration was justified. These adds were splendid, but a wider and more contemporary horizon would have been more stimulating. It was taboo to try out drawing techniques that were reminiscent of the illustrations in \u003ci\u003eAvenue\u003c/i\u003e, a Dutch magazine that was very trendy at the time.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; The year I arrived at school, the artists\u0026rsquo; ball had been banned. That was really a pity, for they were famous and I had looked forward to them. There was also this idea at the time that an artist had to drink a lot in order to be one of the crowd. So I started drinking myself, until I got cirrhosis at the age of twenty-four. In fact, I drank mainly to prove myself that I could if I wanted to. And to rebel against my upbringing. Not so much to prove myself as an artist. Until I got this disease, which made me bedridden for three months, in complete quarantine, I had reconciled myself with the fact that I would simply become the wife of an artist. But after those three months I had made up my mind. Right away after graduating I went to work in a restaurant but already in 1974 I exhibited my drawings in Ercola.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; I have few fond memories of my last years at the academy. When my work was marked down and I asked why, that caused problems. Apparently you shouldn\u0026rsquo;t ask that sort of questions. But how could you possibly do better if you didn\u0026rsquo;t know what you did wrong? For my graduate thesis I wanted to organize a campaign with as point of departure an animation film with clay pigs that grew in a flower pot. My subject was Stresnil, a medicine that is administered to pigs when they are taken to the slaughterhouse. But making animation films was banned in the Academy in Antwerp and Serneels considered a medicine for pigs a disgraceful subject. In the end I graduated on a work about Norwegian legends and myths.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003eSo, the Academy turned out differently than I had imagined. Perhaps people who had Joseph Beuys as a teacher have more interesting stories to tell. My schooling was a rather muddled matter. But that was probably also my fault. Bearing in mind Mark Macken\u0026rsquo;s promise, for a long time I was convinced that I had learned too little at the Academy. But perhaps that is precisely how it always works: you learn things from the crumbs you pick up here and there.\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: sans-serif,Arial,Verdana,\u0026amp;quot;trebuchet ms\u0026amp;quot;; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;\"\u003eMontagne de Miel, November 12\u003csup\u003eth\u003c/sup\u003e 2012\u003c/p\u003e\r\n"},{"locale":"es","short_description":"","description":""},{"locale":"el","short_description":"","description":""}],"actors":[]}