{"id":19391,"title":"Koen Delaere - 2011 - All About Doing [EN, interview]","dimensions":"7 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":9,"permalink":"koen-delaere-all-about-doing-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\u003cstrong\u003eAll About Doing\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cstrong\u003eA conversation with Koen Delaere\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cem\u003eI meet Koen Delaere (\u0026deg;1970) at his studio in Tilburg. The paintings I discover are beautiful. The newest paintings move me the most. Touched, I recognize textures and juxtapositions of colors which my old friend, the painter Michel Frere, tried to make surface from the depths of the material, with a traditional brush. While I look around Delaere begins to speak enthusiastically about his work. I pen down his words quickly so you can listen along.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eKoen Delaere: I haven\u0026rsquo;t painted anything in the last two weeks, because I\u0026rsquo;ve been making large prints in Middelburg, in Piet Dieleman\u0026rsquo;s studio. We\u0026rsquo;re printing on paper size double A0, that\u0026rsquo;s about 168 cm by 118 cm. Because the press isn\u0026rsquo;t big enough for the paper, we have to fold the paper. The folding provides a way for me to gain and lose control over the work at the same time. Such methods are present in all my work these days. Through doing I try to come to methods by which I gain control and then lose it again. The four paintings you see before you are the most recent. I made them by sliding the canvases against one another, turning them 90\u0026deg; and sliding them again. This way of working began in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao where I spent some time, at the invitation of David Bade, to work with young artists. Cura\u0026ccedil;ao has a population of about 140,000, the same as Tilburg. There is no art there. In looking for a way to work with these young people I started thinking about what it could mean for me to make work there. At the same time I was noticing patterns that are common to the cityscape in that area. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao, just like in most South American countries, bars in front of ground floor windows are the norm. We Northern Europeans associate these with prisons or fear of the neighbors while in fact this system makes it possible to keep all the windows open to create cooling breezes. The houses are built to catch as much wind as possible. Often they have narrow gaps in the walls or concrete louvers, which due to their form inevitably recall modernism and thus call to mind Schoonhoven and Mondriaan. I decided to do something with these patterns. In this way I could work with a visual pattern that referred to the local political situation. By the process of sliding the paintings against each other patterns of a more personal nature are obtained. And the more personal they are, the more universal they will be, because others will be more likely to recognize something of themselves in it. I used to try to obtain this effect by placing photos I made myself, cut outs and other personal relics in my work. Now and then I\u0026rsquo;d clean my studio, stick the meaningful bits I found laying around to a canvas, and pour epoxy over the whole before beginning the painting. My work was more premeditated. Now I start from the physical process of painting.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- There are bars on the windows of your studio here.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: That\u0026rsquo;s right. (Laughs)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Because they are both painted white, the bars create a shifting pattern in relation with the borders of the window. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: I was consciously taking into account the work of Schoonhoven and Mondriaan, knowing that these painters mean next to nothing to young people in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao. But when I went snorkeling I recognized Schoonhoven\u0026rsquo;s patterns in the coral and in the light refraction at the bottom of the sea. When I went to S\u0026atilde;o Paolo and Los Angeles a little while later to make wall paintings, I invented a way of working through which I could begin immediately on arrival, because when you arrive in another city you want to work instead of being a tourist. It\u0026rsquo;s not obvious to look for new ideas when you arrive in a new place. That\u0026rsquo;s why I invented this way of proceeding. I thought I had to do something Dutch or European and that I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t think too much, but act. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao I had made a few works by sliding painted pieces of cardboard against each other. In Los Angeles I filled a canvas with paint and slided it against the wall first horizontally and then vertically. It\u0026rsquo;s something physical, but it offers a structure. It\u0026rsquo;s a method, but it offers a lot of freedom. The movements are geometrical, but the visual result is reminiscent of plants, coral, and the movement of light on the sea floor. The method has something human because it provokes accidents. I feel that\u0026#39;s where it gets interesting. We\u0026rsquo;re not allowed to use the word creative anymore these days, but originally, it must have meant something like problem solving. I like to invent problems that want to be solved.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eWhat also interests me about this way of working is that all the manipulations take place on the canvas. The paint isn\u0026rsquo;t thinned or mixed before I start, I don\u0026rsquo;t use a brush, palette or knife. I apply the paint squeezing, directly from the tube, onto the canvas and then I rub. If I want a certain amount of saturation it has to happen on the canvas. The nice thing about this approach is that it makes the paintings readable. Nothing is masked. Every mistake is still on the canvas. I\u0026rsquo;m not interested in paint either. Everything comes directly from the store. I\u0026rsquo;d rather paint with a broom or a piece of wood than with a brush. This, for example, is a painting that I use as a tool to make other paintings.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- You squeeze out paint tubes in different places on the canvas. By sliding the canvas against a second one you obtain unexpected meandering or broken up lines and planes, color combinations and textures. The places where the paint gathers with a flat top, like a miniature plateau, are very beautiful. Sometimes they find themselves next to virgin areas of canvas. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: The possibility of sparing some virgin canvas is a bonus. You never know where the plateaus will start or stop, and the result is always a surprise\u0026hellip; For other painters the process of making isn\u0026rsquo;t important of course. They look at the result. But I think in terms of procedures or a combination of different ways of doing that form a method. Young people are surprised at the amount of paint on my canvases but for me that material isn\u0026rsquo;t an end, it\u0026rsquo;s just a medium I can manipulate.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- At the corners of the canvas surprising masses arise. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: That\u0026#39;s because of the frame. The canvas yields when I push down on it so the edge of the frame holds up the paint. In the past I made paintings based exclusively on this circumstance. Traditionally, if the frame leaves traces in a painting this is seen as a flaw. I made it into a procedure to obtain new paintings. Because the canvas yields you\u0026rsquo;ve got to invent solutions and tactics in order to get some paint in the middle of your canvas.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- What do you think of Bernard Frize\u0026rsquo;s work?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: What he does is always perfect. It\u0026rsquo;s too clean. It never fails, or he doesn\u0026rsquo;t show that part. It\u0026rsquo;s work with no problems. I like work with friction in it. Its good to be able to think that you could do it yourself as well. With Frize it looks industrially made, so there\u0026rsquo;s always a certain distance. The work is about a kind of beauty that justifies itself. But art shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be about art. I\u0026rsquo;m convinced that the form of an artwork can convey meaning. A form that only seems to be about art doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean much to me. I apply myself to the task of making paintings that through their form express a mentality and opinion about things other than art. Last summer I put together a show at Aschenbach en Hofland in Amsterdam. The title, \u003cem\u003eThe Platinum Metre\u003c/em\u003e, referred to an interview with Paolo Virno. In this interview (\u003cem\u003eThe Mismeasurement of Art\u003c/em\u003e) Virno claims that each time art produces a new form the old ways of measuring the form fall short. It\u0026rsquo;s as if the platinum meter, housed in Paris, would suddenly be 90 or 110 cm long. Virno calls this \u0026lsquo;the mismeasurement of art\u0026rsquo;. In this he finds a connection between artistic avant-garde and radical social movement: both say the old ways of measuring are invalidated and that we need to look for new norms. For Virno the formal research is the most important: the form of a poem, or of new surroundings, or the structure of a new idea. To him looking for new forms in art is the same as looking for new ways to approach society. I agree with Virno. What I find most important in his ideas is that changes in art are intrinsically bound to the artistic form: with the \u0026#39;what\u0026#39; and \u0026#39;how\u0026#39; of the artistic process.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- How do you use brooms?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: I use them for specific works where I first apply a layer of enamel paint to a canvas and then sweep a layer of acrylic over it. The paint writhes in the tracks of the broom. In the beginning I applied the paint with old hard brushes, but I needed a broom to get to the middle of the canvas. It\u0026rsquo;s got something day-to-day and stupid to paint with brooms, but the visual result is interesting. I think about the enormous potential in mundane daily operations that according to Michel de Certeau could be used in art. I try to apply this idea when taking part in residency programs abroad trying to combine my own experiences with new information I come across. For example in S\u0026atilde;o Paolo I was impressed by the absence of commercials in public areas and by the presence of orchids growing in the trees. The sidewalks in front of the homes in the city are private property so the citizens use the trees as a kind of garden in which they grow orchids. I have an affinity for the orchid\u0026rsquo;s parasitic unbridled form that\u0026rsquo;s been added to a structure borne from urban planning and political decisions. I also like that this might say something about personal freedom. Then, in S\u0026atilde;o Paolo, when I started sliding painted canvasses against the walls I saw it as an operation resulting from my Dutch conceptual painting background as well as from the orchids and the Pixacao graffiti which were rampant in the suburbs.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Do you have a system for applying the colors before you start rubbing? \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: I apply the colors at random. Then I sweep in one go from the one to the other side of the painting, and then move on to the next stroke, and so on. Sometimes I scratch in it afterwards, like you would carve your name in a car door or train window.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- These paintings present a different kind of tracks, they look like the tracks on the broom paintings, because they are horizontal, but they seem different.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: I made them with my fingers. They are softer lines. The broom gives a more expressive sharp line. The problem with working in abstraction is that you get compared to expressionism, so you need the softer lines of a sluggish movement or a sort of slowness to contrast with the fast, so called, expressive action. I\u0026rsquo;m glad there is still virgin canvas visible in these too, so there\u0026rsquo;s still some air, so it\u0026rsquo;s not all caked full.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- The paintings you make with your fingers have a rougher surface. The traces have raffled edges.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: The broom paintings emerge in one go. They\u0026rsquo;re all over paintings, also in time. They arise from a few small controlled actions. The finger paintings, on the other hand, are painted over a longer period of time. Sometimes they have dried during the process. Dried oil paint gets a skin on top, if you zip open that blister you get a ridged effect. You can make a painting in an hour or a day, or you can spread out this making over ten days. Then the result is different. After the paintings have been made, the selection process begins. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to make decisions. Lots of good things happen coincidently, but you\u0026rsquo;ve got to give the flukes a place.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- You said that you\u0026rsquo;ve only been working like this since your last summer, spent in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: I finished school in 1995. The first years I did a lot of performances and made installations, but in the end this was too indefinite for me. I made photos and videos as well but I\u0026rsquo;ve got a greater affinity for paint. It is a limited medium, but I find the most freedom within the limitations of painting. One day I decided to form clear formal parameters within which to work. Actually I had to build it up from scratch again. I\u0026rsquo;ve been painting for about ten years now.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- When did you start paying attention to the patterns?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: My introduction to patterns took place at an early age, when I was a teenager. It happened at an exhibition of war flags from the Fante Asafo, an African tribe. The flags were based on the British military flag with smaller versions or echo\u0026rsquo;s of the flag and pictograms attesting their invincibility. \u0026ldquo;We can stand on an ant hill without fear! \u0026rdquo;They also used the image of ivy. \u0026ldquo;We are like ivy and conquer obstacles!\u0026rdquo; An obstacle in that case is not seen as something that holds you back, but something that allows you to grow. Years later, in 1990, I had a studio in an old school building that hadn\u0026rsquo;t been used in years. Because of its dilapidated state the playground paved with cement tiles was covered with weeds. On the one hand you had the strict geometry of the tiles, on the other hand you had the weeds that ignored or made use of the system. Before I started working with abstraction I painted this kind of coming together of grids and wild organic forms: tiles, plants, ivy. But when I came home at night I\u0026rsquo;d find the paint on my hands more interesting than my paintings and I began to understand that they were the random result of a system. I understood that I could create a strict system and use it to produce organic forms. In the end you could ask why I was interested in African flags when I was a young man. I lived in South Africa when I was young, in Johannesburg and Capetown. I imagine that this had some effect on my perspective. Its not uncommon for a dominated or colonized society to pick up elements of the culture of the oppressor, like tribes in South Africa that have taken elements from cricket and use them in dance and rituals to communicate with each other.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e- In an invisible way there\u0026rsquo;s another link in your current process. Claude L\u0026eacute;vi-Strauss describes structures (based on convention) and events (things born from coincidence). He proves that the patterns or grids used by so called primitive people to represent reality or to organize their society, are actually empty forms, that do not answer to archetypes. If something new happens, the structure is changed. Basing their ideas on nature, for which they have a fine eye, they think of juxtapositions with which they can split their society in such a way that the different casts, classes or \u0026lsquo;moieties\u0026rsquo; will overlap. That\u0026rsquo;s how they avoid war. But if, for instance, part of a tribe disappears they will invent a new structure. The structures are used to organize the world. Paradoxically, without them events are invisible. Without structure there is no place for chance. A living structure allows coincidence and changes with it. The same happens in your work. You apply procedures or tactics, but the goal is variety and difference, the goal is to produce events.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Do you know Bayrle\u0026rsquo;s work? He sees grids everywhere: on computer screens, in the woven fabric of our clothes\u0026hellip; He gives form to the paranoiac potential within grids. In an animation of his you see, for example, a telephone that turns out to be made of lots of telephones which in turn are also made of telephones and so on.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Here it seems like you\u0026rsquo;ve used another working method.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: I told you I\u0026rsquo;d learned at the Art Academy not to paint the linen into the frame. I spent a while doing that on purpose. After that I turned the idea around and clamped narrow boards on the painting. I allowed myself to do anything on the condition that every brush stroke hit the board. The result was an unpainted strip where the board had been.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- It looks like the paint collected under the edge of the board, how did that happen?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: The canvas gives way, so I\u0026rsquo;d sweep the paint under the board. Sometimes I\u0026rsquo;d use different sized boards, then you get this kind of painting. (He shows a painting.) A horizontal line in a painting often reminds one of a horizon. So you use that. I\u0026rsquo;m not trying to paint landscapes, its more about giving shape to an array of possibilities.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- How did these paintings come into existence?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: First I created a texture with a hard dried out brush. After I\u0026rsquo;d spray enamel over it, which is dry, almost in powder form, by the time it lands on the canvas. Because the powder drizzles downward it doesn\u0026rsquo;t land on the underside of the ridges. That\u0026rsquo;s how you get the tantalizing difference in color\u0026hellip; You get kind of a friction between the rigorous brushwork and an atmospheric, mistiness from the sprayed paint molecules. They are hybrid works that occur through the encounter of spray enamel paint with oil paint. That\u0026rsquo;s how they remind us that paintings are always hybrids. We experience the applying of paint as something normal, but actually it\u0026rsquo;s a strange thing to do. These paintings are the result of videos I used to make based on night shots. Night shots are green and pixilated. There\u0026rsquo;s no green in the paintings, but a green haze is achieved through the use of yellow and black. Every once in a while I\u0026rsquo;ll make one of these paintings. I\u0026rsquo;ve only made six or seven. Every time I start one I have to work to remember how to do it again\u0026hellip; The combination of spray paint with oil paint applied with a brush is reminiscent of street art. Graffiti itself doesn\u0026rsquo;t interest me, but the making of it is one of the only ways to freely intervene in public space, a little like the way skaters see the world as a situationist playing field. I like that tension between freedom and absence of freedom. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao there\u0026rsquo;s only one type of orchid, of which thousands of varieties exist. This type is protected, you\u0026rsquo;re not allowed to pick it or take it with you, but on the other hand the orchid seems to be smothering all the other plants.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e[In the work of Guy Debord I\u0026rsquo;m interested mostly in the idea that the world is a place full of opportunities. The situationists went about making up and implementing their own rules and logic in the city. In the punk movement those self defined criteria and that vision became principle for all facets of life. I try to use the fabrication of rules as a working method.]\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eEvery thing depends on how much you control or let go. During a lecture someone pointed out to John K\u0026ouml;rmeling that the car industry would do everything in their power to stop the production of the Stirling engine, because water is free, and oil is not. K\u0026ouml;rmeling answered that we\u0026rsquo;ve only decided based on a convention that what comes out of the earth costs money and that what falls from the sky is free. Why couldn\u0026rsquo;t we tax water? At the same time we as individuals seem to become ever less powerful. You used to be able to fix your car or washing machine yourself, but not anymore. I\u0026rsquo;d like to give the viewers of my work the feeling that they can decide the conditions. That someone might, for example, find the courage to build an addition to his or her home; that he or she can take an initiative instead of functioning within systems stipulated by masses that neglect the value of individual action.\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nMontagne de Miel, 28 March 2011\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\u003eUit de handeling het schilderij\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cstrong\u003eGesprek met Koen Delaere\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cem\u003eIk ontmoet Koen Delaere (1970) in zijn atelier in Tilburg. Ik wordt begroet door prachtige schilderijen. E\u0026eacute;n ervan, verdekt opgesteld in een hoek, blijkt later afgekeurd te zijn. Het is prachtig. De laatste schilderijen raken mij het meest. Ontroerd herken ik texturen en juxtaposities van kleuren die mijn oude vriend Michel Fr\u0026egrave;re schilderend met het traditionele penseel poogde te laten opduiken vanuit de diepte van de mati\u0026egrave;re. Terwijl ik mijmerend rondkijk, begint Delaere begeesterd over zijn werk te spreken. Snel pen ik zijn woorden neer, zodat u mee kan luisteren.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eKoen Delaere: De laatste twee weken heb ik niet geschilderd, maar grafisch werk gemaakt in Middelburg, in het atelier van Piet Dieleman. We drukken op het formaat dubbel A0, dat is ongeveer 168 bij 118 cm. Omdat de drukpers kleiner is dan dit formaat, moeten we de vellen vouwen. Dat vouwen gebruik ik om een soort van controle te verwerven en tegelijk te verliezen. Dat is tegenwoordig een constante in mijn werk. Door middel van handelingen probeer ik tot methoden te komen om controle te verwerven en te verliezen. De vier doeken die je voor je ziet, zijn de meest recente. Ik heb ze gemaakt door doeken over elkaar te schuiven, te kantelen en weer over elkaar te schuiven. Die werkwijze kwam tot stand in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao, waar ik op uitnodiging van David Bade heb gewerkt met jonge mensen. Cura\u0026ccedil;ao is een eiland met ongeveer 140.000 inwoners, evenveel als Tilburg. Kunst heb je er niet. Zoekend naar een manier om met die jonge mensen te werken, ging ik mij afvragen hoe het voor mezelf zinnig kon zijn werk te maken in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao. Tegelijk ging ik steeds meer rasters ontdekken in het straatbeeld. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao, net als in andere landen in Zuid-Amerika, zitten er vrijwel altijd tralies voor de ramen. Wij associ\u0026euml;ren dit beeld met gevangenschap of angst voor de buren, maar eigenlijk maken de tralies het mogelijk de ramen te laten openstaan, zodat je afkoelende luchtstromen kan opwekken. De huizen worden zo gebouwd dat ze zoveel mogelijk wind vangen. Vaak zitten er geulen in de muren, soms zie je betonnen vitrages, die onvermijdelijk aan het modernisme en zo ook aan Schoonhoven en Mondriaan doen denken. Ik besloot iets te doen met rasters. Zo kon ik aan de slag met een visueel patroon dat tegelijk een sociale of politieke geladenheid kreeg. Door dat schuiven met die doeken maak je rasters die je op een persoonlijke manier kan opladen. Hoe persoonlijker, hoe universeler, denk ik. Omdat anderen zich in je werk herkennen. Vroeger deed ik dat bijvoorbeeld door knipsels, eigen snapshots en andere relieken van mijn leven in mijn schilderijen te verwerken. Af en toe ruimde ik mijn atelier op, kleefde ik boeiende dingen op een doek en overgoot ik dit met epoxyhars alvorens ik begon te schilderen. Mijn werk was meer bedacht, nu vertrekt het vanuit de handeling\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Hier in je atelier zitten ook tralies voor de ramen. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Dat klopt. (Lacht.)\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Omdat ze allebei wit geschilderd zijn, vormen de tralies samen met de raamkozijnen een mooi verschoven raster. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Ja, waarschijnlijk heb ik ook aan dit atelier gedacht. Bewust dacht ik aan het werk van Piet Mondriaan en Jan Schoonhoven, maar dat zegt die jonge mensen in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao natuurlijk weinig of niets. Maar toen ik ging snorkelen, herkende ik rasters in de vorm van de koralen en zag ik patronen van Schoonhoven in de weerspiegelingen van het wateroppervlak op de zeebodem. Toen ik even later werd uitgenodigd om in S\u0026atilde;o Paolo en Los Angeles muurschilderingen te maken, ontwikkelde ik een manier van werken, een manier van doen, zodat ik meteen aan de slag kon als ik ergens arriveerde. Want als je op een plek meteen aan het werk kan gaan, ben je geen toerist meer. Het is ook lastig als je eerst op zoek moet gaan naar een idee. Ik dacht dat ik iets Nederlands of Europees moest doen en niet nadenken maar handelen, beginnen. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao had ik stukjes met geverfd karton tegen elkaar gewreven. In Los Angeles smeerde ik verf op een doek en wreef met dat doek eerst horizontaal en nadien verticaal over de muur. Het is iets fysieks, maar het biedt een structuur. Het is een methode, maar ze maakt een grote vrijheid mogelijk. De bewegingen zijn geometrisch, maar de visuele resultaten doen denken aan woekerende planten, koralen of lichtkringen op de zeebodem. De methode heeft ook iets menselijks, omdat ze fouten uitlokt. Naar mijn gevoel wordt het pas dan interessant. We mogen het woord creatief niet meer gebruiken, deze dagen, maar oorspronkelijk betekende het zoiets als probleemoplossend. Ik verzin graag problemen die om oplossingen vragen.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eWat mij ook boeit in deze manier van werken, is dat alle handelingen zich op het doek afspelen. De verf wordt niet verdund of vermengd voor ik begint te werken, ik gebruik geen kwast, palet of paletmes. Ik breng de verf, knijpend, rechtstreeks vanuit de tubes aan op het doek en dan ga ik schuiven. Als je een bepaalde verzadiging wil, dan moet dat op het doek gebeuren. Het mooie is, dat dit het doek leesbaar maakt. Er wordt niets gemaskeerd. Iedere fout zit nog op het doek. Ik ben ook niet ge\u0026iuml;nteresseerd in de verf. Alles komt rechtstreeks uit de hobbywinkel of de verfwinkel. Ik schilder liever met een bezem of een plank dan met een penseel. Dit hier, bijvoorbeeld, is een schilderij dat is gebruikt als gereedschap om andere schilderijen te maken.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Je drukt verftubes leeg op verschillende plekken en door het schuiven krijg je onvoorspelbare, meanderende of verbrokkelde lijnen en vlakken, kleurcombinaties en texturen. Heel mooi zijn de opeenhopingen met een vlakke bovenkant, als minieme plateaus, die zich soms naast nog maagdelijk doek bevinden.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Ja, de mogelijkheid hier en daar wit doek te bewaren is een meevaller. Je weet ook nooit waar die plateaus zullen beginnen of ophouden, dat levert verrassende resultaten op\u0026hellip; Voor collega schilders is je methode niet belangrijk, natuurlijk. Die kijken naar het resultaat. Maar ik denk vooral in handelingen of combinaties van handelingen die samen een methodiek vormen. Jonge mensen verbazen zich soms over de hoeveelheid verf op mijn schilderijen, maar voor mij is dat materiaal geen doel, maar gewoon een middel om te kunnen handelen.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Er ontstaan ook mooie, onverwachte ophopingen aan de randen van je schilderijen.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Dat komt door het spieraam. Het doek wijkt terug, waardoor het spieraam verf tegenhoudt. Vroeger heb ik schilderijen gemaakt die uitsluitend op dit voorval gebaseerd waren. Als je in een schilderij sporen ziet van een spieraam, dan wordt dat traditioneel als een mankement beschouwd. Ik heb dit aangewend als proc\u0026eacute;d\u0026eacute;, als middel om tot nieuwe schilderijen te komen. Want omdat het doek wijkt, moet je oplossingen of tactieken verzinnen om ook in het midden van je doek materie te krijgen.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Wat vind je van het werk van Bernard Frize?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Wat hij doet is altijd perfect. Het wordt nooit vuil, het gaat nooit de mist in, of hij laat dat niet zien. Het is een soort probleemloos werk. Ik vind het fijn als er een soort frictie zit in een werk. Het is prettig als je denkt dat je het zelf zou kunnen doen. Bij Frize ziet het eruit alsof het industrieel is en dat je het zelf nooit zou kunnen maken. Er blijft ook altijd een soort van afstand. Het gaat ook om een soort van schoonheid die zichzelf bewijst. Maar kunst moet niet alleen over kunst gaan. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat de vorm van een kunstwerk een inhoudelijke bepaling meedraagt. Een vorm die alleen over kunst lijkt te spreken, zegt mij niet zoveel. Ik tracht sterke beeldende schilderijen te maken die door hun vorm een bepaalde mentaliteit uitdrukken en stelling nemen over andere zaken dan de kunst. Afgelopen zomer heb ik bij galerie Aschenbach en Hofland in Amsterdam een tentoonstelling samengesteld, waarvan de title \u003cem\u003eThe Platinum Metre\u003c/em\u003e verwees naar een interview met Paolo Virno. In dit interview (\u003cem\u003eThe Mismeasurement of Art\u003c/em\u003e) bepleit Virno dat elke keer als in de kunst een nieuwe vorm ontwikkeld wordt, de oude manieren om deze vorm te meten\u0026nbsp;niet meer\u0026nbsp;functioneren. Het is alsof de platina meter die in Parijs bewaard wordt om\u0026nbsp;de standaardlengte te bepalen ineens 90 cm of 110 cm lang wordt. Virno noemt dit \u0026lsquo;de crisis van de maateenheid\u0026rsquo;. Hierin ziet hij een verbinding tussen de artistieke avant-garde en de radicale sociale beweging: allebei zeggen ze dat de oude normen niet langer geldig zijn en dat we moeten zoeken naar nieuwe normen. Voor Virno is het formele onderzoek het belangrijkst. De vorm van een gedicht is als de vorm van een nieuwe omgeving, de structuur van een nieuw idee. Het zoeken van nieuwe vormen in de kunst staat voor hem gelijk aan het zoeken naar nieuwe manieren om naar de maatschappij te kijken en om te gaan met begrippen als macht. Ik ben het in grote lijnen eens met Virno. Voor mij is het belangrijkste in zijn verhaal dat radicale veranderingen in de kunst intrinsiek verbonden zijn met de artistieke vorm: met het \u0026lsquo;wat\u0026rsquo; en \u0026lsquo;hoe\u0026rsquo; van het kunstproces.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Hoe gebruik je bezems?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Die gebruik ik voor specifieke werken, waarbij ik eerst witte lakverf op een doek aanbreng en er dan met de bezem acryl overheen veeg. In de sporen van de bezem gaat de verf wringen, omdat lakverf en acryl elkaar afstoten. In het begin deed ik dat met harde, opgedroogde kwasten, maar ik had een bezem nodig om tot in het midden van het doek te kunnen komen. Het heeft iets alledaags en doms, je werk bezemen, maar het visuele resultaat is wel boeiend. Ik denk daarbij ook aan het geweldige potentieel dat in alledaagse handelingen besloten ligt en dat volgens Michel de Certeau kan worden gebruikt in de kunst. Ik tracht dit inzicht ook op een bredere manier toe te passen door tijdens residenties mijn achtergrond te combineren met dingen die ik ter plaatse aantref. Zo was ik in S\u0026atilde;o Paolo getroffen door de afwezigheid van reclameborden in het straatbeeld en door de orchidee\u0026euml;n die in de bomen groeiden. De voetpaden voor de huizen zijn daar eigendom van de mensen die er wonen. Daarom gebruiken ze de bomen die voor hun huizen staan als een soort van tuin, waarin ze orchidee\u0026euml;n laten groeien. Ik hou van die parasitaire, woekerende vorm, die wordt toegevoegd aan een structuur die voortvloeit uit een stedenbouwkundige of politieke beslissing. Maar ik hou ook van de manier waarop dit gebruik iets zegt over de menselijke vrijheid. Toen ik in S\u0026atilde;o Paolo met schilderijen ging over een muur schuiven, zag ik dit als een handeling die zowel voortvloeide uit de Nederlandse manier in de conceptuele schilderkunst (Van Koningsbruggen, Mondriaan) als uit de orchidee\u0026euml;n en de pixacao graffiti, die woekeren in de buitenwijken.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Heb je een systeem voor het aanbrengen van de kleuren vooraleer je begint te schuiven?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: De kleuren breng ik at random aan. Dan veeg ik \u0026eacute;\u0026eacute;n keer van de ene zijde van het doek naar de andere, dan de strook ernaast enzovoort. Soms voeg ik aan het eind krassen toe, zoals je je naam kan krassen in een autoportier of op een treinvenster.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Deze schilderijen vertonen een ander soort sporen. Ze lijken op de sporen van de bezemschilderijen, onder meer omdat ze eveneens horizontaal zijn, maar ze zijn anders.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Ze zijn gemaakt met mijn vingers. Het zijn meer slappe lijnen. De bezem geeft meer expressieve, scherpe lijnen. Hier is het ook meer een wrijven dan een krassen. Het probleem met abstractie is dat het snel met expressionisme vergeleken, wordt, daarom heb je slappe lijnen of trage bewegingen nodig, een soort van langzame bedoening die contrasteert met de snelle, zogezegd expressieve actie. Ook hier ben ik blij dat je nog wit doek kan zien, dat er nog lucht is, dat het geen koek wordt.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- De schilderijen die je met je vingers maakt, hebben een ruwer oppervlak, de sporen hebben rafelige randen.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: De bezemschilderijen ontstaan in \u0026eacute;\u0026eacute;n keer. Het zijn all over schilderijen, ook in de tijd. Ze ontstaan uit enkele luttele, gecontroleerde gebaren. Maar bij de vingerschilderijen laat ik het schilderij soms een tijdje drogen. Daardoor komt er een vlies op de olieverf. Als je die blaar openritst, bekom je rafelige effecten. Je kan een schilderij maken op \u0026eacute;\u0026eacute;n uur of \u0026eacute;\u0026eacute;n dag tijd, maar je kan dit maken ook spreiden over tien dagen. Dan krijg je andere resultaten. Als de schilderijen gemaakt zijn, volgt het selecteren. Je frank moet ook vallen. Veel goeie dingen ontstaan toevallig, maar je moet dat toeval wel een plaats geven.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Je vertelt dat je pas afgelopen zomer in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao begonnen bent met het ontwikkelen van dit soort handelingen.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Ik ben in 1995 van de academie gekomen. De eerste jaren deed ik veel performances en maakte ik installaties, maar uiteindelijk bleek dat voor mij te vrijblijvend. Ik maak ook wel foto\u0026#39;s en ik heb ook video\u0026#39;s gemaakt, maar ik heb het meest affiniteit met verf. Het is een beperkt medium, maar binnen de beperkingen van de schilderkunst vind ik het meest vrijheid. Op een dag heb ik besloten een helder kader te formuleren waarbinnen ik wil werken. Eigenlijk heb ik alles opnieuw opgebouwd. Ik schilder nu een jaar of tien.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Wanneer ben je voor het eerst op rasters gaan letten?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Mijn eerste kennismaking met rasters, zij het nog onbewust, was tijdens het bezoek aan een tentoonstelling van oorlogsvlaggen van de Fante Asafo, een Afrikaanse stam. Op basis van de Britse militaire vlag, waarin een verkleinde versie of een echo van diezelfde vlag voorkomt, hebben ze tal van vlaggen gemaakt met in pictogrammen uitgedrukte spreuken die hun onoverwinnelijkheid uitdrukken. \u0026#39;Wij kunnen onbevreesd op een mierenhoop staan!\u0026#39; Ze gebruikten ook het beeld van een klimop. (Wij zijn als klimop en overwinnen alle hindernissen!) Een obstakel is daarbij niet iets dat je stuit in je voortgang, maar iets dat je de kans geeft je te verheffen. Jaren later, in 1990, had ik een atelier in een oude school die al jarenlang niet meer gebruikt was. Daardoor groeide op de betegelde speelplaats metershoog onkruid. Aan de ene kant had je dat strikt geometrische, aan de andere kant de natuur die dit gegeven negeerde of benutte. Voor ik abstract ging werken, schilderde ik dit soort ontmoetingen tussen rasters en ontsnappende organische vormen: tegels, planten, klimop. Maar \u0026#39;s avonds vond ik de verfvlekken op mijn handen interessanter en ging ik begrijpen dat daar een systeem aan vooraf ging. Ik begreep dat je een streng systeem kon ontwerpen en daarbinnen laveren, op zoek naar een esthetiek van het onkruid. Tenslotte zou je mij kunnen vragen waarom ik als jongeman ge\u0026iuml;nteresseerd was in Afrikaanse vlaggen. Als kind heb ik in Zuid-Afrika gewoond, in Johannesburg en Kaapstad. Ik vermoed dat dit mijn blik lichtjes gewijzigd heeft. Het gebeurt vaker dat gekolonialiseerde of gedomineerde volkeren elementen uit de cultuur van de overheerser overnemen. Zo zijn er in Zuid-Amerika stammen die elementen uit het cricketspel hebben overgenomen en als een dans of ritueel inzetten om met elkaar te communiceren.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Op een onzichtbare manier is er nog een ander verband met je huidige manier van werken. Claude L\u0026eacute;vi-Strauss onderscheidt structuren (die gebaseerd zijn op conventies en behoeften) en gebeurtenissen (dingen die te wijten zijn aan het toeval). Hij toont aan dat de structuren of rasters die zogenaamd primitieve volkeren gebruiken om de werkelijkheid te duiden of hun samenlevingen te organiseren eigenlijk holle vormen zijn, die zeker niet beantwoorden aan archetypen. Gebeurt er iets nieuws, dan worden de structuren aangepast. Op basis van minieme verschillen in de natuur (waar ze een bijzonder oog voor hebben), bedenken ze tegenstellingen waarmee ze hun samenleving zodanig opsplitsen dat de afzonderlijke \u0026#39;moieties\u0026#39;, standen of kasten elkaar gaan overlappen. Zo voorkomen ze oorlogen. Maar als bijvoorbeeld een deel van een stam verdwijnt, verschijnt er een nieuwe structuur. De structuren dienen om de wereld te ordenen, maar zonder structuur kan je natuurlijk geen gebeurtenis onderscheiden. Zonder structuur kan je geen plaats geven aan het toevallige. Een levende structuur omarmt het toevallige en past zich aan. Hetzelfde gebeurt in je werk. Je ontwerpt proc\u0026eacute;d\u0026eacute;\u0026#39;s of tactieken om zinvol te kunnen handelen, maar het doel is verscheidenheid, het doel is het opwekken van gebeurtenissen.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Ken je het werk van Bayrle? Die ziet overal rasters: op computerschermen, in de weefstructuur van onze kleren\u0026hellip; Hij geeft gestalte aan een paranoia jegens het raster. In een animatiefilm zie je bijvoorbeeld een telefoon die blijkt te bestaan uit heel veel telefoons die op hun beurt ook weer bestaan uit telefoons enzovoort.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Hier lijk je nog een andere werkmethode te hebben gebruikt.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Ik vertelde je al dat je aan de academie leert dat je niet tegen de spielatten mag aanschilderen. Ik heb dat een tijdje opzettelijk gedaan. Vervolgens heb ik de zaken omgekeerd en ben ik met lijmklemmen balken aan de voorzijde van het doek gaan spannen. Ik mocht alles doen als ik maar tegen die balk aanschilderde. Op de plaats waar de balk zat, ontstaat dan een uitgespaarde lijn.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- De verf lijkt zich op te stapelen onder de rand van de balk. Hoe kan dat?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Het doek wijkt. En ik gebruik veel kracht. Zo veeg ik verf onder de balk. Soms gebruik ik verschillende latten, dan ontstaat dit soort schilderijen. (Hij toont een schilderij.) Een streep in een schilderij doet vaak denken aan een horizon. Dat gebruik je, zonder een landschap te willen maken. Het gaat meer om het gestalte geven aan een veld van mogelijkheden.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e- Hoe komen deze schilderijen tot stand?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eDelaere: Eerst cre\u0026euml;er ik een textuur met een harde, opgedroogde kwast. Daarna spuit ik er lakverf overheen, die al droog is wanneer ze in poedervorm op het doek landt. Doordat dit poeder van boven naar beneden dwarrelt, landt het niet op de onderzijde van de ribbels. Daardoor krijg je die tintelende kleurverschillen\u0026hellip; Je krijgt een soort frictie tussen de rigoureuze kwaststreek en het atmosferische, wolkachtige van de gespoten verfkorreltjes. Het zijn hybride werken, die ontstaan uit de ontmoeting tussen olieverf en lakverf. Zo herinneren ze ons er ook aan dat schilderijen altijd hybride zijn. We ervaren het aanbrengen van verf op een doek als iets normaals, maar eigenlijk is het iets raars om te doen. Deze schilderijen zijn voortgekomen uit video\u0026#39;s die ik vroeger maakte op basis van nightshots. Nightshots hebben een groen gepixeld beeld. In de schilderijen zit wel geen groen. De groene schijn wordt opgewekt door het gebruik van geel en zwart. Eens in de zoveel tijd maak ik zo\u0026#39;n schilderij. Ik heb er nog maar zes of zeven gemaakt. Elke keer als ik eraan begin, moet ik mij weer proberen te herinneren hoe ik het moet aanpakken\u0026hellip;\u0026nbsp;Door het combineren van de spuitbus en olieverf met kwast roepen deze schilderijen ook herinneringen op aan de street art. Graffiti op zich interesseren mij niet, maar het maken ervan is een van de enige vrije vormen om in te grijpen in de openbare ruimte, een beetje zoals skaters de wereld kunnen zien als een situationistisch speelveld. Ik hou van die spanning tussen vrijheid en onvrijheid. Op Cura\u0026ccedil;ao vind je maar \u0026eacute;\u0026eacute;n orchideesoort, waarvan duizenden varianten bestaan. Die soort is beschermd, je mag die niet meenemen. Maar tegelijk lijken die orchidee\u0026euml;n alle andere planten te verdrukken. Bij Debord ben ik vooral geboeid door het idee dat de wereld een plek van mogelijkheden is. De situationisten gingen hun eigen regels bepalen en een eigen logica in de stad aanbrengen. In de punkbeweging werden die eigen regels en eigen visie leidend voor het hele leven. Ik probeer het stellen van eigen regels te hanteren als werkmethode.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: justify;\"\u003eAlles is afhankelijk van de mate waarin je de dingen controleert of loslaat. Tijdens een lezing wees iemand John K\u0026ouml;rmeling er eens op dat de auto-industrie alles zal doen om de Stirlingmotor tegen te houden, omdat water gratis is en aardolie niet. Waarop K\u0026ouml;rmeling antwoordde dat we alleen maar op basis van een conventie besloten hebben dat dingen die uit de aarde komen, betaald moeten worden en dingen die uit de hemel vallen niet. Waarom zou water niet belast kunnen worden? Tegelijk lijken we als individu steeds onmachtiger te worden. Vroeger kon je je auto of je wasmachine zelf repareren, vandaag niet meer. Ik zou graag hebben dat mijn schilderijen de toeschouwer het gevoel geven dat hij of zij zelf de voorwaarden kan bepalen. Dat iemand bijvoorbeeld de moed zou vinden zelf een dakkapel te bouwen, dat ze zelf het initiatief in handen nemen in plaats van te functioneren binnen systemen die bepaald worden door een menigte en de waarde van de individuele handeling veronachtzamen.\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nMontagne de Miel, 28 maart 2011\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\u003cstrong\u003eAll About Doing\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cstrong\u003eA conversation with Koen Delaere\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cem\u003eI meet Koen Delaere (\u0026deg;1970) at his studio in Tilburg. The paintings I discover are beautiful. The newest paintings move me the most. Touched, I recognize textures and juxtapositions of colors which my old friend, the painter Michel Frere, tried to make surface from the depths of the material, with a traditional brush. While I look around Delaere begins to speak enthusiastically about his work. I pen down his words quickly so you can listen along.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eKoen Delaere: I haven\u0026rsquo;t painted anything in the last two weeks, because I\u0026rsquo;ve been making large prints in Middelburg, in Piet Dieleman\u0026rsquo;s studio. We\u0026rsquo;re printing on paper size double A0, that\u0026rsquo;s about 168 cm by 118 cm. Because the press isn\u0026rsquo;t big enough for the paper, we have to fold the paper. The folding provides a way for me to gain and lose control over the work at the same time. Such methods are present in all my work these days. Through doing I try to come to methods by which I gain control and then lose it again. The four paintings you see before you are the most recent. I made them by sliding the canvases against one another, turning them 90\u0026deg; and sliding them again. This way of working began in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao where I spent some time, at the invitation of David Bade, to work with young artists. Cura\u0026ccedil;ao has a population of about 140,000, the same as Tilburg. There is no art there. In looking for a way to work with these young people I started thinking about what it could mean for me to make work there. At the same time I was noticing patterns that are common to the cityscape in that area. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao, just like in most South American countries, bars in front of ground floor windows are the norm. We Northern Europeans associate these with prisons or fear of the neighbors while in fact this system makes it possible to keep all the windows open to create cooling breezes. The houses are built to catch as much wind as possible. Often they have narrow gaps in the walls or concrete louvers, which due to their form inevitably recall modernism and thus call to mind Schoonhoven and Mondriaan. I decided to do something with these patterns. In this way I could work with a visual pattern that referred to the local political situation. By the process of sliding the paintings against each other patterns of a more personal nature are obtained. And the more personal they are, the more universal they will be, because others will be more likely to recognize something of themselves in it. I used to try to obtain this effect by placing photos I made myself, cut outs and other personal relics in my work. Now and then I\u0026rsquo;d clean my studio, stick the meaningful bits I found laying around to a canvas, and pour epoxy over the whole before beginning the painting. My work was more premeditated. Now I start from the physical process of painting.\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\u003cem\u003e- There are bars on the windows of your studio here.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: That\u0026rsquo;s right. (Laughs)\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\u003cem\u003e- Because they are both painted white, the bars create a shifting pattern in relation with the borders of the window. \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I was consciously taking into account the work of Schoonhoven and Mondriaan, knowing that these painters mean next to nothing to young people in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao. But when I went snorkeling I recognized Schoonhoven\u0026rsquo;s patterns in the coral and in the light refraction at the bottom of the sea. When I went to S\u0026atilde;o Paolo and Los Angeles a little while later to make wall paintings, I invented a way of working through which I could begin immediately on arrival, because when you arrive in another city you want to work instead of being a tourist. It\u0026rsquo;s not obvious to look for new ideas when you arrive in a new place. That\u0026rsquo;s why I invented this way of proceeding. I thought I had to do something Dutch or European and that I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t think too much, but act. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao I had made a few works by sliding painted pieces of cardboard against each other. In Los Angeles I filled a canvas with paint and slided it against the wall first horizontally and then vertically. It\u0026rsquo;s something physical, but it offers a structure. It\u0026rsquo;s a method, but it offers a lot of freedom. The movements are geometrical, but the visual result is reminiscent of plants, coral, and the movement of light on the sea floor. The method has something human because it provokes accidents. I feel that\u0026#39;s where it gets interesting. We\u0026rsquo;re not allowed to use the word creative anymore these days, but originally, it must have meant something like problem solving. I like to invent problems that want to be solved.\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;\"\u003eWhat also interests me about this way of working is that all the manipulations take place on the canvas. The paint isn\u0026rsquo;t thinned or mixed before I start, I don\u0026rsquo;t use a brush, palette or knife. I apply the paint squeezing, directly from the tube, onto the canvas and then I rub. If I want a certain amount of saturation it has to happen on the canvas. The nice thing about this approach is that it makes the paintings readable. Nothing is masked. Every mistake is still on the canvas. I\u0026rsquo;m not interested in paint either. Everything comes directly from the store. I\u0026rsquo;d rather paint with a broom or a piece of wood than with a brush. This, for example, is a painting that I use as a tool to make other paintings.\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\u003cem\u003e- You squeeze out paint tubes in different places on the canvas. By sliding the canvas against a second one you obtain unexpected meandering or broken up lines and planes, color combinations and textures. The places where the paint gathers with a flat top, like a miniature plateau, are very beautiful. Sometimes they find themselves next to virgin areas of canvas. \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: The possibility of sparing some virgin canvas is a bonus. You never know where the plateaus will start or stop, and the result is always a surprise\u0026hellip; For other painters the process of making isn\u0026rsquo;t important of course. They look at the result. But I think in terms of procedures or a combination of different ways of doing that form a method. Young people are surprised at the amount of paint on my canvases but for me that material isn\u0026rsquo;t an end, it\u0026rsquo;s just a medium I can manipulate.\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\u003cem\u003e- At the corners of the canvas surprising masses arise. \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: That\u0026#39;s because of the frame. The canvas yields when I push down on it so the edge of the frame holds up the paint. In the past I made paintings based exclusively on this circumstance. Traditionally, if the frame leaves traces in a painting this is seen as a flaw. I made it into a procedure to obtain new paintings. Because the canvas yields you\u0026rsquo;ve got to invent solutions and tactics in order to get some paint in the middle of your canvas.\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\u003cem\u003e- What do you think of Bernard Frize\u0026rsquo;s work?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: What he does is always perfect. It\u0026rsquo;s too clean. It never fails, or he doesn\u0026rsquo;t show that part. It\u0026rsquo;s work with no problems. I like work with friction in it. Its good to be able to think that you could do it yourself as well. With Frize it looks industrially made, so there\u0026rsquo;s always a certain distance. The work is about a kind of beauty that justifies itself. But art shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be about art. I\u0026rsquo;m convinced that the form of an artwork can convey meaning. A form that only seems to be about art doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean much to me. I apply myself to the task of making paintings that through their form express a mentality and opinion about things other than art. Last summer I put together a show at Aschenbach en Hofland in Amsterdam. The title, \u003cem\u003eThe Platinum Metre\u003c/em\u003e, referred to an interview with Paolo Virno. In this interview (\u003cem\u003eThe Mismeasurement of Art\u003c/em\u003e) Virno claims that each time art produces a new form the old ways of measuring the form fall short. It\u0026rsquo;s as if the platinum meter, housed in Paris, would suddenly be 90 or 110 cm long. Virno calls this \u0026lsquo;the mismeasurement of art\u0026rsquo;. In this he finds a connection between artistic avant-garde and radical social movement: both say the old ways of measuring are invalidated and that we need to look for new norms. For Virno the formal research is the most important: the form of a poem, or of new surroundings, or the structure of a new idea. To him looking for new forms in art is the same as looking for new ways to approach society. I agree with Virno. What I find most important in his ideas is that changes in art are intrinsically bound to the artistic form: with the \u0026#39;what\u0026#39; and \u0026#39;how\u0026#39; of the artistic process.\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\u003cem\u003e- How do you use brooms?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I use them for specific works where I first apply a layer of enamel paint to a canvas and then sweep a layer of acrylic over it. The paint writhes in the tracks of the broom. In the beginning I applied the paint with old hard brushes, but I needed a broom to get to the middle of the canvas. It\u0026rsquo;s got something day-to-day and stupid to paint with brooms, but the visual result is interesting. I think about the enormous potential in mundane daily operations that according to Michel de Certeau could be used in art. I try to apply this idea when taking part in residency programs abroad trying to combine my own experiences with new information I come across. For example in S\u0026atilde;o Paolo I was impressed by the absence of commercials in public areas and by the presence of orchids growing in the trees. The sidewalks in front of the homes in the city are private property so the citizens use the trees as a kind of garden in which they grow orchids. I have an affinity for the orchid\u0026rsquo;s parasitic unbridled form that\u0026rsquo;s been added to a structure borne from urban planning and political decisions. I also like that this might say something about personal freedom. Then, in S\u0026atilde;o Paolo, when I started sliding painted canvasses against the walls I saw it as an operation resulting from my Dutch conceptual painting background as well as from the orchids and the Pixacao graffiti which were rampant in the suburbs.\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\u003cem\u003e- Do you have a system for applying the colors before you start rubbing? \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I apply the colors at random. Then I sweep in one go from the one to the other side of the painting, and then move on to the next stroke, and so on. Sometimes I scratch in it afterwards, like you would carve your name in a car door or train window.\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\u003cem\u003e- These paintings present a different kind of tracks, they look like the tracks on the broom paintings, because they are horizontal, but they seem different.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I made them with my fingers. They are softer lines. The broom gives a more expressive sharp line. The problem with working in abstraction is that you get compared to expressionism, so you need the softer lines of a sluggish movement or a sort of slowness to contrast with the fast, so called, expressive action. I\u0026rsquo;m glad there is still virgin canvas visible in these too, so there\u0026rsquo;s still some air, so it\u0026rsquo;s not all caked full.\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\u003cem\u003e- The paintings you make with your fingers have a rougher surface. The traces have raffled edges.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: The broom paintings emerge in one go. They\u0026rsquo;re all over paintings, also in time. They arise from a few small controlled actions. The finger paintings, on the other hand, are painted over a longer period of time. Sometimes they have dried during the process. Dried oil paint gets a skin on top, if you zip open that blister you get a ridged effect. You can make a painting in an hour or a day, or you can spread out this making over ten days. Then the result is different. After the paintings have been made, the selection process begins. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to make decisions. Lots of good things happen coincidently, but you\u0026rsquo;ve got to give the flukes a place.\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\u003cem\u003e- You said that you\u0026rsquo;ve only been working like this since your last summer, spent in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao. \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I finished school in 1995. The first years I did a lot of performances and made installations, but in the end this was too indefinite for me. I made photos and videos as well but I\u0026rsquo;ve got a greater affinity for paint. It is a limited medium, but I find the most freedom within the limitations of painting. One day I decided to form clear formal parameters within which to work. Actually I had to build it up from scratch again. I\u0026rsquo;ve been painting for about ten years now.\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\u003cem\u003e- When did you start paying attention to the patterns?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: My introduction to patterns took place at an early age, when I was a teenager. It happened at an exhibition of war flags from the Fante Asafo, an African tribe. The flags were based on the British military flag with smaller versions or echo\u0026rsquo;s of the flag and pictograms attesting their invincibility. \u0026ldquo;We can stand on an ant hill without fear! \u0026rdquo;They also used the image of ivy. \u0026ldquo;We are like ivy and conquer obstacles!\u0026rdquo; An obstacle in that case is not seen as something that holds you back, but something that allows you to grow. Years later, in 1990, I had a studio in an old school building that hadn\u0026rsquo;t been used in years. Because of its dilapidated state the playground paved with cement tiles was covered with weeds. On the one hand you had the strict geometry of the tiles, on the other hand you had the weeds that ignored or made use of the system. Before I started working with abstraction I painted this kind of coming together of grids and wild organic forms: tiles, plants, ivy. But when I came home at night I\u0026rsquo;d find the paint on my hands more interesting than my paintings and I began to understand that they were the random result of a system. I understood that I could create a strict system and use it to produce organic forms. In the end you could ask why I was interested in African flags when I was a young man. I lived in South Africa when I was young, in Johannesburg and Capetown. I imagine that this had some effect on my perspective. Its not uncommon for a dominated or colonized society to pick up elements of the culture of the oppressor, like tribes in South Africa that have taken elements from cricket and use them in dance and rituals to communicate with each other.\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- In an invisible way there\u0026rsquo;s another link in your current process. Claude L\u0026eacute;vi-Strauss describes structures (based on convention) and events (things born from coincidence). He proves that the patterns or grids used by so called primitive people to represent reality or to organize their society, are actually empty forms, that do not answer to archetypes. If something new happens, the structure is changed. Basing their ideas on nature, for which they have a fine eye, they think of juxtapositions with which they can split their society in such a way that the different casts, classes or \u0026lsquo;moieties\u0026rsquo; will overlap. That\u0026rsquo;s how they avoid war. But if, for instance, part of a tribe disappears they will invent a new structure. The structures are used to organize the world. Paradoxically, without them events are invisible. Without structure there is no place for chance. A living structure allows coincidence and changes with it. The same happens in your work. You apply procedures or tactics, but the goal is variety and difference, the goal is to produce events.\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;\"\u003eDelaere: Do you know Bayrle\u0026rsquo;s work? He sees grids everywhere: on computer screens, in the woven fabric of our clothes\u0026hellip; He gives form to the paranoiac potential within grids. In an animation of his you see, for example, a telephone that turns out to be made of lots of telephones which in turn are also made of telephones and so on.\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\u003cem\u003e- Here it seems like you\u0026rsquo;ve used another working method.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I told you I\u0026rsquo;d learned at the Art Academy not to paint the linen into the frame. I spent a while doing that on purpose. After that I turned the idea around and clamped narrow boards on the painting. I allowed myself to do anything on the condition that every brush stroke hit the board. The result was an unpainted strip where the board had been.\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\u003cem\u003e- It looks like the paint collected under the edge of the board, how did that happen?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: The canvas gives way, so I\u0026rsquo;d sweep the paint under the board. Sometimes I\u0026rsquo;d use different sized boards, then you get this kind of painting. (He shows a painting.) A horizontal line in a painting often reminds one of a horizon. So you use that. I\u0026rsquo;m not trying to paint landscapes, its more about giving shape to an array of possibilities.\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\u003cem\u003e- How did these paintings come into existence?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: First I created a texture with a hard dried out brush. After I\u0026rsquo;d spray enamel over it, which is dry, almost in powder form, by the time it lands on the canvas. Because the powder drizzles downward it doesn\u0026rsquo;t land on the underside of the ridges. That\u0026rsquo;s how you get the tantalizing difference in color\u0026hellip; You get kind of a friction between the rigorous brushwork and an atmospheric, mistiness from the sprayed paint molecules. They are hybrid works that occur through the encounter of spray enamel paint with oil paint. That\u0026rsquo;s how they remind us that paintings are always hybrids. We experience the applying of paint as something normal, but actually it\u0026rsquo;s a strange thing to do. These paintings are the result of videos I used to make based on night shots. Night shots are green and pixilated. There\u0026rsquo;s no green in the paintings, but a green haze is achieved through the use of yellow and black. Every once in a while I\u0026rsquo;ll make one of these paintings. I\u0026rsquo;ve only made six or seven. Every time I start one I have to work to remember how to do it again\u0026hellip; The combination of spray paint with oil paint applied with a brush is reminiscent of street art. Graffiti itself doesn\u0026rsquo;t interest me, but the making of it is one of the only ways to freely intervene in public space, a little like the way skaters see the world as a situationist playing field. I like that tension between freedom and absence of freedom. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao there\u0026rsquo;s only one type of orchid, of which thousands of varieties exist. This type is protected, you\u0026rsquo;re not allowed to pick it or take it with you, but on the other hand the orchid seems to be smothering all the other plants.\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[In the work of Guy Debord I\u0026rsquo;m interested mostly in the idea that the world is a place full of opportunities. The situationists went about making up and implementing their own rules and logic in the city. In the punk movement those self defined criteria and that vision became principle for all facets of life. I try to use the fabrication of rules as a working method.]\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;\"\u003eEvery thing depends on how much you control or let go. During a lecture someone pointed out to John K\u0026ouml;rmeling that the car industry would do everything in their power to stop the production of the Stirling engine, because water is free, and oil is not. K\u0026ouml;rmeling answered that we\u0026rsquo;ve only decided based on a convention that what comes out of the earth costs money and that what falls from the sky is free. Why couldn\u0026rsquo;t we tax water? At the same time we as individuals seem to become ever less powerful. You used to be able to fix your car or washing machine yourself, but not anymore. I\u0026rsquo;d like to give the viewers of my work the feeling that they can decide the conditions. That someone might, for example, find the courage to build an addition to his or her home; that he or she can take an initiative instead of functioning within systems stipulated by masses that neglect the value of individual action.\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nMontagne de Miel, 28 March 2011\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\u003cstrong\u003eAll About Doing\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cstrong\u003eA conversation with Koen Delaere\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cem\u003eI meet Koen Delaere (\u0026deg;1970) at his studio in Tilburg. The paintings I discover are beautiful. The newest paintings move me the most. Touched, I recognize textures and juxtapositions of colors which my old friend, the painter Michel Frere, tried to make surface from the depths of the material, with a traditional brush. While I look around Delaere begins to speak enthusiastically about his work. I pen down his words quickly so you can listen along.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eKoen Delaere: I haven\u0026rsquo;t painted anything in the last two weeks, because I\u0026rsquo;ve been making large prints in Middelburg, in Piet Dieleman\u0026rsquo;s studio. We\u0026rsquo;re printing on paper size double A0, that\u0026rsquo;s about 168 cm by 118 cm. Because the press isn\u0026rsquo;t big enough for the paper, we have to fold the paper. The folding provides a way for me to gain and lose control over the work at the same time. Such methods are present in all my work these days. Through doing I try to come to methods by which I gain control and then lose it again. The four paintings you see before you are the most recent. I made them by sliding the canvases against one another, turning them 90\u0026deg; and sliding them again. This way of working began in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao where I spent some time, at the invitation of David Bade, to work with young artists. Cura\u0026ccedil;ao has a population of about 140,000, the same as Tilburg. There is no art there. In looking for a way to work with these young people I started thinking about what it could mean for me to make work there. At the same time I was noticing patterns that are common to the cityscape in that area. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao, just like in most South American countries, bars in front of ground floor windows are the norm. We Northern Europeans associate these with prisons or fear of the neighbors while in fact this system makes it possible to keep all the windows open to create cooling breezes. The houses are built to catch as much wind as possible. Often they have narrow gaps in the walls or concrete louvers, which due to their form inevitably recall modernism and thus call to mind Schoonhoven and Mondriaan. I decided to do something with these patterns. In this way I could work with a visual pattern that referred to the local political situation. By the process of sliding the paintings against each other patterns of a more personal nature are obtained. And the more personal they are, the more universal they will be, because others will be more likely to recognize something of themselves in it. I used to try to obtain this effect by placing photos I made myself, cut outs and other personal relics in my work. Now and then I\u0026rsquo;d clean my studio, stick the meaningful bits I found laying around to a canvas, and pour epoxy over the whole before beginning the painting. My work was more premeditated. Now I start from the physical process of painting.\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\u003cem\u003e- There are bars on the windows of your studio here.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: That\u0026rsquo;s right. (Laughs)\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\u003cem\u003e- Because they are both painted white, the bars create a shifting pattern in relation with the borders of the window. \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I was consciously taking into account the work of Schoonhoven and Mondriaan, knowing that these painters mean next to nothing to young people in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao. But when I went snorkeling I recognized Schoonhoven\u0026rsquo;s patterns in the coral and in the light refraction at the bottom of the sea. When I went to S\u0026atilde;o Paolo and Los Angeles a little while later to make wall paintings, I invented a way of working through which I could begin immediately on arrival, because when you arrive in another city you want to work instead of being a tourist. It\u0026rsquo;s not obvious to look for new ideas when you arrive in a new place. That\u0026rsquo;s why I invented this way of proceeding. I thought I had to do something Dutch or European and that I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t think too much, but act. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao I had made a few works by sliding painted pieces of cardboard against each other. In Los Angeles I filled a canvas with paint and slided it against the wall first horizontally and then vertically. It\u0026rsquo;s something physical, but it offers a structure. It\u0026rsquo;s a method, but it offers a lot of freedom. The movements are geometrical, but the visual result is reminiscent of plants, coral, and the movement of light on the sea floor. The method has something human because it provokes accidents. I feel that\u0026#39;s where it gets interesting. We\u0026rsquo;re not allowed to use the word creative anymore these days, but originally, it must have meant something like problem solving. I like to invent problems that want to be solved.\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;\"\u003eWhat also interests me about this way of working is that all the manipulations take place on the canvas. The paint isn\u0026rsquo;t thinned or mixed before I start, I don\u0026rsquo;t use a brush, palette or knife. I apply the paint squeezing, directly from the tube, onto the canvas and then I rub. If I want a certain amount of saturation it has to happen on the canvas. The nice thing about this approach is that it makes the paintings readable. Nothing is masked. Every mistake is still on the canvas. I\u0026rsquo;m not interested in paint either. Everything comes directly from the store. I\u0026rsquo;d rather paint with a broom or a piece of wood than with a brush. This, for example, is a painting that I use as a tool to make other paintings.\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\u003cem\u003e- You squeeze out paint tubes in different places on the canvas. By sliding the canvas against a second one you obtain unexpected meandering or broken up lines and planes, color combinations and textures. The places where the paint gathers with a flat top, like a miniature plateau, are very beautiful. Sometimes they find themselves next to virgin areas of canvas. \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: The possibility of sparing some virgin canvas is a bonus. You never know where the plateaus will start or stop, and the result is always a surprise\u0026hellip; For other painters the process of making isn\u0026rsquo;t important of course. They look at the result. But I think in terms of procedures or a combination of different ways of doing that form a method. Young people are surprised at the amount of paint on my canvases but for me that material isn\u0026rsquo;t an end, it\u0026rsquo;s just a medium I can manipulate.\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\u003cem\u003e- At the corners of the canvas surprising masses arise. \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: That\u0026#39;s because of the frame. The canvas yields when I push down on it so the edge of the frame holds up the paint. In the past I made paintings based exclusively on this circumstance. Traditionally, if the frame leaves traces in a painting this is seen as a flaw. I made it into a procedure to obtain new paintings. Because the canvas yields you\u0026rsquo;ve got to invent solutions and tactics in order to get some paint in the middle of your canvas.\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\u003cem\u003e- What do you think of Bernard Frize\u0026rsquo;s work?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: What he does is always perfect. It\u0026rsquo;s too clean. It never fails, or he doesn\u0026rsquo;t show that part. It\u0026rsquo;s work with no problems. I like work with friction in it. Its good to be able to think that you could do it yourself as well. With Frize it looks industrially made, so there\u0026rsquo;s always a certain distance. The work is about a kind of beauty that justifies itself. But art shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be about art. I\u0026rsquo;m convinced that the form of an artwork can convey meaning. A form that only seems to be about art doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean much to me. I apply myself to the task of making paintings that through their form express a mentality and opinion about things other than art. Last summer I put together a show at Aschenbach en Hofland in Amsterdam. The title, \u003cem\u003eThe Platinum Metre\u003c/em\u003e, referred to an interview with Paolo Virno. In this interview (\u003cem\u003eThe Mismeasurement of Art\u003c/em\u003e) Virno claims that each time art produces a new form the old ways of measuring the form fall short. It\u0026rsquo;s as if the platinum meter, housed in Paris, would suddenly be 90 or 110 cm long. Virno calls this \u0026lsquo;the mismeasurement of art\u0026rsquo;. In this he finds a connection between artistic avant-garde and radical social movement: both say the old ways of measuring are invalidated and that we need to look for new norms. For Virno the formal research is the most important: the form of a poem, or of new surroundings, or the structure of a new idea. To him looking for new forms in art is the same as looking for new ways to approach society. I agree with Virno. What I find most important in his ideas is that changes in art are intrinsically bound to the artistic form: with the \u0026#39;what\u0026#39; and \u0026#39;how\u0026#39; of the artistic process.\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\u003cem\u003e- How do you use brooms?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I use them for specific works where I first apply a layer of enamel paint to a canvas and then sweep a layer of acrylic over it. The paint writhes in the tracks of the broom. In the beginning I applied the paint with old hard brushes, but I needed a broom to get to the middle of the canvas. It\u0026rsquo;s got something day-to-day and stupid to paint with brooms, but the visual result is interesting. I think about the enormous potential in mundane daily operations that according to Michel de Certeau could be used in art. I try to apply this idea when taking part in residency programs abroad trying to combine my own experiences with new information I come across. For example in S\u0026atilde;o Paolo I was impressed by the absence of commercials in public areas and by the presence of orchids growing in the trees. The sidewalks in front of the homes in the city are private property so the citizens use the trees as a kind of garden in which they grow orchids. I have an affinity for the orchid\u0026rsquo;s parasitic unbridled form that\u0026rsquo;s been added to a structure borne from urban planning and political decisions. I also like that this might say something about personal freedom. Then, in S\u0026atilde;o Paolo, when I started sliding painted canvasses against the walls I saw it as an operation resulting from my Dutch conceptual painting background as well as from the orchids and the Pixacao graffiti which were rampant in the suburbs.\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\u003cem\u003e- Do you have a system for applying the colors before you start rubbing? \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I apply the colors at random. Then I sweep in one go from the one to the other side of the painting, and then move on to the next stroke, and so on. Sometimes I scratch in it afterwards, like you would carve your name in a car door or train window.\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\u003cem\u003e- These paintings present a different kind of tracks, they look like the tracks on the broom paintings, because they are horizontal, but they seem different.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I made them with my fingers. They are softer lines. The broom gives a more expressive sharp line. The problem with working in abstraction is that you get compared to expressionism, so you need the softer lines of a sluggish movement or a sort of slowness to contrast with the fast, so called, expressive action. I\u0026rsquo;m glad there is still virgin canvas visible in these too, so there\u0026rsquo;s still some air, so it\u0026rsquo;s not all caked full.\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\u003cem\u003e- The paintings you make with your fingers have a rougher surface. The traces have raffled edges.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: The broom paintings emerge in one go. They\u0026rsquo;re all over paintings, also in time. They arise from a few small controlled actions. The finger paintings, on the other hand, are painted over a longer period of time. Sometimes they have dried during the process. Dried oil paint gets a skin on top, if you zip open that blister you get a ridged effect. You can make a painting in an hour or a day, or you can spread out this making over ten days. Then the result is different. After the paintings have been made, the selection process begins. You\u0026rsquo;ve got to make decisions. Lots of good things happen coincidently, but you\u0026rsquo;ve got to give the flukes a place.\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\u003cem\u003e- You said that you\u0026rsquo;ve only been working like this since your last summer, spent in Cura\u0026ccedil;ao. \u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I finished school in 1995. The first years I did a lot of performances and made installations, but in the end this was too indefinite for me. I made photos and videos as well but I\u0026rsquo;ve got a greater affinity for paint. It is a limited medium, but I find the most freedom within the limitations of painting. One day I decided to form clear formal parameters within which to work. Actually I had to build it up from scratch again. I\u0026rsquo;ve been painting for about ten years now.\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\u003cem\u003e- When did you start paying attention to the patterns?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: My introduction to patterns took place at an early age, when I was a teenager. It happened at an exhibition of war flags from the Fante Asafo, an African tribe. The flags were based on the British military flag with smaller versions or echo\u0026rsquo;s of the flag and pictograms attesting their invincibility. \u0026ldquo;We can stand on an ant hill without fear! \u0026rdquo;They also used the image of ivy. \u0026ldquo;We are like ivy and conquer obstacles!\u0026rdquo; An obstacle in that case is not seen as something that holds you back, but something that allows you to grow. Years later, in 1990, I had a studio in an old school building that hadn\u0026rsquo;t been used in years. Because of its dilapidated state the playground paved with cement tiles was covered with weeds. On the one hand you had the strict geometry of the tiles, on the other hand you had the weeds that ignored or made use of the system. Before I started working with abstraction I painted this kind of coming together of grids and wild organic forms: tiles, plants, ivy. But when I came home at night I\u0026rsquo;d find the paint on my hands more interesting than my paintings and I began to understand that they were the random result of a system. I understood that I could create a strict system and use it to produce organic forms. In the end you could ask why I was interested in African flags when I was a young man. I lived in South Africa when I was young, in Johannesburg and Capetown. I imagine that this had some effect on my perspective. Its not uncommon for a dominated or colonized society to pick up elements of the culture of the oppressor, like tribes in South Africa that have taken elements from cricket and use them in dance and rituals to communicate with each other.\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- In an invisible way there\u0026rsquo;s another link in your current process. Claude L\u0026eacute;vi-Strauss describes structures (based on convention) and events (things born from coincidence). He proves that the patterns or grids used by so called primitive people to represent reality or to organize their society, are actually empty forms, that do not answer to archetypes. If something new happens, the structure is changed. Basing their ideas on nature, for which they have a fine eye, they think of juxtapositions with which they can split their society in such a way that the different casts, classes or \u0026lsquo;moieties\u0026rsquo; will overlap. That\u0026rsquo;s how they avoid war. But if, for instance, part of a tribe disappears they will invent a new structure. The structures are used to organize the world. Paradoxically, without them events are invisible. Without structure there is no place for chance. A living structure allows coincidence and changes with it. The same happens in your work. You apply procedures or tactics, but the goal is variety and difference, the goal is to produce events.\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;\"\u003eDelaere: Do you know Bayrle\u0026rsquo;s work? He sees grids everywhere: on computer screens, in the woven fabric of our clothes\u0026hellip; He gives form to the paranoiac potential within grids. In an animation of his you see, for example, a telephone that turns out to be made of lots of telephones which in turn are also made of telephones and so on.\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\u003cem\u003e- Here it seems like you\u0026rsquo;ve used another working method.\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: I told you I\u0026rsquo;d learned at the Art Academy not to paint the linen into the frame. I spent a while doing that on purpose. After that I turned the idea around and clamped narrow boards on the painting. I allowed myself to do anything on the condition that every brush stroke hit the board. The result was an unpainted strip where the board had been.\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\u003cem\u003e- It looks like the paint collected under the edge of the board, how did that happen?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: The canvas gives way, so I\u0026rsquo;d sweep the paint under the board. Sometimes I\u0026rsquo;d use different sized boards, then you get this kind of painting. (He shows a painting.) A horizontal line in a painting often reminds one of a horizon. So you use that. I\u0026rsquo;m not trying to paint landscapes, its more about giving shape to an array of possibilities.\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\u003cem\u003e- How did these paintings come into existence?\u003c/em\u003e\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;\"\u003eDelaere: First I created a texture with a hard dried out brush. After I\u0026rsquo;d spray enamel over it, which is dry, almost in powder form, by the time it lands on the canvas. Because the powder drizzles downward it doesn\u0026rsquo;t land on the underside of the ridges. That\u0026rsquo;s how you get the tantalizing difference in color\u0026hellip; You get kind of a friction between the rigorous brushwork and an atmospheric, mistiness from the sprayed paint molecules. They are hybrid works that occur through the encounter of spray enamel paint with oil paint. That\u0026rsquo;s how they remind us that paintings are always hybrids. We experience the applying of paint as something normal, but actually it\u0026rsquo;s a strange thing to do. These paintings are the result of videos I used to make based on night shots. Night shots are green and pixilated. There\u0026rsquo;s no green in the paintings, but a green haze is achieved through the use of yellow and black. Every once in a while I\u0026rsquo;ll make one of these paintings. I\u0026rsquo;ve only made six or seven. Every time I start one I have to work to remember how to do it again\u0026hellip; The combination of spray paint with oil paint applied with a brush is reminiscent of street art. Graffiti itself doesn\u0026rsquo;t interest me, but the making of it is one of the only ways to freely intervene in public space, a little like the way skaters see the world as a situationist playing field. I like that tension between freedom and absence of freedom. In Cura\u0026ccedil;ao there\u0026rsquo;s only one type of orchid, of which thousands of varieties exist. This type is protected, you\u0026rsquo;re not allowed to pick it or take it with you, but on the other hand the orchid seems to be smothering all the other plants.\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[In the work of Guy Debord I\u0026rsquo;m interested mostly in the idea that the world is a place full of opportunities. The situationists went about making up and implementing their own rules and logic in the city. In the punk movement those self defined criteria and that vision became principle for all facets of life. I try to use the fabrication of rules as a working method.]\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;\"\u003eEvery thing depends on how much you control or let go. During a lecture someone pointed out to John K\u0026ouml;rmeling that the car industry would do everything in their power to stop the production of the Stirling engine, because water is free, and oil is not. K\u0026ouml;rmeling answered that we\u0026rsquo;ve only decided based on a convention that what comes out of the earth costs money and that what falls from the sky is free. Why couldn\u0026rsquo;t we tax water? At the same time we as individuals seem to become ever less powerful. You used to be able to fix your car or washing machine yourself, but not anymore. I\u0026rsquo;d like to give the viewers of my work the feeling that they can decide the conditions. That someone might, for example, find the courage to build an addition to his or her home; that he or she can take an initiative instead of functioning within systems stipulated by masses that neglect the value of individual action.\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\n\u003cbr /\u003e\r\nMontagne de Miel, 28 March 2011\u003c/p\u003e\r\n"},{"locale":"es","short_description":"","description":""},{"locale":"el","short_description":"","description":""}],"actors":[]}