Some years ago, I discovered the magical art world of Flemish artist Nick Ervinck.
I subscribed to his newsletter and was inspired by his ongoing progress.
If you want to get a good sense of what drives Nick and what his artwork is all about, here is a great video:
Nick has a church (The Dutch word for church is “kerk”).
Nick’s church is branded “K.E.R.K.” standing for Kunsthalle ERvickK” and is located in the tiny village of Sint-Pieters-Kapelle, a township part of Middelkerke, a mall town at the Belgian North Sea coast. Last summer, I combined a bike ride with a visit to K.E.R.K. on a very hot 10 July 2022. The exhibition “SKIN WORKS” displayed recent work by Nick Ervinck.
I was impressed and inspired. I wanted to meet Nick one day, and if possible visit his studio. At the reception, there was a young student, and I asked whether the artist was present in the church. He was not, but she gave me a business card with his email address and phone number, suggesting that I would ask for a studio visit.
Here is the mail that I wrote to Nick:
Hello Nick,
I’ve been following you for a while and I’m a fan. Yesterday I visited K.E.R.K. (GNI-RI JUL2022 SKIN WORKS) and the friendly young woman at the entrance said it was possible to visit your studio.
I do a number of artistic experiments myself, and I recently hired Kurt Vanbelleghem to help me professionalize my practice. Besides the art, I work on a project “The Scaffold”, where I bring artists, entrepreneurs, and engineers together in residencies for corporate clients.
I would love to have a conversation with you, preferably in your studio, or else in K.E.R.K. or any other location of your choice.
Interested?
Here is Nick’s answer:
Hey peter,
Nice to hear from you.
It is not possible to receive each person individually.
I normally only open the studio for group visits.
But your email has caught my interest. What you are doing is of course not clear to me.
Bringing artists, entrepreneurs, engineers, and companies together sounds like music to my ears.
I am someone who likes to work goal and result oriented. And many of these initiatives do not succeed in this.
I will be happy to receive you in my studio/atelier to exchange thoughts.
Fits for you possibly Tuesday evening August 9 or Wednesday evening August 10.
Or feel free to make some suggestions and I’ll check my agenda.
Artistic greetings
Nick
We settled for 9 August, also a very hot summer day.
There I stood in front of his studio, with no agenda, but with a quite detailed concept of what The Scaffold had to become.
I did not know what to expect. Maybe he would kick me out after ½ hour? No worries: I got a really warm welcome. Nick was very approachable, and as would show quickly, a real professional in all senses. There was a click: we spent 4 hours together.
Above the working desk was a huge library of more than a thousand artbooks.
Nick is also a big fan of Henry Moore, a British artist mainly known for his sculptures. Moore can be said to have caused a British sculptural renaissance. Nick’s Henry Moore book collection encompasses more than 300 books! The biggest private collection in the world: the only place in the world where you can find more is in the Henry Moore Foundation itself!
Nick also built his own virtual museum “MOUSEION” and his own “NIKIPEDIA” landing page:
The visit and the conversation were super inspiring for me. His work and attitude influence me in many ways:
His Focus
He is an artist entrepreneur and focuses exclusively on that
His Professionalism
Both as an artist and as an entrepreneur.
Everything exudes attention to detail and perfectionism in everything:
Archiving and documenting
High-quality printing, framing, book printing
Business cards
Website
Respect for own work
Cleanness and order in the studio
His Sharing
Links to books, his own manuals for art photography, bookbinding, framing, transport boxes, software, high-quality art print shops, etc, etc
His Erudition
He is very well-read, has a pluralistic view of things, and is able to express himself very well orally and in writing
I invited Nick to be part of the non-conformist tribes I am curating for The Scaffold learning experiences.
When leaving the studio, he left me with some of his own art books as a present, a poster of his Henry Moore cabinet show (see the above picture, where Nick Ervinck and Henry Moore are interwoven), and a recommendation for the book “On Being An Artist” by Michael Craig-Martin.
He must have read my mind, as the book proved to be another big inspiration for my practice (and the subject of my next blog post).
When I walked towards my car in the warm evening sun, I felt like coming out of a movie.
This is the thank you letter I sent:
Dear Nick
Do you recognize the feeling when you’ve been to a good movie, and you come out, and the world feels different? That’s the feeling I had yesterday when I came out of your studio and on my ride back home.
Thank you very much for the generosity of time (more than three hours!) and the quality of your input and feedback. Thanks also for the MOUSEION book, the poster, the flyers, and the book suggestions. The poster is now right in front of me.
Thank you also for the confidence in showing your management software, the guided tour in your studio, and sharing successful projects, but also projects that just didn’t make it.
Last week, I went to the Foto Museum (FOMU) in Antwerp to see the expo Masculanities – Liberation through Photography. This expo was already at The Barbican in London in the summer of 2020. I had some time left, and a slipped into the adjacent expo Re-Collect, an overview of a decade of acquisitions of FOMU.
Very similar to my first encounter with the work of Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten – see my post “Confused by Beauty” from 2015 – I was touched and moved by the video installation “KING” (2015-2016) by Belgian artist David Claerbout.
“David Claerbout (b. 1969) is a Belgian artist, whose work combines elements of still photography and moving images. Using photography, video, and digital-editing tools, Claerbout creates large-scale video installations that provoke questions of time, memory, and truth. Solo exhibitions include Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, and SFMoMA in San Francisco.”
From the FOMU site:
The viewer sees a digital 3D environment based on a private photograph of Elvis Presley. The photograph was taken in 1956, when Presley was on the cusp of world fame. This was a time when the photographer, Alfred Wertheimer, could still get close to the man—before the transition from ordinary human to icon, from normal life to an era of superstardom and spectacle. David Claerbout modelled Elvis’ body using hundreds of photographic fragments of his skin and facial features. He challenges the two-dimensional nature of the photograph by adding virtual time and space. Photography is both the launching pad and the subject of KING. Claerbout confronts the viewer with the transition from looking through a lens to looking by means of a scanner. This radical reversal of normal observation means that you seem to creep into the image. Claerbout uses the artistic, conceptual and technical perspectives to question our way of looking.
FOMU has a short 5 min artist video on their site, with Dutch and English subtitles.
That was enough to get me really interested, and I found another great 30 min interview video with David Claerbout at Louisiana Channel. He explains how the whole project was made: they even used a stand-in model and stitched together thousands of pictures of Elvis’ skin on the 3D scan of the model. Amazing!
Showing us around in his “studio” – actually many different rooms in an old Flemisch house in Antwerp – Claerbout is very articulate about his work and practice and I found this super inspiring, as I am preparing next year 2022 as my year to professionalize my own art practice.
He opens with:
“I am an artist, and I do not know exactly what it is what I am doing, it seems I am changing my ways all of the time, but I am a self-taught very hungry autodidact in the domain of the moving image animation film video and what we could call virtual image making.”
As we walk through his studio, we see his drawing-room, how he started building an archive of images, how his team is usually working on one project at the time, having all equipment inhouse, two recording studios, including a small server farm in the basement to render image/video in the most optimal way.
Throughout the whole interview, there transpires a mood of silence, integrity, dedication, focus, discipline, professionalism. His origins are in painting, and drawing, and lithography.
The interview/walkthrough is full of inspiring insights, provocations,
WHAT IS IT THAT I CAN CONTRIBUTE?
MY WORK DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING SHOCKING
I WANT TO DEVELOP A LANGUAGE
SPEAKING/WORKING WITH PEOPLE THAT YOU ARE CONFIDENT WITH, THAT YOU CAN TRUST
WHAT IS IT THAT BINDS EVERYTHING TOGETHER?
CHRONOS – KAIROS – HETEROCHRONY – THE PLURALITY OF DURATION
PRIVILEGED MOMENTS
BEING NOT AT THE CENTER OF THE COMPOSITION
THE CAMERA AS A VAMPIRE
THE RELATION BETWEEN OUR THINKING AND OUR PERCEPTION
YOU DON’T WAIT FOR BUDGETS, YOU DON’T WAIT FOR PEOPLE, YOU JUST DO IT
THE DELICATE CENTER
HOW DO WE LIVE WITH VIRTUAL MATTER?
WE HUMAN BEINGS ARE PROGRAMMED TO TRUST
WE ARE NOT PROGRAMMED TO PUT OUR SENSES INTO QUESTION
WE FIRST WILL BE SPONTANEOUS BELIEVERS AND THEN WE WILL BE ANALYTICAL
I WRITE A LOT, I DON’T PUBLISH A LOT BECAUSE IT IS SO TIME-CONSUMING
LIFE IS NOT LONGER A TAPE THAT RUNS FROM BEGINNING TO END
THE TRINITY OF PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE IN THE VIRTUAL REALM
EVERYTHING IS BUILT OUT OF TWO
A BUILT-IN REDUNDANCY
LAZINESS AND ENERGY
SHARING DIRECTLY BY SITTING TOGETHER
WE PERFORM AND AT THE END OF THE EXHIBITION THE PERFORMANCE IS OVER
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THIS INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE VALUABLE SINGULAR ARTWORK SITUATED SOMEWHERE IN TIME NOT IN PARTICULAR MATTER
SOMEWHERE IN THE SMALL FOLDS OF TIME, THERE ARE ENCOUNTERS
WHAT IS THE LIMIT? WHERE IS IT?
THE PRIVILEGE OF THE ARTIST OF HAVING TIME TO WASTE
THE ARTIST DOES NOT HAVE TO BE EFFICIENT
IT IS QUITE LOUD WHEN THERE IS NO SOUND
It is clear that Claerbout is full of poetry. As Norman Foster used to say “I can write you a letter, but a poem?”
No wonder the “KING” and some others I discovered in the meantime are so well resonating with where I am now and where I would like to be the next years. I may post some other inspiring stories in the weeks and months ahead as part of my transition to and professionalization of my art practice.
Here is the latest update on Petervan Studios. The previous update already goes back to November 2020, that’s more than six months ago, and a lot can happen in half a year.
It looks like we are getting out of the COVID woods. At least in Belgium infection and hospitalization numbers are down, and I got my second Pfizer jab on 5 June 2021, so I think I am good to come out of my cave.
Family is good, Astrid does well at school, Mieke loves the garden now that the summer is back, and I continue my art practice and some freelance projects.
What else?
My Art Practice
Due to COVID regulations, 2021 was a terrible year for doing artwork at the academy. I just can’t work with a mask on. I retreated to my own studio at home, but I miss the coaches, and the discipline/routine of going twice a week to the academy in Ghent.
Most of the specialisation courses of the academy were online via Zoom calls, and nothing beats the dynamic of face-to-face contact, and on-the-floor experimentation.
Not sure yet what I will do next year: back to academy or being super disciplined in my daily routine in my home studio.
I shared most of my recent work via my Facebook page, or on this blog under the heading “Sine Parole”. Some “highlights” if I can say that about my own work:
Part of an assignment for the academy specialisation class
Exhibitions
Since last update, I visited following art exhibitions:
C-Mine, Tim Walker, Genk, Jan 2021
Z33, Palms, Hasselt, Jan 2021
Be Modern, Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels, Jan 2021
Danser Brut, BOZAR, Brussels, Jan 2021
Lynne Cohen, FOMU, Antwerp, Jan 2021
Adrian Ghenie, Tim Van Laer, Antwerp, Jan 2021
Kunstuur, Mechelen, March 2021
Alechinsky and Aboriginals, RMFA, Brussels, April 2021
Silence, Axel Vervoordt, Wijnegem, April 2021
Luc Tuymans and AI, BOZAR, Brussels, April 2021
Superstudio Migrazioni, CIVA, Brussels, April 2021
Inge Decuypere, A Joly Boring Thing To Do, Oudenaarde, April 2021
Vincent Geyskens, M-Museum, Leuven, May 2021
Detail of a Karel Appel’s painting “Liggend Naakt” 1957 – Oil on Canvas
The founders of SuperStudio – Painting in Expo Migrazioni
Vincent Geyskens – in M-Museum – Leuven
Outdoors
We had a lousy winter in Flanders. I did some walks and bike tours, but not as much as I would love to do. Winter lasted till deep in spring with a super cold and rainy month of May. When June started, the sun was back in full force, up to a point where I started already longing for shadow.
Horses
My daughter Astrid loves horses, and that is an understatement. I have become her private taxi driver to/from the stables, and I spend quite some time watching her at the riding school. She needs it very much in this COVID year, and she can really disconnect from school. And on and with the horses, she is in flow. Look at her smile: it makes a father happy too!
Freelance
I am on a new interesting gig for a very respected client. With a small team, we are doing research on what is next-next in financial services, and the research will be followed by several workshops and a private experiential event/tour later in 2021.
This and the previous project in Shenzhen also helped me reflect on different types of workshops: sharing, teaching, mentoring, and inquiry-based workshops, some online, others in real life. I have some concrete ideas on how to bring these to market, together with a supporting team of facilitators, provocateurs, artists, and producers. Contact me privately if interested.
BANI
Already in 2018, Jamais Cascio coined the term BANI. See my post from Aug 2019 and Jamais’ update from April 2020. As mentioned before, I am working with some partners on a virtual multimedia workshop based on this framework, with a specific focus on possible responses to a BANI world. One of our partners got locked in another client project, so we put the project temporarily on hold.
Design Unbound
I am continuing my immersion in the work of Ann Pendleton and her insights in Design Unbound: Designing for Emergence in a White Water World. We have found a way to convey this complex material into a matrix-form, with video vignettes, so that the customer can pick and choose where they enter the learning journey.
To give you a sense of the intensity of this work: I have now weekly calls with Ann Pendleton to go through the scripts that will form the foundation of the video vignettes.
We have put together a team to design and deliver a corporate curriculum on this topic. Stay tuned on the “we” and the “curriculum”.
Pirate TV
I released the first episode of Pirate TV – Art Tribe Edition, with my friend Frank Poncelet from the Art Academy in Ghent
There is a very nice queue of artists who have agreed to be the guest in the subsequent episodes: some painters, video artist, and photographers. Initially, the plan was to have an episode every month as from March 2021 onwards. Working with artists and original content authors, I have learned to be patient and more careful in setting expectations on the when and what of the final deliverable, although the pressure of a deadline sometimes – but only sometimes – helps to get to a high-quality experience. We are getting there.
There are now two Pirate TV channels in the pipeline: the Art Tribe edition and the Business edition.
Traveling Without Moving project
Travelling without Moving (TWM) is a series of essays documenting my mental and philosophical journey in 2020-2021.
The main outline was published in November 2020, and in the meantime, several episodes have been released. So far, I have posted seven essays:
The next one will be about “Studios”, studios as a proven way of failing and recovering together, a repurposing of the architecture studio practice of practices. Hope you stay on board.
Since July 2019, I publish every month a Spotify List with new releases combined with some oldies from the 60ies, 70ies, and beyond. Search for “Petervan Ride” and select “playlists”. Subjective selection of course, as driven only by my personal taste (or lack thereof). Next month, we’ll celebrate the second anniversary of these Rides. Time flies!
Here is the latest Ride from May 2021
I suggest you play it in shuffle mode, it enhances the surprise experience.
So, what’s next?
Since I officially retired from corporate life on 1 Dec 2020, I am completely free to do what I want, what gigs I accept, what clients I choose and reject, what I say and what I write. And if nobody cares, that is fine as well, as then I can really do what I want.
This “interesting” work still leaves me enough room and headspace for my art-practice. I wrote a post before on what I consider “interesting”. The keywords are: not done before, risky, and sensemaking through sense-breaking. I feel I have found a good balance and feel happy.
The plan for the coming months is to work/play on (random order):
The Fintech Next-Next Project
“Interesting” Freelance Work
Continuing my Art Practice
Release some Pirate TV Episodes
So, that’s it for this edition. If there is something worth reporting, next update is for Dec 2021.
A couple of weeks ago, I discovered by accident a way to get myself in a zen-state of total peace and relaxation. Not that I feel super hectic or nervous, or something like that. Not that I need it. Not that I was in search for it. I just stumbled upon it and I really liked it.
It is the very simple – highly repetitive – practice of drawing many many little bricks, black ink on white paper. I am doing this when I am completely alone in my studio, with some repetitive music in the background (see later), and the sound of a ticking clock.
The only other things I hear/notice is the sound of the pen softly scratching the paper, the sound of my breath, a motorcycle or car or plane passing by in a soft distance, a door opening/closing somewhere in the house, sometimes a dog barking, or a dove crying.
“As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details–be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.”
It made me think about the repetive art of Roman Opalka who spent a big part of his life drawing numbers from one to infinity.
Roman Opalka by Lothar Wolleh – Sep 2002
But I don’t talk nor record my words while drawing my bricks. I am silent. And listen to repetitive soundscapes. I was looking for some “non-intrusive music”, music without meaning, music without noise, something that did not distract from the content (aka the bricks), but was rather amplifying it. I tried several ambients from Brian Eno, or songs from Robert Frip’s Music for Quiet Moments series and many more.
Until I discovered this AI-auto-generated music library by @alex_bainter.
The “song” that I have used most so far is called “Lullaby”.
Ann Pendleton-Jullian pointed me in the direction of Lu Qing’s work. Ly Qing is the spouse of Ai Weiwei, but she is always in background, not looking for press attention. When browsing her work, I stumbled upon this repetitive work, acrylic blocks on a silk roll of about 20 meters long and 83 cm wide.
This ink painting on a bolt of silk is partially unrolled and drapes over a table. Small dark-grey squares in acrylic paint almost fill the fabric and create a grid. Departing from her early abstract oil paintings, beginning in 2000, Lu Qing has painted on a twenty-five-metre bolt of silk that she buys each year. Small geometric shapes are painstakingly painted on the fabric over the course of the year. Regardless of how much of the cloth is painted, Lu considers the painting complete at the end of the year and begins with a new bolt the next year. The varying shades of dark grey in the work indicate changes in Lu’s emotional state and in the pressure she exerted, and also recall the different shades of black in traditional Chinese painting. The work is a meditative practice in which the process is valued over the end product, and it functions as an abstract record of emotion and time. (from https://collections.mplus.org.hk/en/objects/untitled-2012687)
I ran to my attic, found a roll of cheap white paper of 1 meter wide and 5 meter long, and started drawing. What you see in the video above are the first 5,000 bricks of a “long” work.
Josie Gibson from The Catalyst Network pointed out that my work was multilayered, with the layers being Peace, Mind Wandering, Kairos, Repetitive work, Musical memory anchors.
In my opinion, it also has layers of different types of attention.
Attention to the drawing itself: getting the pattern right, working without no or a minimum of grid/supporting lines, drawing “perfect” bricks, made in one line-flow, for each of them.
Attention to the mind-wandering: making small (at times only mental) notes, reflections about a project, my daughter, my spouse etc.
It’s useless, I know. But it brings me in contact with an unexplored part of myself. It brings me in a Zen state, a state of deep calm and happiness. I am literately and metaphorically losing my time, my-self. Or am I re-finding my-self?
Doing something. Doing the work. Getting lost. In time and space that is. Being one with my practice: it is more important than end product.
I am excited to announce the launch of one of my new channels: Petervan’s Pirate TV – Art-Tribe Edition
The first episode will premiere on YouTube on 1 Dec 2020 at 09:30am Los Angeles – 12:30pm New York – 6:30pm Brussels – 1:30am Hong Kong (next day)
The YouTube live chat will be open for feedback, critique and encouragements.
I suggest you set the YouTube reminder so you don’t miss the premiere and the live chat.
The video will remain available for viewing after the Premiere event
Virtual events ambition cube
Pirate TV is a new genre that sits somewhere between a vlogcast, documentary, film, and TV show. In the events ambition cube, this sits in the lower right quadrant for a tribe-connectedness.
Current plan is to have two editions: one more business related (the Biz-Tribe Edition), and one more artistic related (the Art-Tribe Edition).
The Art-Tribe Edition launches on 1 Dec 2020, the Biz-Tribe Edition will launch on 2 Feb 2021.
As I strongly believe that magic happens at the cross-section of artists, scientists, engineers, and business people, I expect that sooner or later the two editions will start to blend.
Art-Tribe Edition is intended as a platform for artists in conversation with Petervan.
The artist-in-residence for this first episode is Frank Poncelet.
Frank Poncelet is an independent Artist/Director/Producer who graduated from “The Academy for Visual Arts” in Ghent in 2017. While he has no intention of pursuing professional animation in the future, he enjoys the process and will continue to make animations and VFX shorts. After his Graduation film “A Night On Gor”. He worked for One year on an Animation Mashup “Bug’s Club” inspired by “Hell’s Club” from Antonio Maria Da Silva AMDSFILMS. In 2017/2018). Frank Also Produced his short sci-fi film “Alpha” in 2019. Currently Frank is working on video art using Neural Style Transfer techniques and on a sequel to “Alpha”.
I hope you will enjoy this first episode. Here is the trailer:
The soundtrack of the trailer is here:
If you are an artist, and you are interested to have your work shared and discussed on this channel, please contact me privately.
Petervan memories from the 70ies – First artistic performances
It’s almost one year (!) since my previous Dec 2019 update. And what a year it was/still is! I basically stayed home for the whole period and had zero travel since Oct 2019.
I am publishing this on the day Belgium is entering its second Covid-19 lockdown. A forced pause-marathon starting on my 63th birthday on 1 Nov till at least mid-Dec 2020. But I am afraid the effort will have to run until deep into 2021 and I am preparing for it as an “interval of possibility”.
An interval of possibility is a temporal framing to see better what is and what can emerge. There is indeed still so much to read, to learn, to experiment, to play with. So many contexts to be architected. So many interesting people to (re)connect with (at least virtually). So much opportunity for spiritual, moral, and aesthetical advancement! Expect me to be quite generative in the coming weeks and months.
The Artschool Project
The Artschool academy year started again in Sep 2020, and I subscribed for a two-year curriculum labeled “specialization”.
“Professionalization” is probably a better title for what it is: a focus on getting the (art)work done, commitment, and ambition. We’ll learn to discover our own visual language starting from our personal frames and themes with the ambition to develop our own artistic maturity and identity. This is about personal reflection, self- and group-critique, evaluation, and research. About creative identity and creative disposition. And about how to create a portfolio, develop contacts with galleries, presenting your own work, setting up your own expo, etc.
From an artistic medium point of view, my main focus will remain painting on canvas, but I will keep experimenting with other (mainly digital) media.
I shared most of my recent work via my Facebook page, or on this blog under the heading “Sine Parole”. I also started selecting more straightforward subjects, such as vases, landscapes, cows, fruit, and everyday objects. In many cases the obvious and what is in front of you is interesting enough. Here is an example of some apples from our mini orchard:
I have something with cows (pun intended). I met many during my summer bike tours. It feels it is going to become yet another a thematic series, like the prison windows, or the birds, or the boxers.
Petervan Artworks @ 2020 – Cow Project – Digital Try-out
Petervan Artworks @ 2020 – Cow Project – Sketch of the Intervals of Possibility
One option is to create a cow-sign-language and typography, or maybe see how I can get them generated through in-the-cloud AI neural networks.
Via Mario Klingeman (@quasimodo) -AI generated shapes
Exhibitions
Last year, I visited some art exhibitions, including:
There is no Planet B – S.M.A.K., Ghent, Dec 2019
Inge Decuypere – Ronse, Feb 2020
Dali-Magritte – Museum Fine Arts, Brussels, Feb 2020
Love-Hate – ING Gallery, Brussels, Feb 2020
Keith Haring – BOZAR, Brussels, Feb 2020
Van Eyck – Museum Schone Kunsten, Ghent, Feb 2020
Stephan VanFleteren – FOMU, Antwerp, July 2020
Writing Beyong – Axel Vervoordt, Wijnegem, July 2020
Dechamps, Panamarenko and Co – Deweer Gallery, Zwevegem, Oct 2020
There were many more, but due to Covid-19, many musea were closed or had restrictions.
Stephan VanFleteren – FOMU, Antwerp, July 2020
My own exhibition
I ran my first solo (100% virtual) exhibition during summer. Some unexpected fans actually bought some of my works. Thank you: this is very encouraging. For those who don’t know: I also do commissioned work. If interested – in buying or commissions – please send me a private message.
We had a great summer in Flanders. Since the start of the first lockdown on 13 March 2020 we had good to excellent weather till mid-September 2020. Plenty of opportunity for being outdoors, with the occasional bike tour or walk.
Freelance
Covid-19 is not kind to freelancers, especially if you target what some people call the “event industry”. With the exception of a small gig in 2020, I basically got no work since October 2019. Contact me in private if you’d like to hire me for “interesting” work.
BANI
Already in 2018, Jamais Cascio coined the term BANI. See my post from Aug 2019 and Jamais’ update from April 2020. As mentioned before, I am working with some partners on a virtual multimedia workshop based on this framework, with a specific focus on possible responses. We have an amazing cast on-board, and it looks that we’ll be able to make some announcements soon.
Design Unbound
I am blown away and intrigued by the insights in Design Unbound: Designing for Emergence in a White Water World. This is about having agency in a world that is constantly shifting under you. It is so refreshing after all those business-, management-, leadership-, and self-help-books. It has become a healthy addiction: I am basically reading and re-reading and deeply internalizing everything that Ann Pendleton has written in the last couple of years.
We are building a team to design and deliver a corporate curriculum on this topic. Stay tuned on the “we” and the “curriculum”.
I got the chance to do a commission for a client on this concept and we – the client, the team, myself – learned a lot on what works and what not.
There are now two Pirate TV channels in the pipeline: one more business focused and one more “artsy”.
New toys
For Pirate TV, I wanted to become more fluent in video and sound creation. As there was nothing else to do due to Covid-19, I followed some online courses on Ableton Live, Final Cut Pro, and Logic Pro X.
These are such rich software environments. Also, their user interfaces make me think differently: thinking in layers, connections, patterns, and harmonies.
Studio Oxygen project
An idea that has been hanging around since 2018, actually.
People are exhausted. Tired of online meetings. Tired of being locked up in their houses. Tired of all the negative news. People crave for oxygen. People crave for small safe groups where they can share, critique, ideate, play.
With a small on-line collective, we plan to come together regularly online to have slow-paced conversations on a topic/seed that I plant. The seed can be the chapter of a book, an object, a poem, a job well done, or a failing forward.
With a no-frills focus on quality content, we hope these sparks of inspiration will give you “oxygen for the mind”.
Also don’t forget Robert Poynton’s “Do Pause”. Together with Josie Gibson we made 8 podcast episodes, one for each chapter in this book. The last episode is here.
Petervan Rides
Since July 2019, I publish every month a Spotify List with new releases combined with some oldies from the 60ies, 70ies, and beyond. Search for “Petervan Ride” and select “playlists”. Subjective selection of course, as driven only by my personal taste (or lack thereof).
Petervan Rides on Spotify
So, what’s next?
I will officially retire from corporate life as from 1 Dec 2020. Not that I plan to stay idle, on the contrary. Within limits, I will stay available for interesting freelance work – I call it “paid play” – and plan to stay very focused on my artwork.
The plan for the coming months is to work/play on (random order):
“Interesting” freelance work
Artwork
Studio Oxygen
Traveling Without Moving
Pickup Time Capsules again
So, that’s it for this edition. If there is something worth reporting, next update is for Apr 2021.
As promised, here is the TimeCapsule video for the virtual opening vernissage of my first solo exhibition.
Subtitles are available in NL/UK
With contributions by my cousin Joost Vander Auwera (Senior Curator – Royal Museums of Fine Art of Belgium, Brussels), Chris Vanbeveren (my Art Painting coach – Academy for Visual Arts, Ghent, Belgium), Frank Poncelet (synthesizer soundscape, co-student Digital Visual Arts, Ghent, Belgium), and John Oliver from Interior Truth. With lots of gratitude.
All other artwork, video, soundscape, poems, video editing by Petervan. Produced with standard tools like iMovie and YouTube Studio.
I am inviting video artists to do something more interesting with the raw material of this TimeCapsule. Contact me privately if interested.
Joost and Chris were so kind to write and record introductory words for the opening keynotes. Below some extracts and links to the full versions. The TimeCapsule video includes slightly edited versions of the full versions in NL/UK.
“Petervan has a special sensitivity in his art for the image that captures. And he knows how to maintain this in a multitude of styles and media. This is evident from this solo exhibition. He greatly appreciates what his teachers teach him and that decorates him.”
“He constantly experiments, but his images keep capturing attention, in a wide variety of form languages”
“Peter likes to work with different materials and techniques and since a few months he also expresses himself with digital imaging. In that context, we can definitely speak of “mixed media”. There are even initiatives and ideas to give this a three-dimensional character. We can only encourage it. In his exhibition we see that diversity. There are “grid structures”, paintings with collage-like aspects, idiosyncratic representations of man, interiors, models like I already mentioned, geometric and organic.”
“I think we can safely say that Peter is a thinker in images.”
And Frank Poncelet – in his daily life Operations Architect at the Xplore Group, but here as co-student of the Digital Visual Arts Media Lab of the Academy in Ghent – made a soundscape for the TimeCapsule with his synthesizers. Check out his YouTube Channel Frame Per Second Animation). I selected his video “Pellicule”. I am sure the Corporate Rebels out there will find inspiration in this compilation.
Also included in this TimeCapsule is a recording made by John Oliver from Interior Truth: what he does is interesting – silent witnessing videos of artists. Check him out.
The silence witnessing approach is refreshing. John creates a virtual space for permission. Permission to be silent, to open-up, to reflect, to adjust, to pause, to dream, and to imagine. He skilfully listens and watches in silence, trying to discern the different stories interwoven in the recording, picking one, and editing it in a high-quality video testimony that respects the integrity of the moment.
Personally, I chose to share stories that were informed from recent reflections, rather than stepping over the lines of my own vulnerability. I know it, and I have no regrets of not exposing my worst shadows to a broader audience. I think it is good for any artist/creative to have a witnessing moment like this, to discover and articulate better what is driving the artistic process. Bravo!
The showroom of the exhibition is open until 31 August 2020. You can get in via this link.
I got some very encouraging feedback after the launch on 1 July 2020, for which I am very grateful. So, more artwork is coming. I just subscribed for another two years at the Academy for Visual Arts in Ghent: a series of 2 specialization years on painting with the aim to professionalise my practice. And cherry on the cake, two artworks already sold: “Blue Boat” and “Five Guys on the Beach”. Feels like the start of a new career.
Petervan, in de wereld Peter Vander Auwera, heeft na een rijke en gevarieerde carrière in de bedrijfswereld zijn blikveld omgegooid na de openbaring van intense schoonheid in een tentoonstelling van Dries Van Noten, één van de sterktehouders van de Belgische modescène.
Ik ben zijn neef, zelfs met ouders die broers en zusters van elkaar waren, dus van het pure DNA uit bekeken en als kunsthistoricus van beroep, zou ik mij bij uitstek in de artistieke wereld van mijn neef moeten kunnen verplaatsen en mijn best moeten doen om toch objectief te blijven.
Laat ik vooreerst stellen dat ik het moedig vind om het prestige en de renumeratie van het bedrijfsleven definitief de rug toe te keren. En ook wel de rat-race kan ik vermoeden, als ik luister naar Peter’s nieuwe ideale dag in zijn video “Interior Truth”. Wel vaker heb ik (oud-) collega’s ontmoet die na studies die uitzicht boden op een zeker bestaan en het helpen instaan voor een gezin, op latere leeftijd de spijt voelden om niet hun artistieke passie te hebben gevolgd. Maar bij Peter is die wending anders en radicaler, hoewel de artistieke gevoeligheid al bleek bij zijn aanvankelijke keuze voor architectuurstudies.
Peter(van) heeft een bijzondere gevoeligheid in zijn kunst voor het beeld dat pakt. En dat weet hij vol te houden in een veelheid van stijlen en media. Dat blijkt duidelijk uit deze solo-tentoonstelling. Hij heeft veel waardering voor wat zijn leraars hem bijbrengen en dat siert hem. Hij experimenteert voortdurend, maar zijn beelden slagen er telkens in weer de aandacht vast te houden, in een grote verscheidenheid van vormentaal
Terecht benadrukt hij het belang van schoonheid in ons aardse bestaan, van de kunst als vrijhaven in het leven en van ongebondenheid als leidraad van een betekenisrijke innerlijke beleving. Het is Ernst Gombrich die in 1960 in zijn “Art and Illusion. A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation”, de ogen opende voor het fundamentele inzicht dat de kunst niet de realiteit weergeeft als door een venster, maar dat wij omgekeerd de realiteit zien doorheen wat wij als kunst in ons beeldgeheugen hebben opgeslagen. Het essentiële belang van schoonheid als zodanig voor een betekenisvol leven, is al eerder voor het eerst magistraal verwoord in de filosofie van de 18de eeuw en de verlichting, met Immanuel Kant als lichtend voorbeeld, omdat bij hem de esthetische faculteit bij de mens het sluitstuk werd van zijn filosofie – dus van het zoeken naar betekenis – na zijn analyse van het juiste weten en het juiste handelen. Sindsdien is het begrip schoonheid in de kunst wel wat ondergesneeuwd en in de hedendaagse kunst kreeg ook expressieve lelijkheid haar adelbrieven.
De kunst als vrijhaven voor de kunstenaar en haar publiek blijft een kostbaar goed en dient helaas continu verdedigd, zowel in communistisch-marxistisch als kapitalistisch gefundeerde maatschappijen, dus ook na de vruchteloze afkondiging van het einde van de ideologieën en zelfs van de geschiedenis.
Dat management-theorieën op probleemoplossingen mikken en kunst puur creatief is, daar heb vanuit mijn achtergrond als kunsthistoricus wel kritische bedenkingen bij: kunstenaars hebben in de kunstgeschiedenis wel degelijk vele opeenvolgende artistieke problemen aangepakt, van de beheersing van de perspectief tot de vraag van Adorno of poëzie nog wel mogelijk is na de nazi-uitroeiïngskampen? Maar het oplossingen zoeken gebeurt in de kunst wel op een specifiek wijze: door het continu reageren tijdens het evoluerende creatieproces zelf en niet vanuit een vooraf geformuleerde probleemstelling. Picasso formuleerde het zo: “Chercher ne signifie rien en peinture. Ce qui compte, c’est trouver.” En ook nog:”Tout ce qui peut être imaginé est réel.”.
Om met een zeer toepasselijk inzicht van Einstein te besluiten : “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.”
Joost Vander Auwera
Brussel, 28 Juni 2020
English translation by Google:
Petervan, in the world Peter Vander Auwera, after a rich and varied career in the business world, has changed his vision after the revelation of intense beauty in an exhibition of Dries Van Noten, one of the strength holders of the Belgian fashion scene.
I am his cousin, even with parents who were siblings, so from the pure DNA and as an art historian by profession, I should be able to put myself in my cousin’s artistic world and try my best to nevertheless remain objective.
First of all, let me say that I find it courageous to definitively abandon the prestige and the remuneration of business. I can also suspect the rat race when I listen to Peter’s new ideal day in his video “Interior Truth”. I have often met (former) colleagues who, after studies that offered prospects of a certain existence and helping to provide for a family, felt the regret at a later age for not having followed their artistic passion. But with Peter, this turn is different and more radical, although the artistic sensitivity was already evident in his initial choice for architectural studies.
Petervan has a special sensitivity in his art for the image that captures. And he knows how to maintain this in a multitude of styles and media. This is evident from this solo exhibition. He greatly appreciates what his teachers teach him and that decorates him. He constantly experiments, but his images keep capturing attention, in a wide variety of formal language
He rightly emphasizes the importance of beauty in our earthly existence, of art as a free haven in life and of unboundedness as a guideline for a meaningful inner experience. It is Ernst Gombrich who, in 1960, in his “Art and Illusion. A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation ”, opened our eyes to the fundamental insight that art does not represent reality as through a window, but conversely, we see reality through what we have stored in our image memory as art. The essential importance of beauty as such for a meaningful life has already been articulated for the first time in the philosophy of the 18th century and enlightenment, with Immanuel Kant as a shining example, because in him the aesthetic faculty in man became the final piece of his philosophy – thus of the search for meaning – after his analysis of the right knowing and the right action. Since then, the term beauty has been neglected in art, and expressive ugliness has also received its nobility in contemporary art.
Art as a free haven for the artist and its public remains a precious commodity and unfortunately has to be constantly defended, both in communist-Marxist and capitalist-based societies, including after the fruitless proclamation of the end of ideologies and even of history.
The fact that management theories aim at problem-solving and art is purely creative, has critical reservations from my background as an art historian: artists have tackled many successive artistic problems in art history, from controlling perspective to Adorno’s question if poetry is still possible after the Nazi extermination camps? But the search for solutions happens in art in a specific way: by continuously responding during the evolving creation process itself and not from a pre-formulated problem statement. Picasso put it this way: “Chercher ne signifie rien en peinture. Ce qui compte, c’est trouver. ” And also: “Tout ce qui peut être imaginé est réel.”.
To conclude with a very appropriate insight from Einstein: “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. ”
Petervan Studios 