Marcel
Installation. Color video projection on black and white photograph, audio.
Dating from 2005, re-worked in 2007 to its present form. In collaboration with Marcel Musters, Inez van Lamsweerde/Vinoodh Matadin and Jeroen Willems.
Performed live on november 20, 2005 at the Mugmetdegoudentand theatre studio.
Exhibitions: Artpace (San Antonio, 2006) De Hallen (Haarlem, 2007).
Collection of Frans Halsmuseum / De Hallen, Haarlem.
Audio text:
Funny.
Well it’s a nice view.
Lonely buggers. Reality sucks.
Well why dont you just let it happen?
They’ll shoot up just the same without anybody watching. Fucking prostitutes.
You see he was right.
Stay calm. 1659, 1759, 1859, 1959. Bang. Right guys I’m here. Working, working. Meanwhile it’s others who die. My father, Mariel, Gerald, Anthony, Suk.
I know. How powerless can you get? I know I dont drink because..
The only difference between me and them is that they’re..
Not that it gets me anywhere, but still.
Just a byproduct of advertising. Sick.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, earth has disappeared. As we will not be able to crash, we will continue flying until we run out of fuel.
Well so do something about it you’ve been wining about it for years.
Well... Halfway,
Everything’s fine. Stay calm.
Come on guys what’s the big idea?
You know, these days when somebody on the street says ‘sorry’ it’s a junky.
You see you don’t get it. You’re just a character in someone else's plot. But I can not be held responsible. Well it’s fucking noisy.
Dead people walking uo and down. Stay Calm. Relax. Respect. You see.
Shutting the windows doesn’t help
I am the only one who really sees what’s going on. See, lost it now, never mind.
What was the question again?
Rodin researchFrom 2005 onwards, I have been focusing on Rodin as a research topic. The main question that I ask myself is in what way Rodin consciously helped shaping the mythical proportions of his own artistic persona. By studying his life and works and by studying the timeframe of the second half of the nineteenth century – in which his work came to existence – I seek to create a context of paralel references as a source of inspiration for nowadays artistic practice.
IllegalevechtOf course a river can not be illegal, but that’s why the two words are combined. Illegalevecht is based on uncalculated development of ideas and on multiple usage of the river. You can help to define Illegalevecht by sending proposals that in one way or another alter the river and its surrounding landscape. Each year we provide up to 4000 euros to execute plans. If we select your plan, we will give you the money directly in hand, without further bureaucracy.
NowWhat happens is that the grit under your feet mixes with the noise in your head. And in the monotony of the constant succession of footsteps, residual thoughts escape like intestinal slugs. Initially this is unpleasant. The physical exertion is a booster, the cadence of your breathing and your footsteps become the haunted baseline under the story of your life, as you recount it to yourself at that moment.
QueensdayDe 38-jarige Karst T. uit Huissen reed even voor het middaguur in op toeschouwers in een bewuste actie de koninklijke familie te raken. De man raakte zelf ernstig gewond en verkeerde gisteravond in levensgevaar. De man ontweek op de Jachtlaan in Apeldoorn twee afzettingen en reed met zijn zwarte Suzuki Swift in op de menigte. De koninklijke familie zag vanaf een paar meter afstand hoe de man tegen monument De Naald botste.
Untitled (Onkenhout)Staring at the picture of the garden on the postcard I catch a glimpse of my mother in a version of her life that she never lived, one in which Nico had gotten in touch, after that evening out. Perhaps now she’d have a different surname and be sitting by a different fire drinking wine with a different child. In a moment that feels like an oedipal short circuit, I experience something impossible: that I never existed.
Immovably CentredEverything just chucked away. Subsidy handed back. A total failure. Fine. Well done. I’d like to know when you’re not going to be a failure. If you’re not. And whether I’m going to witness it in this lifetime. So vain. So weak. So lacking in backbone. I have to keep the whole show on the road while you just sit upstairs crying at your desk, your tears staining what you’re only going to scrunch up again any second and toss into the corner. On that laptop of yours.
Aaltje KraakIn de Marslaan stond een rijtje van vijf jaren zestig-huizen te wachten op de sloop. De bouwnorm was in het centrum tot vierhoog verhoogd dus op die plek voldeden ze niet meer. De grote ramen, die de huizen ooit tot moderne doorzonwoningen hadden gemaakt waren nu dichtgetimmerd. Op het blanke hout van het underlayment stond over de volle lengte van het huizenblok met spuitbus geschreven: Weg met die zooi!
On ne touche pasOne image is not the same as the other and there are also images that know their place: images that not only form a world in themselves but also refer to a more complex reality beyond themselves. And this is what I would like to focus on in this lecture, with the help of my film Museum, dating from 1998. For me, reflection on earlier works is not meant to dwell in the past. It is meant to stimulate preciseness and to develop internal coherence.
More of the samePhoto column in Amsterdam Weekly, focusing on similarities in the city environment. Based on the '700 centenboek' from 1975, in which Jos Houweling photographed objects throughout the city of Amsterdam in the same manner. The photo column appeared biweekly and was combined with the work of Hans Eijkelboom, whose series focus on similar human behavior or similar dress codes.
Over de filosofie van de verdunningAls aanzet tot de verwezenlijking van hun ideaal ontmantelde Muller de hiërarchie in de verpleging. In deze anti-autoritaire omgeving stond voorop dat zwakzinnigen en begeleiders elkaar hielpen om ‘zichzelf’ te zijn. Met zijn oprechte, onaangepaste gedrag kon de zwakzinnige zelfs als positief voorbeeld dienen voor de ‘zelfactualisering’ waar ieder mens naar diende te streven.
NieuwkomerFor months after I first stood on that little bridge, I continued to circle around the windmills. Not only with my camera, but also with a microphone. When you look closer, the polder turns out to be an arena of conflicting interests. The cluttering of the landscape stands in opposition to climatological necessity; economic and ecological interests are locking horns for dominance; innovation oriented towards the future has to compete with the appreciation for history.
Call meIt’s either filthy thoughts or intellectual blah-blah, and nothing in between. Look closer. More closer. Look at me! You hear me?! If there’s any reason for me to be ashamed, it’s you. The only reason I’m standing in front of the town hall is because I happened to have been ‘created’ by a world-famous sculptor: Rodin, the genius of deep emotions and existential gestures. Yeah right. The way I’m standing here, Rodin is the only person who’s never once laid a finger on me.
The Second CommandmentIt is only in this clarity that the image’s ambiguity, which the second commandment exhorts us to recognise, can be experienced as a quality. You can only make the difference between meaning and madness by saying what you have to say as precisely as possible, with every means available to you. In that respect, the recontextualisation of older work is one of the strategies that could be investigated in more depth. Sometimes it makes more sense to ‘re-present’ old work than to simply produce for production’s sake and prematurely declare the old as passé.
HesterIn the drawing, she has her head down because she was reading. She’s spent most of her life reading, its her way out of her depression. I remember being quite conscious of drawing her double chin, since she hates it. My mother hates the fact that she’s losing her jawbone. I thought, ‘No, I’ve got to scrub it out.’ So I drew a shadow there. But these dark areas, the chin and the bags, emphasize her depression more than they show her reading a book.
Re-MagazineRe-Magazine's great virtue is its willingness to expose sentiments that seldom find public expression, most often relating to the apparently trivial experiences and memories that make up the larger part of existence. Alongside this editorial idiosyncrasy, it is beautifully designed and photographed, each issue adopting a form to suit its subject - Emily King, Frieze, October 2003.
Re-Magazine #12 (Hester)The door slammed behind us and we got locked out. We decided to deal with that later and first take the furniture down to the car. So we got into the lift with the filing cabinet and then the lift stuck. There was hardly anyone in this building, I was maybe one of only five people that had moved in. We were stuck in the lift for three hours and every time we heard a noise we’d bang on the door. Eventually somebody came past and realised we were stuck and went to get help. When we got out of the lift we found out the car had been clamped while we’d been stuck, which meant a penalty of 120 pounds.
Food ComaDe inhoud van FOOD COMA wordt twee keer opgediend: een keer als theater, de tweede keer als tijdschrift. Centraal in voorstelling en tijdschrift staat Marcel, een 44-jarige computerdeskundige uit Wavrin, een klein dorpje onder de rook van Lille. Marcel wil en kan het maar over één ding hebben: voedsel. In FOOD COMA heeft Marcel een "monologue intérieur", een manische opeenstapeling van feiten over voedsel die begint waar dieetgoeroe's, chefkoks, boulimie-patiënten, slowfoodactivisten, fruitariërs en andere lekkerbekken ophouden.
Re-Magazine #11 (Marcel)I forced myself not to spit, but to swallow. The undissolved salt got stuck to the back of my throat and oesophagus. I ended up nearly choking. It was as if I had eaten a mouthful of sand. I then began to drink one glass of water after another, but the salty taste persisted. It was terrible and wonderful at the same time, and in some strange way physically exhausting. I had eaten about 30 grams of salt, only five times the recommended daily allowance. Committing suicide can be very easy: one kilo of salt is all it takes.
Re-Magazine #10 (Claudia)At times, her intelligence left me speechless and her beauty left me breathless. Her overwhelming height of 1m98 and dazzling charisma makes Claudia a woman who is almost too big for this world. This is a story about Claudia's monumental size, breathtaking beauty, staggering intelligence, mind-blowing success and pure happiness. Claudia has it all and she’s ready to share it with you.
I am flyingEvent. Airplane with banner, 2003
Captured on 16 mm film, duration 32 seconds.
Camera: Sander Snoep
Illegal actI'm convinced that the alterations I made to the original material reveal content that remains unseen in the original context. View it carefully and then get rid of it as soon as possible. Either pass it on to someone else or destroy it. Whatever you do, don't hand it over to the police or lawyers who specialize in intellectual property. And should you ever get caught with it, don't tell anyone you got it from me.
My Dad Playing PianoThe closet in his study kept the usual mix of essential and trivial: drawings from high school, student paraphernalia and tons of paper work from his job as a teacher. In an old shoebox we found a microphone and some old music cassettes. When he had retired, eight years before his death, he had picked up playing the piano again. He had taken lessons again and had studied every day. Sometimes he would make a recording of the pieces that he played, as a reality check.
Re- Magazine #9 (John)I still remember the moment perfectly, it was summer and I thought, I’ll disappear in the autumn. And that’s what I did. I hatched my plan in secret. What surprised me was that my decision didn’t calm me down. I heard people who commit suicide live in great harmony with themselves and their surroundings during the period between deciding and carrying it out. For as long as I can remember I’ve felt hustled, and that feeling only grew worse after my decision.
Family and friendsDrawings of penises in various forms and sizes, based on dating site profile pics. Pencil on 9" x 11" sheets of paper. Framed in individual frames. Published in Butt magazine # 4, summer 2002 and in Butt book, 2006.
Driving Miss Palmen I understand why you want to be a writer. It’s better to be mediocre and famous than just being mediocre. But the difference between you and me is that I’m able to create a character of myself in a story I choose to live in. And you, I’m sorry to say, are not. That makes me a writer and you just a character in someone elses plot. And as for my work: The big misunderstanding about my work is that critics keep comparing the fictious Connie Palmen with the real Connie Palmen, instead of comparing her to other great characters in litterature, like Madame Bovary, or Lolita...
Untitled (Staphorst)In this mediation between being and non-being we can do nothing else than continually behave as camera-genic as possible. See and be seen via the image has become a cultural and existential duty. This primacy of image and visibility however is no universal, natural condition: Islam’s interdict on images originally, according to the second commandment, also applied to Christendom. Connected to this theological diktat, codes about visibility and invisibility of an entirely different order lie dormant in our culture.
I shot MadonnaWhen she comes past I click away hysterically. Not even with the intention of getting her picture but more because I’m in the press enclosure and have to prove that I’m a photographer or so. I’m so busy with the camera and she goes by so fast that I hardly catch a glimpse of her. The print I have made is blurred. Also that night was the first time she showed up with a black hairdo instead of her usual blonde, so nobody recognized her on the photo.
PaoloI just wanted to celebrate with my fans. A photographer using a camera that takes 500 frames a minute just caught this moment in the celebration and made it look as if I held my right hand in that position.
NamesArnoud Holleman, Arnoud Kippenberger, Nickel Kippenberger, Nickel Weiner, Jeff Weiner, Jeff Hill, On Hill, On Pisano, Anuschka Pisano, Anuschka Kruger, Gary Kruger, Gary Holzer, Marlene Holzer, Marlene Krause, Liesbeth Krause, Liesbeth Judd, Marina Judd, Marina Kapoor, Stanley Kapoor, Stanley Kocken, Robert Kocken, Robert Brouwn, Barbara Brouwn, Barbara Nauman, Auguste Nauman, Auguste Lozano
I = for Impasse (Re- #4)I meet a lot of people, both friends and strangers, who are in the middle of their personal acts of expression, but when I hear them talking, and compare their intentions to the final result, I very often think that the process of making is better than the expression of the product itself. I wish I could blame this on their lack of talent, but when I look at the results of my own acts of expression, I get the same feeling that a documentary about the making of that particular act of expression would have been much more interesting.
Co*starDus toen kreeg ik heel erg de wens, als mens maar ook als kunstenaar, om me te bevrijden van al die dingen... om werkelijk iets nieuws in te slaan. Maar dat gaat niet, want je kan het nieuwe niet bedenken op basis van al die ouwe zooi. Dus ik dacht, ik wil daar van af... en toen bleek dat soap ... bleek een deur te zijn naar... zeg maar dat je die ruimte in je hoofd weer werkelijk leeg zou kunnen maken en als een soort potentie zou kunnen gaan vullen... zelf.
Bert LuttjeboerThat summer I was into the differences and parallels between drawing and photography. I saw myself as a human camera and tried to copy photos as precisely as possible. I was intrigued by the fact that I had to work for hours or days or weeks on end and would still fail to come anywhere close to what the camera had seen in a split second. One night, after a long day of working with minute precision and concentration, I went out to a bar and ran into Bert.
Inner ChildIk kan tekenen door te beginnen. Al tekenend vond Clanice een waarheid waarin ze veilig was voor haar stiefvader en halfbroers. Ik besta. Clanice weet zich zoo te draaien dat zij zich het eerste laat naaien. Vrijwel meteen werd Clanice teruggeworpen in haar moeders schoot die het geschop in haar buik opvatte als boodschappen van een jongetje. We gaan naar Zandvoort. Clanice en haar zorgzame moeder maken gewoon lekker rustig een korte wandeling naar de kalme zee.
MuseumMuseum (1998) is a re-mastered, projected version of a 1980s video by French gay porn director J. P. Cadinot. After Holleman cut out all the sex scenes, all that is left are young boys in hot pants and uniforms wandering aimlessly through a cheap film set of rooms in a nondescript museum. The eclectic art collection functions merely as a prop, but since there is no apparent action either, it’s not clear what the props are for.
Wij / WeThe definition of the word definition is: ‘the description of the essence of something in one or two highly precise and succinctly formulated sentences.’ That is by no means easy, and we certainly don’t pretend to be able to do so. Nevertheless, there are a lot of characteristics that we find interesting and that we come up against in wondering about what might be typical of the region known as Twente. But those things aren’t so much absolute as they are relative.
Artists AnonymousThink of this as a window * This way Brouwn * I got up at 2.49 p.m. * Imagine your defense if your life were on trial * I'm too sad to tell you * A bad environment for white monochrome paintings * The futility of artistic confession * I shot Madonna * You transform power into pose * Fuck me while I'm sleeping * A guy phones the office and says to his boss: "I'm sick. I won't be in today". The boss says: "Exactly how sick are you?". The guy replies: "Well, I'm in bed with my sister."
Life is a Dream Come TrueIn most of my dreams there are no images or storylines to assign to their nightmarish feeling. They are more about certain dynamics, of shrinking and growing, for example, or being crushed. My body caving in on itself. As a depressed person I live inside my head and there’s always a sense that my body is deteriorating and weak. So feelings of weakness and lightheadedness come to me naturally. There’s a vacancy in me that is connected to my dreams.
InterieursZoals een ander naar de slijter loopt om zich te bezatten, zo loop ik wel naar het venduehuis of de veiling of naar de antiquair om me visueel te bezatten. Zo zou je het eigenlijk best kunnen noemen ja. Je bezat je d'r an. Het heeft daarbij nog het voordeel dat dat bezatten langer duren kan dan die slok die je naar binnen werkt. Maar wat het verwerven van die dagelijks weerkerende pret betreft kan me dat dan wel eens zo ontzettend bezig houden dat ik er helemaal high van word.
Time Warp A cinematic report on the processes of growth and change taking place on W.G. Witteveenplein in Rotterdam. Each film begins with the construction of the park in early 2003 and shows the various changes that have taken place so far. The films are supplemented four times a year with new material. This will result in five twelve-minute films in 2023.
Verzameling VerzamelingenDe burgemeester had met de mooie stukken uit de collectie van de Van Sytzamastichting zijn kamer ingericht, maar de rest van het cultuurgoed voerde een verloren strijd tegen het dagelijks leven. Stenen beelden stonden zonder sokkel op de gang en werden gebruikt om de deuren open te houden. 18e-eeuwse miniatuurtjes hingen op een paar verloren spijkers naast een groepsfoto van de brandweer.
Tekeningen 1995 - 1997Met een zweepje onder z'n oksels geklemd 'berijdt' een naakte man een op z'n kop staand paard. Terwijl hij met z'n anus over de paardenlul glijdt, perst een eveneens naakte vrouw zich met moeite in het poepgat van het rijdier. Om haar daad kracht bij te zetten, duwt ze met haar hand tegen een denkbeeldige muur - een muur die tevens de kadrering vormt van het op papier getekende seksspelletje. (Nathalie Faber - Het Parool 3-2-1998)
Susan SontagI’ve always thought of photography as something very magical and it is my belief that this is based on a genuine experience: in my early childhood there must have been no sharp distinction between a real thing and its image. In the same way that kids see themselves as inseparable from their mother until the age of three, I thought that object and image were simply two different manifestations of the same energy.
Older worksThis is a selection of older works, dating roughly from 1990 until now. It's a reservoir of lose ends. Part of my practice is to go back in time, and re-evaluate previous motives and actions. Therefore, a lot of my works have an unfinished side. Either they have lost their momentum after they were exhibited, or were never shown outside of my studio, or are just waiting for completion in another context.
Auntie Truus and Auntie Mok With utmost concentration I tried to capture the atmosphere in the photos as closely as possible, but again and again I would screw up somewhere halfway. Either the balance in shading wasn’t right, or I couldn’t get the expressions right on their faces. When I finally managed to give Auntie Truus the right expression, I reached the point where I had a physical sensation of being on that lawn on Texel again on that day in 1969, asking Auntie Truus and Auntie Mok to pose for me. At that very moment, reality as such was redefined as an object for exhibition.