Marcel Broodthaers
Langage
de fleurs
1965
wood,
paint, plastic
30
cm diameter
El Greco
Laocoön
1608-1614
oil
on linen
142
x 193 cm
Rogier van der Weyden
Deposition
ca. 1435-1440
oil on oak panel
220 x 262 cm
In the course of time I have been influenced by different artists from different disciplines: El Greco, Giacometti, Manet, Bonnard, Carpaccio, all the Italian Renaissance, Pierre Boulez, De Chirico, Rothko, Elliott Carter, Hanne Darboven, Teresa de Keersemaeker, Rogier van der Weyden, Monteverdi, Marcel Proust, Marcel Broodthaers, Helmut Lachenmann and many others. I deliberately do not mention them in chronological order. Besides philosophy, my travels in West Afrika, a lot of contemporary music and the daily practice of life, especially El Greco and Marcel Broodthaers have been decisive. From the latter I saw a retrospective in Brussels and there I recognized language as image and image as language. Language as unlimited generator of meaning that also swallows up meaning. Maybe I also saw that very early in El Greco, whose free hand of painting makes the picture appear
as readable calligraphy in an abstract, relatively flat space. Early on I called him the first cubist. But I guess the best work I've ever seen is the Deposition by Rogier van der Weyden at the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
Toon
Teeken 2013
Toon Teeken (NL)
Being
a statue
2011
oil
on linen
160
x 200 cm