But then
22 March 2025
22 March 2025
I won’t say too much
about this, for privacy reasons. But then, it’s been eight years ago now. I
don’t think this project ever saw the light of day, and I see no harm in
posting two pictures from my limited behind-the-scenes series as long as I don’t
name names. One of the most atypical things I’ve ever done, though of course
the setting is all too familiar.
Not to do certain things
13 March 2025
13 March 2025
“So much effort has had to go into trying not
to do certain things. Not to use the sky…to rescue the land. Not to be seduced
into celebrating the power of men and machines, which can have a Satanic beauty
and heroism about it. And not to aestheticize the carnage.” - Robert Adams
Words that make me think of this picture I took in Norway back in 2020. I was quite content with it, I remember, especially with how the clouds had turned out. (Not to use the sky.. ) The quote also reminds me of a comment that I received a couple of years ago, which stated that in my photographic work I seemed to be looking for some sort of reassuring aesthetic, regardless of moral, socially or critical aspects. The question raised is basically whether aesthetics and social criticism are mutually exclusive. I don’t think so. Aesthetics isn’t necessarily reassuring, it can also have a disruptive effect, because the viewer is tempted to find something beautiful that on a closer look actually is not. Perhaps providing a sense of aesthetics is another way of connecting viewer and landscape, and thus adding a sense of ownership and loss.
Words that make me think of this picture I took in Norway back in 2020. I was quite content with it, I remember, especially with how the clouds had turned out. (Not to use the sky.. ) The quote also reminds me of a comment that I received a couple of years ago, which stated that in my photographic work I seemed to be looking for some sort of reassuring aesthetic, regardless of moral, socially or critical aspects. The question raised is basically whether aesthetics and social criticism are mutually exclusive. I don’t think so. Aesthetics isn’t necessarily reassuring, it can also have a disruptive effect, because the viewer is tempted to find something beautiful that on a closer look actually is not. Perhaps providing a sense of aesthetics is another way of connecting viewer and landscape, and thus adding a sense of ownership and loss.
Chaos
16 November 2024
16 November 2024
At some point, I tried to explain why I resent it when people say they have their life in order or are looking for a partner who has their life in order, in the context of dating. I couldn't put
my finger on it, and I didn't make a strong case for myself. But I think what bothers me, apart from the undercurrent of contempt for those who are a little less on top of things, is the failure to recognize that any life, theirs included, could fall into chaos at any moment.
Kozara National Park, Bosnia, 2024. A week before the floods and landslides hit Central-Bosnia.
Kozara National Park, Bosnia, 2024. A week before the floods and landslides hit Central-Bosnia.
In my garden
31 July 2024
31 July 2024
I was working on a text for the forthcoming exhibition Garden
Futures, and before I knew it, I found myself browsing The Photographer in the
Garden.
I took photos of the institute’s outdoor space in 2015, when the first edition of the New Garden was being laid out. They are not very good, basically because I was trying to make pictures that would work as pairs, and they didn’t. Or perhaps some did, but as a concept, it tanked. Since then I have photographed the garden many times. I’m still fond of the one I took in 2021, shortly before it was razed to the ground to make way for the reconstruction of the Museumpark. The new New Garden isn’t half as nice, and I have only photographed it upon request since then. Except for the ones below.
I like photographing gardens, but I have little interest in individual plants or flowers as a subject. I tend to look at gardens as landscape, or architecture. The photos on this page are a little ‘closer’ than that though. Here is a Belgian film I saw a couple of weeks ago. Not about gardens, but about looking, and paying attention. To mosses, made up of thousands of little plants and flowers, but also to long walks across the city of Brussels, its green outskirts, the warm summer night glow, overgrown fences and the slow movement of cranes against a dusky sky. I suspect some of this resonates in these pictures.
I took photos of the institute’s outdoor space in 2015, when the first edition of the New Garden was being laid out. They are not very good, basically because I was trying to make pictures that would work as pairs, and they didn’t. Or perhaps some did, but as a concept, it tanked. Since then I have photographed the garden many times. I’m still fond of the one I took in 2021, shortly before it was razed to the ground to make way for the reconstruction of the Museumpark. The new New Garden isn’t half as nice, and I have only photographed it upon request since then. Except for the ones below.
I like photographing gardens, but I have little interest in individual plants or flowers as a subject. I tend to look at gardens as landscape, or architecture. The photos on this page are a little ‘closer’ than that though. Here is a Belgian film I saw a couple of weeks ago. Not about gardens, but about looking, and paying attention. To mosses, made up of thousands of little plants and flowers, but also to long walks across the city of Brussels, its green outskirts, the warm summer night glow, overgrown fences and the slow movement of cranes against a dusky sky. I suspect some of this resonates in these pictures.
Back to my text.
One of the gardens featured in the exhibition is the one Derek Jarman created at Dungeness on the barren coast of Kent. I look up its exact location on Street View and wander around for a while. I remember the film, The Garden, and find its soundtrack by Simon Fisher Turner on Spotify. The soundscapes (not sure if I should call it music) take me right back to the nineties.
Seeing Jubilee in a movie theater in London, the building a former railway station or church, I’m not sure. Driving to Poland in a dodgy car. We borrowed an apartment that I would have loved to photograph now, but my interests were elsewhere at the time. I remember playing The Garden and other art films on VHS tapes and taking stills. Slides, that are probably stored not far from where my feet are. I resist the urge to crawl under my desk.
One of the gardens featured in the exhibition is the one Derek Jarman created at Dungeness on the barren coast of Kent. I look up its exact location on Street View and wander around for a while. I remember the film, The Garden, and find its soundtrack by Simon Fisher Turner on Spotify. The soundscapes (not sure if I should call it music) take me right back to the nineties.
Seeing Jubilee in a movie theater in London, the building a former railway station or church, I’m not sure. Driving to Poland in a dodgy car. We borrowed an apartment that I would have loved to photograph now, but my interests were elsewhere at the time. I remember playing The Garden and other art films on VHS tapes and taking stills. Slides, that are probably stored not far from where my feet are. I resist the urge to crawl under my desk.
Tour
20 June 2024
20 June 2024
Art tour in
Boijmans’ old museum building, which has been ‘under renovation’ since 2019,
and will be for another decade or so. I can’t say I’ve missed it much since it
closed its doors, or perhaps I have, but wasn’t aware of it. Now I am. No
specific, strong memories, just a sense of familiarity and homecoming, and
thinking what a mighty fine building this is for looking at art.