CLOSE TO HANS BROEK
Interview by drs Hugo Postma
for catalogue 'Hans Broek' 2007
'I would like my work to go to a very free place where things are not limited by unnecessary rules'. - Hans Broek
When do you consider your paintings to be finished?
When I make something, whether or not I had planned it in my mind, and I am surprised by its power, then I can accept it as a finished work. There is always the possibility of continuing to work on an image, but I can only consider it to be finished when I can sense immediacy in the work. I am interested in this directness…I always try to preserve the directness of a sketch. I do not attempt to "kill" the subject of my painting, to perfect the paintings, to make them a little better, or do a little more. That was something I did at times when I was working in Holland. In those days, I had to do everything again and again; my instinct was to sand the surface off once more until there was no life left in it. But I have left this tendency behind. Now I really cherish the possibility of immediacy in painting.
Can you tell me something about your working methods?
I find the images that I use in books, films, magazines and museum collections. I then usually take a photograph of the image. That makes the beginning of my process, and, from there, I make a painting based on that photograph, though I do not exactly copy it. In each case, the image that I choose holds something of great importance to me. The act of painting allows me to experience, or liberate, a particular power present in that original image.
I work in a traditional manner, on linen with oil paint. I make a sketch in burnt sienna on a light gray base; from there, I build up color that relates to the original image, but is not necessarily dictated by it. The subject of the original image is thus permitted to become a new one in my painting. For example, when I select an image from a film, this does not mean that the painting is necessarily "about" that movie. I take possession of that image and imbue it with new meaning, which exists outside the context and subject matter of the original film. The process is about identifying a metaphor that I believe exists within the image.
Why do you work with existing images that you find in films or books?
There is so much material to choose from that it becomes more a question of why you shouldn't use it, especially since images are recycled constantly and always have been recycled through different media, from painting to film, from film to photography. For example, if you take the film Barry Lyndon, you find that Kubrick used quite a few of Constable's paintings as inspiration for his scenes. There is always, and there always has been, a great deal of cross fertilization in art, from one medium to another. My images are not medium specific; this is not the sort of painting that you can see only in oil paint on linen. Rather, you can find this type of imagery in film, photography, and even theatre. What I find compelling are the exchanges that occur between different media. In my painting, I also use images drawn from Roman sculpture. I find translating from one medium to another an important component of my process, and I reserve the right to include elements that are important to me.
Based on what criteria do you choose to work with an image?
I am searching for an undercurrent in our existence as human beings, in what distinguishes us as human. I am interested in the stories that remain with us, that reoccur, and that must be told again. Stories that have to be played out in different forms and situations by other people. Take the story of Romeo and Juliet, which is of course written by Shakespeare. This story is played out in everyday life again and again, with pairs of lovers that cannot be together, for one reason or another, and the drama of these disastrous liaisons is a universal experience.
So my painting is about this undercurrent of energy that permeates our human existence. These archetypical stories include jealousy, revenge, hubris as well as more pleasant emotions like happiness and ecstasy. I am fascinated by things that remain the same but reappear in new and unexpected forms.
Could you give an example of images that you have chosen, where they came from, and in what works you have used them? You mentioned, for instance, Barry Lyndon.
Let's talk about Titian, because he deals with the kind of energy that lies at the core of our existence, an energy that fuels very basic human drives that do not have anything to do with morality, something that occurs below the surface and is stronger than the moral structures we create. I am tapping into that undercurrent with these paintings. For instance, this painting is based on an original by Titian entitled The Death of Actaeon but I have called my version Kill that Bastard Actaeon. This is the mythological story about the hunter Actaeon stumbling across Artemis and a group of her nymphs while they are naked in their bath around her. Artemis, the goddess of both chastity and the hunt, is not pleased that he has seen her naked, so she transforms him into a stag. Once transformed, the hunter is no longer recognizable to his own dogs, who proceed to tear him apart, limb by limb. Actaeon is punished for looking. His voyeurism, even if accidental, is his crime, and I think that is a very interesting idea. And this painting is also about revenge, which often transpires in relationships between people. I like to tap into this kind of energy, this is what I aim to paint. The work on the right is also inspired by Titian. The original title is The Rape of Lucretia. I have renamed my version Tarquinius and Lucretia. This is a very violent scene in which we find a man stabbing a woman. I am interested in the translation of the emotions of this act, to deal with a victim and an aggressor, to capture and explore this powerful dynamic in my painting. Violence is something perennial and universal, and, in this case, very gendered. I think the main reason why I like to paint is because it allows me to tap into something profound. I want my paintings to be read as metaphors.
I like my paintings to be direct, rough, even unclean in a way, because I think that this represents a very honest way of painting. We like to imagine that we are perfectly in control of our lives with our computer-driven, technologically savvy world complete with electronics, beautiful cars and everything else, but basically we are still very clunky beings that really don't know how to deal with each other, or just screw things up without realizing what we have done. I like that aspect of our humanity to be in the work.
How do you work when choosing your images? How do you go about that? For instance, at a certain point you chose those images by Titian, but before choosing them, you've gone through numerous other images. What were you looking for?
It is important that images appeal to me emotionally as well as rationally. But it is the emotion that I'm most interested in. I'm after a specific dynamic.
So dynamism is an important criterion for you. So, formally speaking, this means that it is important to you that images have movement, speed, and action?
Yes.
But how should I imagine this, the process of looking at images and choosing them, imagine you start your day and you have decided that this is what you will do today: you will look for images. Do you look for a certain image before you know it exists?
That can definitely be the case, but I can also stumble upon something, since there is so much material to work with. Choosing happens quite naturally, it has to do with my mind at that moment. If something appeals to me today, this does not mean that it will still appeal to me six months from now. Actually I spend very little time searching for images. I have many images stored in my memory that I wanted to use but couldn't because I worked differently in the past, so when I started these film and Old Master improvisations, I already knew that I could work with a given movie or a given painting. This information was stored in my memory.
Can you give me some examples of images that were already stored in your memory?
Images from the film Barry Lyndon. There were particular images in that film that I knew I wanted to use. The film is an honest tale about a man who is not a hero. He is a person with visible flaws who makes mistakes. He is quite selfish and a hustler. But he is a product of fate who wanders around the world and falls into certain situations. Ultimately, he doesn't have much control over what happens to him. His life is shaped by his circumstances.
Well, if I remember correctly, he is also, at a certain point, very focused on chasing Marisa Berenson.
He falls in love with her. Yes, he wants to settle down and start a family. It's a perfectly natural thing to do.
Does he fall in love with her or with her money?
Probably more with her status than with her as a person.
But I also find Marisa Berenson to be very interesting; she is this stunning beauty married to Lord Lyndon; this delicate little old nobleman confined to a wheelchair. I find that the way Kubrick has filmed her to be incredibly impressive. I consider the scene where she moves out onto the balcony during a card game because she needs some fresh air and Ryan O'Neill follows her out to be one of the most beautiful scenes in cinema history. Then later, when they are lovers, Lord Lyndon confronts him.
Yes, yes. He speaks his famous last words, "Mister Barry, I'm the kind of person that is rather known as a cuckold than a fool" and chokes. Yes, it is a fantastic scene…
Then later on when they are married, he neglects her completely… So maybe he was after her status and money more than after her beauty?
Well, it's also possible Redmond Barry just didn't know how to have a relationship because he had been wandering most of his life.
Is there any resemblance between you and this Redmond Barry?
Maybe in the sense that I have been wandering, though my own wandering is not as extreme as his. He is a gambler. I would say that painting, in a way, is also a risk. You never know what's going to happen…you trust that you have a good deck of cards and that you will play them well. But painting is also a gamble artistically since one can never predict how people will react to the changes one makes. It's like sending a rocket into space: it costs a lot of money and you never know if and when it will find something. So I guess that art is akin to both space travel and gambling.
But, in the end, almost nothing beats obsession.
You like fast cars. For a while you even owned a Maserati. One could say that risky situations appeal to you, don't you think? Gambling, fast cars, a life that you are not sure will pay off in the end?
Yes, the idea of living a mediocre life terrifies me.
What are the personality traits and skills that you believe have helped you to cope with your life as an artist?
What helps me a lot is that I don't mind being alone. That is immeasurably important since being an artist is a rather lonely profession. You spend a lot of time being simultaneously the creator and critical audience for your work. It's really a one-man show. People who require a lot of social interaction can struggle with being an artist even if they have a lot of talent.
Does an unhappy childhood help?
I don't think that one needs to have had an unhappy childhood to be a good artist. But I think many artists, at some point or another, have been in a situation of extreme isolation, which in turn allows them to create their own reality and their own way of thinking about things. This can be quite interesting. Continuity is an another key asset. I keep going. And one has to be able to cope with rejection and failure. I think one can compare being an artist with being an explorer. Being an artist is about exploring life and, within that experience, exploring freedom.
In every life there are moments that are crucial, that determine the direction of a person's life for a number of years. Can you pinpoint any such a moment in your life?
Probably my admission to the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam was such a moment. After I finished my education at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht, I entered a phase during which I painted like crazy. I had a freezing cold studio in the harbor town of IJmuiden, near Amsterdam. I had no money, and I worked as a taxi driver. Nobody was interested in my work. I applied for the Rijksakademie and was admitted. The person who really wanted to work with me was a man named Han Schuil, who is recognized as an important artist in the Netherlands. And so all of a sudden I had the opportunity to work at a wonderful school where serious people appreciated my work. This was exhilarating for me.
What made you decide to go to art school?
During high school, I was an actor in a theatre group. Some members of the group said, "Let's go to art school." And that is exactly what happened with a number of us. I had been good at drawing since I was very young, and so art school made sense for me. I enrolled in Monumental Design, which meant that I was painting full-time.
I would like to go back to your period at the Rijksakademie for a moment. Which professors, apart from Han Schuil, were teaching you?
Well, people like Marlene Dumas, Emo Verkerk, and Jan Beutener formed the core group. And then there was this great guy from England, Bruce McLean, who always dropped in. He was a fantastic teacher with the capacity to give people a real boost of energy. Some very good work came out of those years.
What was your work in the early nineties in the Netherlands about?
It was about the mystery of ordinary things. The most ordinary things were to me the most fascinating: a house, a car, a landscape. I couldn't connect to these objects, and yet I wanted to provide reality with a recognizable image. So I would see or remember something, and, by painting it, I transformed it into a something that I could understand or feel. Through painting I could digest it, experience it.
So at that time for you painting was about digesting experiences. The paintings were neither about the actual image nor the object you depicted, but rather your connection to these objects was what the painting was about.
That's one way of putting it.
Why was it necessary at that time for you to connect to those ordinary objects?
Somehow I felt these objects were impenetrable. Painting was a means by which to connect to them. My religious upbringing as a child has made me a skeptic with a sense of mystery. I felt there was mystery in these seemingly ordinary houses, cars and landscapes.
When you left for Los Angeles in the mid-nineties your work changed and became more formal. You started to reduce images to what you have called a "formal maximum." How does that relate to the earlier, more painterly work we discussed a moment ago.
I literally eliminated paint because I didn't want people to talk about it anymore. I wasn't painting to make people enjoy brushstrokes. Linen, paint, and brushstrokes are simply a means to an end. But this so-called "end" never entered into the discourse when people would talk about my work. As a result, I started to eliminate all the surplus stuff, all the painterly effects. I wanted to get straight to the point. Imagine going to a wonderful Brahms concert and, upon returning home, saying, "Oh, I've just been to a beautiful Brahms concert, the violins had such beautiful colors and shapes." That would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? So I decided to move the violins behind the stage so that people would stop talking about the colors and shapes of my work and instead begin to listen to its music. I wanted my work to be appreciated for more compelling reasons. My Los Angeles work was about controlling the painterly medium and subject matter. This body of work clarified for me the bare essentials for making a painting. But the sense of mystery never disappeared.
You lived in Los Angeles for ten years and then two years ago you moved here to New York, where your way of working has undergone yet another dramatic shift. Why did you need this change?
Because of the ongoing reduction in my work, I began to risk losing something vital. I realized that the next stage could be only form. I wanted to inject life back into my painting, to rediscover emotion and passion. This evaluation coincided with the Columbus inside of me, as I discovered a new world, even a dark continent within myself.
Your current work is again about experiencing a part of yourself, like your work in the early nineties. But at that point it was very much about alienation and detachment as you looked out into the world and tried to connect to it. Now you are looking inward as you try to connect with this darker side of yourself. So where do you imagine your work taking you from here? Where will it go next?
I would like my work to go to an even freer place, a place not limited by unnecessary rules. I want my work to be loose and open without being hazy or vague. I want to take it to an active place where the paintings have nothing to do with morality and instead express pure human drives, ranging from extreme violent to extreme beauty. I am searching for a place without prescriptions for "good" or "bad," but which fully acknowledges what it means to be human, in all its diversity..
Home
|