Last Saturday May 26, Dirk Snauwaert tried to provoke Willem Oorebeek during the last conversation in the exhibition Les Secrets De La Mémoire by asking for the meaning of Willem's regular use of the word "iconoclasm". Wasn't it more "iconophobic" to black out the Paris-Match posters he asked the artist. The artist stayed cool and didn't stumble but stood on the fact that blacking-out is an act of iconoclasm. An iconophoby leads to iconoclasm, is part of it. To put the oeuvre of Willem in a historical perspective Dirk sketched the seventies when punk and anarchism were kicking and alive. Willem remarked that he never had the idea to belong to any direction or movement in art soever. As all artist feel their-selves, they fall in between every existing and actual art movement.
It was interesting when Dirk read some lines from Ad Reinhardt's text book Art as Art about the use and different meanings of black. Quote: "I (Ad Reinhardt) want to stress the idea of black as intellectuality and conventionality. There's an expression "the dark of absolute freedom" and an idea of formality. There's something about darkness or blackness that I don't want to pin down. But it's aesthetic." Willem thought it was beautiful and advised everybody to read Ad Reinhardt's Art as Art, but it hasn't anything to do with his art practise of blacking out. Dirk tried to get more information from the artist about his use of black to destroy images. The use from printed matter as raw materials to work with, to black-out or to print in layers over each other, is the big difference, Willem replied.
The whether was nice, beer and white wine was cooled, the audience was present in large numbers, the conversations were relaxed...
It was interesting when Dirk read some lines from Ad Reinhardt's text book Art as Art about the use and different meanings of black. Quote: "I (Ad Reinhardt) want to stress the idea of black as intellectuality and conventionality. There's an expression "the dark of absolute freedom" and an idea of formality. There's something about darkness or blackness that I don't want to pin down. But it's aesthetic." Willem thought it was beautiful and advised everybody to read Ad Reinhardt's Art as Art, but it hasn't anything to do with his art practise of blacking out. Dirk tried to get more information from the artist about his use of black to destroy images. The use from printed matter as raw materials to work with, to black-out or to print in layers over each other, is the big difference, Willem replied.
The whether was nice, beer and white wine was cooled, the audience was present in large numbers, the conversations were relaxed...
Thanks a lot Dirk Snauwaert, for trying to get Willem Oorebeek more specific about his black-out art practise.
Herewith some photos to give an impression of the conversation.
