ARNE QUINZE with photography by Dave Bruel
Introduction 7 Xavier Roland 25 Arne Quinze
Paper models 143 155 161 169 183 185 207 217
Tupi Strelitzia Chroma Lupine Purple Lupine The Apple Tree Saver Le Beau Rêveur My Secret Garden Amazonia
My Secret Garden
The flowers of desire
43 Wildflower Fields 51 My Secret Garden 61 Ronald van der Hilst
Mono No Aware 93 Mono No Aware 97 Hibiscus 99 Hervé Mikaeloff
Oil paintings
The charmless city
Inhabiting the world
225 Maruani Mercier
274 278 282 286 290
305 306 310 312 318 322
The power of nature
Appendix
326 Natural Chaos
340 341 343 344 345 346 348 349
Chaos Chaos in Motion Cityview Bidonville Stilt House
Biography Selection of exhibitions Selection of sculptures Selection of books Selection of films Acknowledgements Contributors Photography
Cities as open-air museums Rock Strangers Uchronia Camille Scarlet Whispers
6
Xavier Roland Manager of the Museums Hub and Director of the Museum of Fine Arts of Mons (BAM)
Introduction
Garden . . . The title of the exhibition My Secret Garden affirms the refusal to separate his public work from his iden-
From 2015 to 2021, a monumental sculpture was installed
tity as a man, which has contributed to disrupting the usual
in Mons, just a few steps away from the Grand-Place. It was
lines of division between the private and public space. This
the work of Arne Quinze, now regarded as one of the most
movement back and forth between the two helps to shape his
prolific Belgian artists in terms of creating works of art for the
ability to constantly renew his work. The exhibition brings
public space. Dozens of his sculptures have been installed all
together more than 100 of his works. They range from his
over the world, in Paris, London, Shanghai and beyond. His
earliest pieces dating back to 2010, to his most recent creations
journey as an artist has not been typical. He began his career
from 2021. It is possible to distinguish between a number of
on the streets of Brussels as a graffiti artist before going on to
different stylistic phases. In Quinze’s early works, he is forging
create monumental sculptures, always outdoors. Published to
an identity in the face of a disillusionment with modern cities.
mark the occasion of a retrospective exhibition at the Mons
This is why the city occupies a central place from the very start
Museum of Fine Arts (BAM, Beaux-Arts Mons), this catalogue
of the exhibition, with works such as Bidonville, Cityview, and
sets out to explore his plastic approach, which often overlaps
Stilt House . . . The title also suggests an initiatory journey
with his urban work. Indeed, we quickly become aware of the
into his intimate, creative and memorial universe. The studio,
impact of modern cities, from his first creations to those of
which is quasi-recreated in the exhibition, appears in the tour
today, always set against the backdrop of nature, which gradu-
as a place to become immersed in the intimacy of creation,
ally takes possession of the work. This exhibition also seeks to
where we better understand how he moves from the micro to
draw the public’s attention to how, through his monumental
the macrocosm, from the private space to the public space. The
sculptures, Quinze is able to bring life back to the heart of
final parts of this retrospective tour literally plunge us into an
our cities. It was therefore impossible – even in the context
explosion of colour. He is profoundly inspired by Monet and
of a museum exhibition like this one – to evoke such an artist
Impressionism, which he revisits in his own way. The garden –
without summoning the city to take part in the exhibition.
a major source of inspiration – is in a state of osmosis with his
Hence the installation of three monumental sculptures on the
oil paintings. The fresco he has created on the windows of the
Grand-Place, and two more that welcome the visitor on the
BAM, with a real garden that he himself planted a few months
BAM forecourt. In keeping with his practice, Quinze deliber-
before, now certainly comes into its own! Nature occupies a
ately blurs the distinction between the museum space and the
central place in the story, as we discover throughout the course
public space.
of this exhibition.
In the work of Arne Quinze, the possessive pronoun
We would like to thank Arne Quinze and his team, Dave
‘My’ resounds like an enduring echo. The titles for a number
Bruel and Lien De Brabander, for their commitment to this
of his early works are peppered with the English pronoun
project, which has not been easy to carry out in the context of
‘My’ and its variants: My Home, My Safe Home, My Secret
the pandemic that formed the backdrop to the preparation of
8
The Passenger, 2014 Public sculpture in wood Rue de Nimy, Mons, Belgium
the exhibition. The scenography and graphics were provided
Xavier Roland
My Home My House My Stilthouse, 2009 Composition of drawings Museum of the Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
The Disenchanted City
by Yesmine Sliman Lawton from Okidoki and her assistant, Aurore Lebutte. I would like to thank them for the quality and
Arne Quinze left the countryside, where he spent a large
professionalism of their work. Last but not least, I would like
part of his childhood, and discovered Brussels at the age of
to thank BAM’s project officer, Alice Cantignau, who – with
16. He was fascinated by this new urban world, and at the
the help of the Museums Hub team – has coordinated this
same time depressed by the greyness and monotony of the
exhibition in brilliant style.
streets, the façades and the architecture. In the early 1980s, he gathered around him a community of graffiti artists that is
Arne Quinze : My Secret Garden
still active today. ‘With graffiti’, he says, ‘I wanted to change things. One
How is it that Arne Quinze is able to install a memorial
day, after tagging a metro train, I saw that it provoked a dia-
trace in our collective memory with ephemeral sculptures like
logue between passers-by who would otherwise never speak
The Passenger at Mons that he installs all over the world? It
to one another. Some were in favour, and some were against’.
requires quite a journey to understand all the stages that the
His work as a graffiti artist certainly cannot be reduced to the
artist has gone through in his life. From his travels around
one-dimensional question of degradation or provocation. On
the world to his private garden, it is as much a question of the
the contrary, he instinctively seeks to gain entry to the urban
limits of the enclosed space of the work as it is of its perma-
interstices that everyone has forgotten, with the desire to
nence in time. We believe that it is this cross-reflection on
create a feeling of beauty where all traces of humanity seem
time and space that helps to anchor his works in the terri-
to have disappeared. And so he began to travel the world in
tory they occupy. The question that arises in the background
search of other things, other cultures, other cities. ‘The more
concerns the legacy that these ephemeral sculptures will
I travelled in search of different cultures, the more I was
bequeath to us. For what is terrible is perhaps not so much
disappointed when I came back home. Unfortunately, I came
that the sculpture disappears, but that its disappearance might
to the conclusion that cities around the world were all much
be in vain, without consequence!
the same in their greyness, their architecture . . . The urban
Bidonville View 230, 2008 Wood, polyurethane, 80 x 250 x 27 cm Private collection
Natural Golden Chaos, 2014 Rose gold, 130 x 125 x 155 cm Pforzheim, Germany
and cultural difference I hoped to find was just a figment of
out before his lens. The photos have a cold, hyperrealist style:
my imagination’. The photographic work he undertakes dur-
the viewing angles systematically reveal strict constructions,
ing these many trips constitutes a sum of archives intended
rigorous lines and colours ranging from orange to yellow, with
to nourish his creativity. These photographs bear witness to
façades that are sometimes pale blue. As a result of his many
an artist who immerses himself in urban landscapes from
travels, he came to the conclusion that all cities derive from
one end of the planet to the other, as if intent on seeing and
a single urban plan, composed of square shapes that seem to
recording it all, in order to establish a personal memory of
repeat themselves endlessly. This sense of monotony, confine-
our modern world. Not just any world, but the one in which
ment and disenchantment is expressed in several works that
humans have taken up residence on a massive scale: the
he calls Bidonville View 230, a series of black, calcined prints.
world of the modern city. These graphic and visual archives
For Quinze, colour is now essential in his work, expressing
have nothing to do with theory or aesthetics; they are simply
nature, life and beauty. Monochrome works like these are
the accumulation over time of immersive and sensitive data
rare. But it is important to pay attention to them, because
on an urban world that he records through his traveller’s
this dark state of mind is the source of his struggle for life.
eye. While these visual archives are simply the result of a
From this spleen, which is the result of everything he sees
solitary process, and while these views are almost invaria-
during his wanderings in the slums, he creates these haut-
bly neutral, deserted and monotonous in their composition,
relief scenes that are very much the result of an archaeological
they constitute a veritable reservoir of inspiration for him.
dig. They represent nothing more than the trace of ancient
Whether they bear witness to a history, a form of knowledge,
architectural foundations, but strangely without any streets,
an archaeological trail or an ancient memory, the fact remains
alleys, squares or crossroads through which life could infil-
that this reservoir of images makes a lasting impression on
trate. Everything is black. When we know that life, for Quinze,
Quinze’s consciousness. These intimate archives are carefully
is inscribed in the in-between of things, we understand how
preserved as the starting point and the anchor for a body of
deadly these first traces of cities are. The whole enterprise of
work that is devoted to modern, dehumanised cities. From
his work lies in this quest for life, which he tries to infiltrate
Shanghai to Queensland, these cities made of concrete stretch
into different neighbourhoods of the world’s major cities.
14
Arne Quinze also produces graphic and edgy drawings,
Xavier Roland
symbolic, to say the least, in the spirit of the work: the chaotic
saturated with Bic and sometimes enhanced with colour,
and rhizomic sculpture rises and swirls like a tide of wood
which he presents in the form of diptychs opposite the orig-
suspended between the Palais de Justice and the Church of
inal photo. These sketches retain only the shape and colour
Sainte-Elisabeth, where the relics of Saint George are kept.
of the housing from the original photo. The artist projects a
The Church of Sainte-Elisabeth was designed by the architect
vital, almost sanguine energy into this architectural impres-
Claude-Joseph de Bettignies, who opted for the Baroque style
sion, which he considers indispensable for our survival. These
in 1714 when he was commissioned to rebuild the building
studies are a precursor to a series of window sculptures he
after a devastating fire. The Palais de Justice, meanwhile, is in
calls Chaos, created between 2010 and 2015. Quinze sees
the neo-classical style with a pediment and balusters that give
them as entirely transparent visions of architecture, with no
the façade a strict rhythm. We often think of Saint George as
doors or windows, in which he accumulates small strips of
the cultured figure, the civilised man up against the dragon,
coloured wood. The symbolism of colours, already evident
which symbolises the power of nature. The same can be said
and perceptible in his drawings, is also found in his sculptures: red and orange symbolise for the artist the blood that circulates in our veins, the source of life. In Breeding Life, for example, a tide of this coloured wood floods almost the entire surface of the house. The glass walls contain this accumulating fountain of youth until it starts to resemble a liquid. When these strips of wood spill out of their glass container, we are not surprised to see them flood into the urban space, which remains the starting point for Arne Quinze’s work. This gives rise to installations such as The Passenger in Mons, which create a veritable flow of organic and chaotic life, while the street space measures this power of the deluge against the stability of the inert mineral façades. The Passenger will certainly destabilise the urban order in the city of the Doudou
Breeding Life, 2010 Wood, polycarbonate glass Presented at Art Singapore, 2013
festival, but the installation will also create a disturbance, first and foremost, in the life of the neighbourhood where it is
of justice, which is seen as the guardian of good against evil.
installed, all the more so since the Rue de Nimy is one of the
Arne Quinze’s sculpture embodies and links these two antag-
main historical arteries of the city of Mons: it leads directly to
onistic symbols of nature and culture, reason and folly, right
both the Grand-Place and Mons Town Hall. Strangely enough,
there in the heart of the city.
few people have questioned the placement of Arne Quinze’s sculpture in the city of Mons. The chosen location is indeed
At their heart, these two buildings also express in their own way confinement, isolation and contemplation. In a
contrasting mirror image, they are also symbols of freedom, encounter and vital energy. By listening to Arne Quinze, we begin to understand the extent to which he is haunted by the question of confinement, of security to the point of isolation, and even self-withdrawal. With him, the possessive pronoun ‘My’ resonates like an echo throughout his life as an artist. The titles of some of his early works are interspersed with the pronoun ‘My’ and its variants: My Home, My Safe Home, My Secret Garden . . . The title of the exhibition My Secret Garden asserts his refusal to separate his public work from his identity as a man who has contributed to disrupting the usual lines of division between freedom and confinement, nature and culture. This pendulum movement back and forth from one to the other shapes his ability to constantly
My Safe Garden, 2009 Pencil drawing on paper, 297 x 210 mm Arne Quinze Foundation
revitalise his work. These words engraved on the wooden surface of one My private garden
of his works ring out like a warning, the alert to a boundary
My secret garden
that must not be crossed. In Quinze’s works dated from 2010
Own-mine
to 2015, the barriers of orange sticks that regularly cross
Gone-escaping everything
the pictorial surface in the lower quarter delimit his secret
Continuous present
garden. Indeed, with the creation of My Safe Garden, he says,
Open and close
‘I noticed that I had embarked on a mental journey, so to
M-nature
speak, and that I was disappearing more and more into my
MY SECRET GARDEN
own world’. Through this type of work, Arne Quinze depicts existence, from birth to death, as a confinement in a world disconnected from nature. By living within the security of our houses, or a garden surrounded by fences, humans have come to forget the existence of the outside world. In each of the works, the mirror not only reflects our image, but also encloses us within these glass boxes with no exit. The Stilthouses are anthropomorphic sculptures often associated with or directly integrated into the Safe Garden. The human body scanning the horizon here takes the form of a house
16
Xavier Roland
perched on long, fragile legs that are anchored to the ground.
or a rendezvous in a neighbourhood whose identity was not
With its head in the sky and its feet on the ground, the human
necessarily conducive to such a purpose, squeezed as it was
figure is represented in a state of precarious balance.
between a church and a courthouse. If something happens that is at once fluid, dynamic and unstructured by a commu-
How we inhabit the world has become an obsession for
nity or an institution, then urban planning theories speak of
Arne Quinze, and it is above all a matter of questioning it
the creation of a place of ‘mediation’: some kind of third party
from the perspective of our daily lives. What would happen
that leads to a reflection on the collective configurations that
if a foreign object suddenly appeared out of the blue in our
modify the habitual patterns and ways of functioning consid-
secret garden? Arne Quinze’s approach to the public space
ered normal in a given society at a given time. With this qua-
is rooted in this reflection; he sees his work as the sudden
si-Surrealist gesture, Arne Quinze has succeeded in creating
intrusion of a strange, large and unstable object that disrupts
an ‘ephemeral third party’, one that has significantly trans-
urban tranquillity. Rock Strangers on the seawall in Ostend, or
formed the life and sense of community in this neighbour-
the urban installation he has created in Mons, come across
hood. Now that the sculpture has disappeared, the memorial
like Surrealist objets. By this we mean that, like this leading
trace left behind in our consciousness acts as a catalyst to trig-
movement of the 20th century, the artist creates associations
ger a response to life and how we inhabit the city. The twofold
with his installations that trigger a chain reaction in the
trauma that it creates in the public space – the first when this
imagination of passers-by that has the effect of disrupting
unexpectedly chaotic and organic form is installed and the
our everyday relationship with a neighbourhood. In Mons,
second when it is dismantled – creates a genuine void in the
for example, such a gesture has transformed the public
consciousness of the inhabitants to the point of creating a call
space into a neighbourly zone, a place for coming together
to fill it. This original way of activating memory and the imagination, which he borrows from Surrealist artists, remains the guiding thread for understanding his work, like a leitmotiv that encourages us to give life back to our cities, to regenerate them like a living garden. Therefore, to the question that arises today in the face of the great void left by the disappearance of Arne Quinze’s work in Mons: What legacy does it leave to the people of Mons? We reply: Energy, freedom and a need to occupy the public space . . . Through this pendulum swing that moves from the conscious to the unconscious, from the microcosm to the macrocosm, from the interior to the exterior, from the private
Rock Strangers, 2014 Public sculpture in steel Zeeheldenplein, Ostend, Belgium
– enclosed – space to the public domain . . . we begin to get
The wildflower garden of Arne Quinze, 2017
a better idea of how Arne Quinze is able to constantly rein-
and dried plants that are hanging all over his interior. With
vent his work. In this respect, a visit to his house, which also
the image of these dried flowers, let us now leave the urban
serves in part as his studio, is a decisive moment. Somewhere
world to linger on the origin and the raison d’être of nature,
between a cabinet of curiosities and a laboratory, the artist’s
which has always had an essential place in Quinze’s artistic
living space is filled from floor to ceiling with models of
work in terms of its relationship with all things urban.
various sizes. Most surprising of all are the animal skulls that hang here and there in the rooms. Finally, there is his garden,
Les fleurs du désir
which is not fenced off from the street, and which is practically overflowing into his house with the multitude of leaves
We have to go back to 2010, when, on commission from the city of Rouen, Arne Quinze created a series of paintings, Les Jardins, directly inspired by Monet. He approaches his first so-called Impressionist paintings with the eye of a sculptor, because what attracts him is not so much the colour as the actual structure of the flower, not its decorative aspect, but its timeless structural aspect. When describing his flowers, for example, he therefore concentrates mainly on the architectural features, such as the form of the leaves and pods, or the veins, which he sees as the framework of the leaf; he never dwells on their evanescent shape. So perhaps he is a naturalist before he is a painter. In any case, the garden is increasingly becoming an exciting and enduring source of inspiration for him throughout the year. In Rouen, he immediately created a series of impressive monumental canvases. In each of them an organic monochrome form emerges, directly inspired by Water Lilies, which Claude Monet painted in the gardens of his house in Giverny. With a lively and spontaneous stroke, Quinze highlights the key elements of the painting. The technique is not unlike that used for drawings based on photographs of architecture: he instils a vital energy within a neutral form. He repeats this floral matrix endlessly on sometimes monumental canvases that he covers with splashes and drips of fresh paint. It is through work like this that Arne
Arne Quinze’s studio, 2013 Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium
Quinze created his own garden at home, where, like Claude
20
Xavier Roland
Monet, he spends hours observing the plants that he grows all
Ultimately, the modernity of Impressionist painting
around him. He chooses his flowers according to their shape
may seem obsolete, even increasingly alien in the face of the
and colour. Taken as a whole, they have the particular charac-
incredible acceleration of our contemporary society in the
teristic of changing with the seasons, thus ensuring the per-
light of globalisation. But Arne Quinze is here formulating
manence rather than the transience of the colourful bloom.
a new way of being Impressionist, inverting this tendency to
The Master of Impressionism inspires Quinze in the way
detach oneself from the ground in order to reconnect with
that he paints direct from life, while still retaining his own
the earth and with nature. For him, the garden is no longer
style. The desire and attraction for the flower have gradually
a thing to be seen, but instead becomes the partner in an
become a force that is constantly reborn in him like a phoenix
immersive experience that he captures with his large-for-
through his Baudelairean desire to blend the beautiful with
mat works. What is more, his affiliation with Impressionist
the obscure, nature with the city.
themes is also affirmed through his primary instinct as a graffiti artist to take over neglected urban spaces in which
The barriers made of sticks that used to line and delimit
he wants to reintroduce nature. In his photographs of shan-
Quinze’s Safe Gardens now disappear from the surface of the
tytowns, which radiate a deep unease, even a sense of con-
canvas, no doubt as a result of his self-imposed reflection on
finement, Arne Quinze infuses urban cities with a new form
the limits between the pictorial surface, on the one hand, and
of humanism, which is now measured against the scale of a
the external world, on the other. The way he uses framing in
natural environment in the throes of change . . . If we want to
his current painting is probably the most telling example of
move towards a new equilibrium, he says, we must urgently
the work he is pursuing on the concept of enclosure, partition-
reconnect with nature; we must find a new way of inhabiting
ing and the border between one thing and another. Framing
the world in the 21st century.
in painting determines a self-contained system that includes everything present in the image. The large-format landscapes he is currently producing are covered with successive layers of oil paint that give the impression of a depth of field, but without ever allowing either a centre or a periphery to emerge. Even if a subject sometimes seems to emerge, it is quickly reintegrated into a whole that is never limited by the frame. This very particular way of organising the pictorial space does not allow for differentiation between the primary and the secondary: each moment requires special attention in turn. We usually conceive of the frame as a dynamic form of perception that determines the subject. But in Quinze’s case, the frame does not influence the act of creating the surface, because, as he explains, his objective is to paint not flowers, but rather his entire garden, hence the feeling of constant extension and overflow in his painting. In any case, he says, the frame or barrier is experienced as a limitation. Proceeding in this way without framing the subject ensures that the work is anchored. By this we mean that there is no longer a separation between what is seen as the work itself and what is next to, around or outside the work; in a way, the work and the garden in Quinze’s work become one.
Les Jardins - The Water Lillies 04112009, 2009 Wood, paint, pencil, 203 x 104 x 10 cm
This book was published on the occasion of the exhibition My Secret Garden at the Museum of Fine Arts in Mons, Belgium, from May 29 to August 29, 2021.
The book
The exhibition
General Editor
Curator
Dave Bruel
Xavier Roland
Editorial coordination
Director of the Culture and Tourism
Sarah Theerlynck – Lannoo Publishers
Department of Mons Natacha Vandenberghe
Text Dave Bruel
Manager of the Museums Hub and Director
Michael Kröger
of the Mons Museum of Fine Arts (BAM)
Hervé Mikaeloff
Xavier Roland
Arne Quinze Xavier Roland
Deputy Manager of the Museums Hub
Ronald van der Hilst
Murielle Laurent
Translation
Project Manager of the Museums Hub
Duncan Brown
Alice Cantigniau
Anne Lemoine
Revision of texts Amy Haagsma – West Coast Editorial Associates
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© Lannoo Publishers, Belgium, 2021 D/2021/45/105 – NUR 642/646 ISBN: 978-94-014-7587-7 www.lannoo.com
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