From neon lights to Pink Floyd: Joris Van De Moortel on 10 years of art
The Ghent-born, Antwerp-based artist is one of four chosen to celebrate the rock band in London, and music has always been close to his heart
Create and destroy
But he doesn’t throw away the remains; he uses them to make new art.
Destruction seems to be an integral part of Van De Moortel’s artistic practice, as if creating and destroying are two sides of a coin. It’s an opinion he doesn’t fully agree with. “I know people perceive my work that way,” he says. “But look closely at a painter, and you’ll see the same process. Painting isn’t only about putting paint on a canvas; it’s also about scraping paint off it. Only no one defines this as destruction.”
The reasoning behind his way of working, he stresses, isn’t: “Let’s destroy something to create something new. Although I can’t deny that a lot of the debris is reused.”
Van De Moortel doesn’t scavenge for old iron, discarded pieces of wood or defunct tools. He never uses garbage. “Except my own,” he says with a smile.
Visual language
At the beginning of his career he bought his material at home improvement shops. Now he has his regular suppliers. “The rest of their customers mostly work in construction.”
Van de Moortel, who was born and bred in Ghent but works in Antwerp, says that throughout the years he’s used any materials available. “I don’t have a preference,” he says. Even so, the use of neon lightning has become a hallmark.
“My fascination with neon is a fascination with light. Ten years ago, I worked a lot with fluorescent tubes and other sources of illumination. But the advantage of neon lighting is that I can choose the colour, and it’s flexible: I can give it the form I want.”
I’m not the kind of artist who likes to outsource those kinds of jobs. I want to be as hands-on as possible
Van De Moortel works with a neon technician he’s known since he was a child, because the man was his father’s neighbour. “It’s a fruitful collaboration; some of the forms I even shape myself. If I didn’t have such easy access to neon, I wouldn’t use it as much,” he says. “I’m not the kind of artist who likes to outsource those kinds of jobs. I want to be as hands-on as possible.”
Three of Van De Moortel’s works are part of a current group exhibition in Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Brussels. And the Museum van Elsene has put one of his works in the spotlight until September. Although the four works are collages of material, because of their visual language, they are more comparable to paintings than sculpture.
“The influence is certainly there,” he admits. “Over the past years I’ve almost exclusively looked at paintings, specifically 15th- and 16th-century works. The Flemish Primitives are an important source of inspiration.”
In the shop window
It’s no coincidence, then, that the figures in “The Garden of Eden”, who are a collage of shreds of paper, are based on Adam and Eve from the Ghent Altarpiece.
Recently, a retrospective exhibition of Pink Floyd opened in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The museum and Liberty, a luxury department store in London’s West End, asked four artists to create an intervention. One of them was Van de Moortel.
Pink Floyd is one of the first bands Van De Moortel was really into. He was very happy to be asked, but also very surprised. “Apparently they made a longlist and then a shortlist of possible candidates, but they didn’t tell the artists about this selection process.”
He couldn’t say no, of course. But he knew he didn’t want to be too literal. Don’t look for memorabilia of the band, for example, in “See Liberty Play”, which will be on show from 6 July in two connecting display cases facing on to Regent Street.
In balance
He’ll be showing a music studio, “made of transport cases that I used for earlier exhibitions. When I split this sound studio in two, it exactly fits into those two shop windows. The sound aspect is the main reference to Pink Floyd.”
If you’re interested in one of his performances, he’ll be giving one on 23 July during the Gentse Feesten at Gouvernement in Ghent. There will be music: Van De Moortel is an avid musician, with 16 releases on numerous formats over the past 10 years. He has often said, though, that he is a visual artist, not a musician.
I do a lot of things that don’t earn me any money, like my performances
But he’s far from half-hearted about music. “I play a lot of music, and my exhibitions are always linked to music, or at least sound.” He lets out a deep sigh when I ask him if the music nourishes the visual arts, or vice versa. “It’s always been difficult for me to pinpoint the meaning and importance of music for me.”
What would he pick if he had to choose between the two? He stays silent for what seems like an eternity.
“It would be extremely hard, but I think I would go for the music. It’s the most transportable, you could say. I also enjoy playing with other people more and more. I’ve done this for years, but I’ve mostly focused on myself. That has changed.”
Van De Moortel has been a professional artist for a decade now; he’s always been able to earn a living with his art. “I do a lot of things that don’t earn me any money, like my performances. I can do those things, which I really like, because I can sell other works. Artistically, too, one keeps the other in balance. Sometimes I wonder: If I wasn’t selling well, would I still be doing the other things? I honestly don’t know.”
Photo: Courtesy Galerie Nathalie Obadia, photographer Maxime Fauconnier
More visual arts this week
Wilmer Wilson IV • Fire Bill’s Spook Kit
The In Flanders Fields Museum, which tells the story of the First World War at the front in West Flanders, reaches out to contemporary artists, too. Like American artist Wilmer Wilson IV, who looks at the parallels between the deeply scarred post-war landscape in Flanders and American agricultural sites blemished by post-war social terror like racism. It results in scarecrow sculptures, appropriated from Flemish farms, and a giant sculpture consisting of three tonnes of salt lick blocks. Until 7 January, In Flanders Fields Museum, Lakenhalle, Grote Markt 34, Ypres
The Artist/Knight
Evoking the mind and soul of the knight: That’s the intention of The Artist/Knight at the enchanting Gaasbeek Castle. Not a in a purely historical perspective, but through the eyes of artists who are intrigued by the figure of the knight. Some international big names (Damien Hirst, Marina Abramovic, Tracey Emin) share the stage with Flemish artists, both upcoming (the amazing Hannelore Van Dijck) and established (Robert Devriendt, Jan Fabre). 11 July to 5 November, Gaasbeek Castle, Kasteelstraat 40, Lennik
