surface research final exhibition photo's

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

Photo: Ilya Rabinovich

selfportrait iconoclasm by cutting out

idolatry                        iconoclasm

figurative                     abstract
pornographic              the void

sublime                       extreme

full                                empty

many                            one

something                   nothing

creation                       destruction

inferior                        superior

anarchy                       utopia

cacophony                  silence

polychrome                monochrome

polytheistic                 monotheistic

a mess                         tidy

dirty / polluted          pure / clean

muddy                        clear

complex                     simple
for many                    for few

a begin                       the end

selfportrait iconoclasm by stabbing

Three stages of a self-portrait stabbed with an awl.
image
picture
statue
figure
representation
portrait
icon
metaphor
diagram
simulacrum
amulet
charm
talisman
fetish
voodoo
potlatch
initiation

selfportrait iconoclasm by sandpapering out

Another three stages of a self-portrait photo which is destructed with rough grained sandpaper. It is more or less precise executed within the contour of the head. Therefore the background in the photo stays visible as a room. Do we call a photograph figurative? There are photos which are abstract. Figurative images are constructed in stone or with pencil or paint. A photo isn't a construction, often a photo isn't a construction but something captured by chance. Even though a lot of styled photo-models are posing during photo shoots in what is construction of images on a high level, those photos we don't call figurative photography.
Does it matter, figurative or abstract images? Yes, it matters. Abstraction to figuration is superior, abstraction thinks. God had no stature, shape, form, figure nor posture when he spoke to Moses on the mountain Horeb, therefore figurative images are inferior. Plato posits that reality is an idea of the higher unknown. So a figurative image is an idea of an idea and therefore unnecessary and superfluous. For Plato and Yahweh it isn't allowed to play and entertain with figurative images because it distracts from the world of ideas and will lead to idolatry. Figuration is inferior to abstraction, abstraction is superior to figuration.
Still we feel this distinction, in art we work with this distinction.
Malevitsj, Mondrian, Newman and Reinhardt are superior to Magritte, Picasso, Dali and Duchamp.
Magritte, Picasso, Dali and Duchamp are inferior to Malevitsj, Mondrian, Newman and Reinhardt.
Magritte, Picasso, Dali and Duchamp is entertainment for the bored "looking for stories" junkies.
Malevitsj, Mondrian, Newman and Reinhardt is pleasure and delight for the spoiled "longing for emptiness" addicts.

selfportrait iconoclasm by scratching out

Scratching out the self-portrait with a cutter through scratching the brilliant top layer of the photographic paper.

selfportrait iconoclasm by blacking out

To recapitulate what was already executed in November last year. From the photos of different stages of the five iconoclastic actions on self-portraits here are three photos of blacking out the first self portrait. A residue of the portrait remains, the portrait became masked. It isn't Voodoo, nor exorcism. It is research, image research.

new office

The two residents at the Rietveld Academie, Ann Meskens and Henri Jacobs, got a new office in the academy. It isn't big news, but we feel comfortable in our new "kitchen" where we can drink our thee and coffee and eat madeleines.
On Thursday March 3 a presentation of my research into Idolatry and Iconoclasm was given in the Researchgroup Art and Public Space at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.
It is my intention to write a recapitulation of this lecture for this blog and to post it as soon as possible.

selfportrait iconoclasm

Is it possible to commit iconoclasm on a selfportrait?
Yes, it is possible to commit iconoclasm on a photographic portrait of myself.

Images don't cry, nor laugh.
Because of a crises in image representation artists are restless seeking for expressing their selves in not known ways. The crises of image representation is going to help artists in an interesting necessity to destroy figurative images. Figurative images have to destroy abstract pictures.
Iconoclasm is the future !

iconoclasm

Iconoclasm
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction within a culture of the culture's own religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually for religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major domestic political or religious changes. It is thus generally distinguished from the destruction by one culture of the images of another, for example by the Spanish in their American conquests. The term does not generally encompass the specific destruction of images of a ruler after his death or overthrow (damnatio memoriae), for example Akhenaten in Ancient Egypt.

People who engage in or support iconoclasm are called iconoclasts, a term that has come to be applied figuratively to any person who breaks or disdains established dogmata or conventions. Conversely, people who revere or venerate religious images are (by iconoclasts) called iconolaters. In a Byzantine context they are known as iconodules, or iconophiles.

Iconoclasm may be carried out by people of a different religion, but is often the result of sectarian disputes between factions of the same religion. The two Byzantine outbreaks during the 8th and 9th centuries were unusual in that the use of images was the main issue in the dispute, rather than a by-product of wider concerns. In Christianity, iconoclasm has generally been motivated by a literal interpretation of the Ten Commandments, which forbid the making and worshipping of "graven images", though the topic of Biblical law in Christianity has always been in dispute.



Five printed self portraits on Epson Premium Glossy photo paper, format A3+ = 32,9 x 48,3 cm.

some photo's of the research proces

A photo of a geometrical ornament in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin was the exemple for the drawings shown here below. The photo is printed on an A3+ format sheet of Epson Premium Glossy photo paper.



The same photo after sandpapering it, after stabbing it and cutting it. A ghost of the image remains.



Four drawings of the Pergamon ornament. Two drawings with pencil on paper and two drawings with watercolours. On 300 grams of Arches paper with a format of 31 x 41 cm.



The same four drawings after, on the top left, erasing it with an eraser.
On the top right the drawing is vanished by sandpapering it.
On the bottom left the watercolour drawing is stabbed with an awl and screwdriver.
On the bottom right the watercolour is cut into pieces.

The destructive actions to photo and drawings is filmed. Soon it will be edited and posted here and on You Tube.

first three destructions

Three small surfaces for paintings (linen on stretchers) from about 30 x 50 cm are mutilated with sandpaper, with a cutter and with an awl. The action, or performance of destroying itself is filmed. Soon, within two weeks, the editing will be done and the film will be shown here.

lecture PhDArts

Last Saturday the 6th of February I had the opportunity to give a lecture at the symposium "the artist as researcher". It was a two-day international conference on artistic research and PhD in visual art and design at the Royal Academy of the Arts (KABK) in The Hague. It was a well visited conference and a lot of discussion was going on the subject how to do a PhD in visual art and what the institution could necessarily ask, a written thesis and an artwork?
Herewith I would like to let see and read my lecture on "surface research". A point of view on the subject is to read in the text, enjoy it...



I am Henri Jacobs, Dutch artist living and working in Brussels, and I was invited to start the first Rietveld Research Residency.
In september 2009 the Gerrit Rietveld Academie initiated a Research Residency. The Rietveld Research Residency (RRR) is a cooperation of the Rietveld Academie and Fonds BKVB to create a research site for mid career artists. They are enabled for a period of 1 to 3 years to do a clearly defined artistic research project, within the framework of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. The artist will work in the Pavilion of the Academy and will report twice a year on the research project. There are also an agreed number of educational projects foreseen.
This Rietveld Research Residency doesn’t foresee in a route during years to study and doing research for a PhD in Art. It is a residency for concentration on a specific aspect of the existing work by the invited artist. It is a possibility to create time to go deeper into theoretical and material details of the oeuvre. In the lee of the art market...

surface research results exhibition

On the seventh of January, three weeks ago, there was a first exhibition in the Rietveld Pavilion which was titled : surface research results exhibition. Nine small drawings on epson A4 premium glossy phote paper where exhibited. And it was possible to watch the 10 minutes video on whiting out a text and drawing a new text over it in ink. It isn't that much after 4 months of research residency at the Rietveld Academy. Because I meet a lot of interesting students and tutors, quite some time is spend with talking on subjects, ideas and plans. Also reading and writing for this blog is part of the research. Concentration and deep insight into drawing and the adventures while drawing are achieved. Within a few weeks, after having done a lecture in The Hague next week, it is possible to continue with drawing drawings. It's necessary to foresee time for drawing, otherwise all time is spend with visits, talks, social traffic and business. And because the Rietveld Research Resident is an example artist, an artist whom shows how to cook art in a transparent fish-bowl studio, it is a privilege to lock myself up in the pavilion and start making drawings again. I am looking forward to restart the actual drawing chapter.

to erase

to scratch
erase
delete
wipe out
undo
damage
destroy
and
to hoover a drawing

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Rietveld Research Residency: the attached logo of my Surface Research project on Rietveld's pavilion . To promote or make visible through this blog to the students and tutors of the academy what that freak is doing all the time is his cube of glass. As a fish in the water of a fish bowl the researcher HJ is drawing and concentrating... Now I am filming the drawing process, trying to get closer to the act of what drawing is or how it happens. To compose the shots in a interesting way makes the film hopefully not too boring. For me it is quite exiting, but I am too close to the subject to make a judgement if it's interesting or not. Soon I hope to show a first version of filming drawing on this blog.

autumn

Rietveld's pavilion at 5:00 PM.

rietveld pavilion

The Rietveld Pavilion is a transparent building and will be the studio for next year. Today's Tuesday I think to make the first palimpsest drawings. Probably this blog is going to be fed with a lot of images. We shall see.

starting surface research

This morning I arrived from Brussels into Amsterdam and had a day of introduction to several people working at the Rietveld Academy. Tomorrow I will start to draw in a new studio for next year: the Rietveld Pavilion.
I am very glad to be invited at the Rietveld Academy as the first Rietveld Research Resident (the RRR). I am going to do research into several aspects of my work as a visual artist.
This blog will be posted with words and images of the ongoing process of the artistic research which is titled : Surface Research. Tomorrow there will be the beginning of the drawing chapter of the research project.

Palimpsest drawings.
To draw and to erase the drawing.
To draw is to create, is construction.
To erase is demolition, destruction.
To erase, to scratch out, whip out, different ways to make less visible and more invisible.
The remained traces are possible reconstruction.
Creation and demolition on a 2 D surface.

Lost in oppositions ?