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Thanks for the invitation of the interview. But what a coincidence! Our King Albert II visited your country today! I learned that Lithuania was a kingdom as well a few hundred years ago and that it was big, a kingdom from the Baltic to the Black Sea! It’s probably not helping my career, but I am getting very much into the history of the Belgian royal family. To start with Leopold I for example, the founder of the dynasty, whose funeral in particular is quite interesting. Or rather his funerals. First he wanted to be buried with his first wife, Princess Charlotte, in the Saint Windsor Chapel, but was refused because of his protestant conviction and free-masonry relations. Finally when they decided to bury him in the old church of Notre-Dame de Laeken, the catholic clergy refused the mortal remains of the king access into the church. So he was without a final destination. In the end a compromise was found: An opening was made in the wall and the coffin was slid into the royal crypt of the church so that he didn’t really have to be carried through the whole church. Later on they made an outside-entrance to the royal crypt by which one still can access it today without having to go inside the church. Maybe you have also some interesting stories to tell about your King before I try to respond some of your questions.

I didn’t read the book. Maybe we are changing from an object-oriented world to a system oriented world and art is involved in it, but people involved in the art market rather stick to the object. Somehow it gives them something to hold onto. In the end we believe that a piece of wood and canvas is worth much more than its material value. Without the object it might be too much of a confrontation for the fact that there is some enchantment or bewitchment involved which might break their belief. For example recently I made a newspaper called PANORAMA and I got the remark why didn’t I print it on better paper, because now it’s there for peeling potatoes on.

Yes, it’s very common thing to do in Belgium. Broodthaers probably did as well, no doubt. After all he used very common and popular Belgian habits in his work. We can’t escape our context or nature and why should we? There is nothing wrong with peeling potatoes on newspapers, is there? To explain the origins of the newspaper, PANORAMA, I live close to the European Parliament and the Wiertz Museum which Broodthaers wrote about. Why should I search for a great story when I can find it nearby? The newspaper tells the story of how a handful of property developers created a myth of building an International Congress Centre in Brussels, which as if by coincidence was founded very close to the branch of the European Parliament in Brussels. And it was given the stature of a gigantic parliamentary infrastructure which perfectly responded to the European Parliament’s needs. Contrary to all European treaties and the governmental agreements between Luxembourg, France and Belgium, three fourths of the activities of the European Parliament were established within that infrastructure, and Brussels subsequently became the capital of Europe.

Brussels has served and serves as many metaphors for the state of Europe, one of them is ‘Manneke Pis’, who has more than 700 costumes! What concerns doing work under a different name, I once applied for some subsidy as another artist. Coincidence or not, in retrospect one could say that the artist has been constructed in the realm of the ethnic schizophrenia of Brussels you are talking about. At the time I gave the artist the identity of a ‘flamand franconisé’. His great grandfather was a Flemish labourer who moved to Brussels for economic reasons, as many others did in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Speaking French was a matter of survival for them. And in the course of the century they unfortunately lost their mother tongue. On basis of his Flemish roots and name he applied for some subsidies.

No.

It was you who asked how to be sure that a certain film of mine has not been stolen from the pocket of another artist, no? So why not the other way around?

I invited them for the premiere, but they couldn’t make it because they were busy… Anyway the public was convinced they had to do with professionals, so no need to demonstrate it in real time. When the screening was finished, it was quite interesting to see people running out of the cinema. Their hilarity turned into fragility pretty fast because the screening took place in an auditorium in the most obscure metro station of Brussels.

What is for sure is that the editorial team and the journalists of DE TIJD were in emergency meetings on the day of its publication. Arriving at their office desks in the morning they found a totally new section in their beloved newspaper which they didn’t expect. Of course as always in such stories they tried to find a scapegoat, without success since the person responsible was part of the editorial team. So they decided to sweep it under the carpet. Meanwhile the newspaper was announced on the local television news every hour. They recommended the audience to buy the newspaper due to its interesting contribution on Brussels, Capital of Europe. The television journalist didn’t make a difference between my contribution and the rest of the newspaper, probably because it has a totally similar layout. Later on, in the aftermath of my newspaper, some of the main characters of the newspaper have been contacted by professional journalist on the subject. One of the journalists received the answer that the story is on exclusive rights in the meantime.

No comment.

One of the places where you experience pickpockets in Brussels is the Beursschouwburg, the central theatre of Brussels. So you get robbed on the street as well in the wings of the theatre -I am speaking from experience. It’s quite amazing if one thinks about the sentence the master pickpocket uses a few times in the video: “C’est toute une comédie” (it’s all theatre). It seems to be that the parallel universes have possibilities of superposition, not only the objects, but also the ideas are in exchange. A similar reflection could be made about Le Guide du Parc . The ‘mise en scene’ in the Royal gardens as we experience it in the video is going on in the park between the Belgian Parliament and the Royal Palace. The Prime minister simply crosses the garden when he goes to ask for his dismissal from the King. Living uptown, I also cross the garden when I am walking downtown or visiting the Palais des Beaux-Arts which is located at the border of the park. So it’s a matter of daily observation and then of infiltration by camouflage, sympathy or other strategies to be invented.

Another strategy could be acting without beating around the bush. Also a deviation or a diversion could be sufficient. Sometimes it is just a matter letting sleeping dogs lie or being very patient and waiting for the right moment to act. In general we could say that people are very willing to participate, creating is a wonderful thing to do and since the city is full of unexplored talents, it’s a matter of tapping into these sources. Of course one has to consider that finding the right person at the right place is not that easy. Not everybody has the rhetorical talents like those of the guide of the park. And not every pickpocket is eager to share his philosophy and techniques before the camera. Some skills to pick them up are required; of course you need a bit of luck. Then it’s a matter of offering those people full scope to unfold their talents.

It’s quit enterprising to intermediate and, not to forget, one still has to lead the ideas into the right direction within a form that communicates.

I always have been thinking about this sentence and especially its ending. Particularly since I am doing research at the moment about Marx in Brussels. It was 1848, the February Revolution in Paris was taking place and king Leopold I almost abdicated under the pressure of a revolution threatening to take place in Belgium as well. The king created some time for its government by saying that he would consider abdicating. The liberalists who where in power meanwhile very quickly issued a law to reduce the vote tax to a minimum, which was a major demand of the opposition. And Marx was deported because he didn’t keep his promise to renounce his activities as a journalist. So, no revolution in Belgium. They were afraid of another foreign occupation. After all, the revolution that took place in 1830 led to… the foundation of the monarchy and of Belgium. It’s clear about the artist’s dissolution and evaporation, but what does the word revolution mean and what does it lead towards, especially in a Belgian context or in general in the art context? You also have to consider that in the 18th century our beloved valleys were the setting of the contra-reformation.

At first glance the representations that I make look very normal. For example L’Ecole des Pickpockets, the technique and the format are very familiar and what we see is real, at least that is what we think. Before we are really aware of it we are charmed and captured by the pickpocket and taken into his illicit ideology. By sympathizing, we comply. Something similar is going on in Le Guide du Parc. In a very realistic way ‘the guide’ takes us along his ‘promenade’ full of historical and philosophical, poetic and romantic details. With a touch of humour he totally convinces us of the ‘truth’ of his representation. The reality might be slightly different. We might be misguided (or we could use the terms of ‘dérives’ or ‘détournement’ as proposed by the situationists). It might make us wonder what is going on. And that is interesting because then the spectator is making the ‘picture’, he becomes self-aware of the process of seeing. He stands apart. Here we have a parallel with the observer of anamorphosis – he is an ex-centric observer. So there is a connection to be made, although the technique is totally different. The strange thing is that the revelation of the technique or the mechanism doesn’t change its effectiveness. One is enchanted by the power of the voice of the protagonist and the magic of the kinetic image

I should do some more investigation into the detective genre. But to pick up our royal itinerary again, the death of King Albert I in 1934 is still a mystery! Being an alpinist, the official version goes that he died falling off the rocks in Marche-les-Dames. Since no autopsy has been conducted and as his climbing outfit together with his glasses – without which he couldn’t climb – were discovered intact later on, the assumption goes that he was murdered in his castle in Laeken and then was transported to Marches-les-Dames. Of course then the question arises whom he was murdered by. Some hypothesis suggest that he was murdered by the French secret services because of the King’s refusal to integrate the Belgian army into the French one during World War I. Another option is that he was shot by the husband of a mistress in flagrante delictu. Others suppose that he was murdered by Queen Elisabeth, who was tired of his escapades, in a marital scene. And concerning art, we have of course the ongoing detective story of the stolen panel of The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, The just judges by the Van Eyck brothers. Until now it has never been found. One of the hypothesis is that the panel – stolen in 1934! – was buried together with King Albert I. A post mortem autopsy of the latter could kill two birds with one stone.

The point is that there has never been done any serious investigation on the case and this because – as some presume – there is the possibility that more skeletons could come out of the cupboard.

Yes, quite interesting by the way this mechanism of the pursuit of truth, once one is contaminated by it, there is no escaping it. But I believe – in contradiction to its construct – that truth is always subjective and multiple. Think about Rashomon the 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa. Where is the truth?

Yes, of course, we need only to think of the four different versions of ‘truth’ on the murder constructed in ‘time’ in Rashomon, It becomes very concrete indeed to speak about it in terms of film. We can probably also speak about revolution as a temporal phenomenon. The turning of the page is by definition a temporal phenomenon.

Is there a difference? Should we believe there is a difference? Probably the question goes back to the distinction between nature and culture. Can we distinguish ourselves from nature? Isn’t every construct of the human mind an imagination? If you make it happen, it’s real, no? What is the origin or nature of this interview? Fact or fiction? In the beginning was the word? Is that a fact or a fiction?

A question of belief or disbelief, no?