14 april 2022, Manuela Klerkx
Guillaume Bijl: Forever Young
When I walk into Keteleer Gallery, Antwerp-born and based artist Guillaume Bijl (1946) is still having lunch. The exhibition is getting ready for the opening the next day. Although his background is in the theatre and he has made and painted sets, we know him best for his recognisable yet alienating installations. Since the 1970s, Bijl has been making spatial work as an alternative to conceptual art, which he feels is too remote from the general public. Bijl explains, “I make interventions in the world in order to understand more of it and to involve the viewer.” Frederick Keteleer, co-owner of the gallery, has already given me a tour and while I greet the artist and compliment him on the replica of a kiosk from a religious abbey that he built in the basement, he proceeds. Bijl doesn't care much for formalities. Although his reputation as a storyteller, inspirer and pioneer had preceded him, sitting eye to eye with the Master is still an experience. Bijl continues, “The opening of my exhibition coincides with my 76th birthday and to celebrate it, I am inviting everyone to come to my local pub tomorrow, where I will be deejaying from 12:30 a.m. Won’t you join us?” Guillaume Bijl. Forever young.
“Reality is my inspiration.
By scrutinising our mass culture, with its massage parlours, driving schools and shooting galleries,
I show elements of our civilisation.”
Guillaume Bijl, Installation Liturgische Objecten, Abdij van Leuven, 2019, Keteleer Gallery
MK You are a self-taught artist who is mainly known for his installations, which you classify into different categories or 'families'. Is that correct?
GB Yes, that is correct. Depending on the category to which the installation belongs, it reveals an aspect of reality.
MK Can you explain?
GB In reality, there are six categories of installations. In the 'Transformation Installations', I show a reality within a non-reality. For example, a kiosk from a religious abbey, a marriage agency or a shooting gallery in the ‘by definition’ non-functional framework of art. I transpose, as it were, an entire interior or an arrangement of existing objects to the alienating context of a gallery or museum. These installations function as a catalogue of conventions and code systems and look so realistic that the unsuspecting visitor can spontaneously believe them to be real. The second category is that of the 'Situation Installation' and functions as a false reality or trompe l’oeuil. A good example of this is the Thai Massage Salon. These installations are made according to the reverse principle. The context of the gallery is preserved, but by showing a Thai massage parlour in it, the context is called into question (is it a gallery or a real parlour?). Thirdly, there are the 'Compositions Trouvées', which have served as contemporary still lifes since 1983. These compositions are preliminary studies or 3-D sketches for the large transformation installations and take the form of an emphatically isolated still life with, for example, kitschy objects from a tourist shop, a corner with Chinese wares or a display case with timepieces. The 'Compositions Trouvées' show small cut-outs of reality. They have an autonomous function because they do not affect the existing situation, but question the boundary between art and reality. The 'Sorry's' are absurd and poetic representations of an imaginary reality that I have been developing since 1987. In these Sorry installations, I try to create some Magritte-like, poetically absurd combinations with minute imitations. Finally, there are the categories of 'Realistic Scenes' (humorous painted bronze and aluminium sculptures, such as those on the Europaplein near the RAI in Amsterdam) and 'Cultural Tourism' with 20th century souvenirs such as Maria Callas' chair or Manet's hat.
Guillaume Bijl, Sorry, 2021, Keteleer Gallery
MK If I hadn't seen the name Keteleer Gallery written on the windows, I would have sworn I was standing in front of a Thai massage parlour: the red-coloured walls, the countless Buddha figurines, the plants and the table lamps…I could almost smell the incense...
GB I should mention that there are about seven of these salons in Antwerp and I have not seen the inside of a single one of them. I’ve never been to one. I've also made a couple of matrimonial agencies and yet I've never seen one in real life (laughs).
MK Your installations always look neat and tidy, and quite beautiful. How important are aesthetics in your work?
GB I fight against aesthetics. It's not the intention to make an aesthetic installation, but they become one. Just like a jar of fat by Joseph Beuys becomes an aesthetic object. In art, a certain form or style becomes aesthetic simply because it is displayed in an art space. For me, content, connotations and the interaction between fiction and reality are much more important than aesthetics.
MK When I look at your oeuvre over the years, I get the idea that you are more interested in reality than in art. Is that correct?
GB That is correct, but I follow art closely. And I like to allude to the work of an artist like Maurizio Cattelan, who had his gallery owner taped to the wall. The clown hanging here in the corridor refers to that artwork. I found the clown in a shop and bought it straight away, without any idea about what I was going to do with it. In the end, I decided to follow Cattelan's example and taped the clown to the wall (laughs).
Guillaume Bijl, Sorry, 2021, Keteleer Gallery
MK At least you share a similar sense of humour.
GB Yes, that's true, but I think my humour is subtler. It’s not so obvious. Sometimes the humour is immediately obvious, like with the Thai Massage Salon, which is of course especially amusing because of the trendy, cultural neighbourhood (laughs) around it. The location of the intervention is also very important. For example, showing an installation consisting of a shop with terracotta pots in the centre of Rome is funnier than in any other place. The same goes for a composer's death chamber in Vienna: the history of the neighbourhood or city gives added meaning to the installation. Compared to my work, Cattelan's is much more caricatural. In my 'Cultural Tourism' series, for example, I showed the Dirndl of Eva Braun, Hitler's wife. But I would never show Hitler's Lederhosen. I would show Schwarzenegger's or Von Karajan's, but not Hitler's. I find that cheap. But I really like Cattelan's work. His work 'Blind', for example, in which he shows his vision of 9/11 and view of human existence as a whole by means of a black tower pierced by a black aeroplane. It is a very strong image.
“I am not so enthusiastic about all those curators and museum directors
who are supposedly 'discovering' the work of women artists,
even though they have been on the scene for over 30 years”
MK You have been around for many years and have seen many trends and fads come and go. What do you think about these times in which the white, Western male sees his privileged position slowly but surely crumbling?
GB I think it is a good thing that there is more attention being devoted to female artists and that more work by women and artists with a non-Western background are being shown at the Venice Biennial. I am in favour of that. But I am not so enthusiastic about all those curators and museum directors who supposedly 'discover' the work of women artists who have been working for more than 30 years. They should have done that 30 years earlier and not now that these women are in their 80s and at the end of their lives. To this day, such 'revivals' take place far too late.
Guillaume Bijl, Sorry, 2021, Keteleer Gallery
MK What is it like to be an artist in Belgium?
GB It is not easy to break through as a Belgian artist. The press is only interested in sensational stories about famous artists and the huge amounts of money that are paid for their art. And there is no decent art programme on public television. It is true that we have many good Belgian collectors, but they often only buy once the artist has made an international breakthrough. When I started as an artist, there were five billion people in the world and now there are about eight billion. So now there are not only many more people, but also many more artists and collectors. Art has also become much more expensive since the 1980s. I remember Julian Schnabel being the most expensive living artist and selling a painting at a price of €250,000, or 10,000,000 Belgian francs. These days, a work of art that fetches three, four or five million euros is no longer an exception.
MKYou have had many exhibitions in galleries and museums lately, but we did not hear much from you for quite a long time, even though you were very successful in the 80s and 90s with many major exhibitions at home and abroad.
GB That is correct. I stopped working with galleries for 20 years. I had 15 different galleries, but I got tired of it. So, I worked for myself for a long time. But now I have been working with galleries again these past few years.
MK Did you continue to create all those years?
GB Yes, but I sold my work myself.
MK What do you mean by ‘avant-garde academicism’?
GB By this term I mean potential artists whose work is not authentic, but follows in the footsteps of their mentors or teachers. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against academies, nor do I have anything against autodidactic artists. In fact, all good artists go through an autodidactic phase – during, though also after art school. I did not go to art school, but in my case, there was this need to express something in a specific way. And that is the basis of true artistry. That has nothing to do with the art market.
“I have nothing against academies,
nor do I have anything against autodidactic artists.
In fact, all good artists go through an autodidactic phase –
during, though also after art school”
MK I often hear people say that if you want to learn to paint, you should go to the art academy in Antwerp. Do you agree?
GB I could make a confession here, but I don't know if that would be wise in an interview (laughs). Do you know who was a good teacher at the academy in Antwerp? Fred Bervoets. He is a local artist, but I have nothing against local artists. He is very good. Walter Swennen is 76 years old and a self-taught, local artist who is only now enjoying success. Fred Bervoets taught for ten years at the academy in Antwerp. That was really fantastic. You can see this in a whole generation of artists he trained, such as Dennis Tyfus, Vaast Colson and Kati Heck.
Guillaume Bijl, Souvenir of the 20th Century, 2001, Keteleer Gallery
MK It's your birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday, by the way. How do you see the future?
GB I still have a lot of work to create and that keeps me busy.
MK Which music will you be playing tomorrow?
GB The Stones, as well as Punk, Soul and Hip Hop.
A solo exhibition by Guillaume Bijl will be opening at Lumen Travo in Amsterdam in May. On 2 July, an exhibition with large installations by Bijl will be opening at the Halle Verrière in Meisenthal (France), where work by Jannis Kounellis, Daniel Buren and Ayse Erkmen, among others, has previously been exhibited.
