30 may 2023, Wouter van den Eijkel
The studio of... Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert
For Artwork of the Month, Belgian duo Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert moved into the gallery space of Fred&Ferry, where they work and record videos. This may sound unusual, but it fits their versatile and playful oeuvre perfectly. How do you become a duo and what does that mean for the creative process? “As a duo, we play ping pong with ideas.” Artwork of the Month can be seen at Fred&Ferry – not coincidentally also a duo – in Antwerp through 2 July.
Where is your studio and what does it look like?
Our studio is hidden in a residential area. We rent the ground floor behind a house and pass through a communal gate to get to it. The space is large and open. It looks very industrial. There used to a biscuit factory, cardboard factory and printing company here. There is (unfortunately) little daylight. The former office space is our 'heated' space. This is where our computers are and where we do smaller studio work (making amulets, working on VR, drawing and computer work).
We recently divided the large concrete space into a studio environment with a white wall and photo/video studio, after which we added a screen-printing studio and then a copper-coloured wall with a wood workshop behind it. Large wooden boxes shield our section from the common corridor. We use the boxes to store material, artworks, project-related items, etc.
The rest of the downstairs space is no longer ours. We share the location with seven other tenants, a very diverse bunch ranging from fellow artists to a car mechanic and handyman. The studio changes hands often and the look changes every few months, not only in our space but also our co-tenants. That's the great thing about our workplace: it's dynamic and very lively.
Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert in their studio
What are your requirements for a studio space?
A good studio must be spacious enough for us to be able to store and build, as well as to have the opportunity to do things like video recordings or performance rehearsals. We need that flexibility to do our work, which is highly diverse. And we expect a studio to easily respond to our changing needs. The large space we mainly use as a 'studio' is in fact quite multifunctional: one week we make 'Artwork-of-the-Month' films here, the next week we drag in our two ceramic ovens and ceramic cabinet and it becomes a mobile clay studio, while the following week we give a group of people the best of ourselves in augmented reality here.
You've known each other since secondary school. When did it become clear to you that it wasn't just a friendship, but the makings of a career as a duo?
Our ‘duoship’ has evolved spontaneously. As friends with shared interests and common friends, ‘working’ together wasn't really in our minds at first. We each did our own thing, but talked a lot with each other about our ideas and projects. It is from that dialogue, which we have come to call ‘ping ponging’, that our collaboration emerged. We first realised this when we won the Kunstbende in 2007 and went to the Netherlands the following summer with our very first performance. That collaboration was very productive and enjoyable, but we thought it would end there. It wasn't until we were working on our undergraduate projects during our Multimedia Design studies at KASK in Ghent that we started to feel like we really wanted to work collectively. So we chose to do our Master's together as a duo after earning our Bachelor’s degrees. For us, this marks the true start of our collaboration. And the great thing is that we continue to grow together – not only as artists, but also as people. We both recently became fathers and it is incredibly beautiful and valuable to also discover this part of each other's lives and see our partners and children grow.
Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert, Ceramic Tools, 2021, Fred & Ferry
The gallery where you are showing your work is also led by a duo. Was it only logical for you to work with Fred&Ferry?
A logical choice is an understatement, as we were sceptical about galleries before. Because in the past, we often didn't click with them. We were often viewed with suspicion: a duo that also performs and makes theatre and with a visual oeuvre that often changes form and style. We have regularly heard in the past that in the future, we should 'choose' what we want to continue with and that art is specific, so we have to make choices. But we see that differently. We have the idea that we often narrow down content and dare to go deep, and with us, the form simply adapts to the content.
Our oeuvre is also somewhat atypical: a work of art can suddenly become a 'prop' that is used in a ritual or given a place on stage. We really like to activate our sculptures. That's how they come to life. For investors or galleries, however, this can be challenging because a work represents a certain value. To maintain that value, there must be a constant, a certain status quo. The risk that the work will change or parish is too great if it is constantly activated. That was often a problem in the past.
We don't have such ‘problems’ with Fred&Ferry. They understand our process and the continuous interplay between form and content. They love that the work comes to life during actions, performances, rituals, performances, etc. They appreciate the elusiveness of art. And that is why we entered into a partnership with them.
What does a typical workweek look like? Do you have scheduled meetings after which you both set to work or is it more like a continuous exchange of ideas?
We won the Horlait Dapsens Award in 2012 with our graduation projects and used the award money to rent a studio. We’ve changed studios a few times. And we’ve realised that both the workplace and schedule should be kept as 'pure' as possible. We sometimes even turn down projects. And we divide both the studio and schedule into manageable work blocks.
For the past four years or so, we’ve started the week with a typical 'Monday meeting', which usually lasts around three hours. We review the previous week and look ahead to the week to come. We talk about which to-dos need to be tackled first. On Monday afternoon, we go through our e-mail and mail. On Tuesday, we dive into accounting and in the afternoon, we zoom in on a project. This may be anything from project-based tasks to creating new work or arranging transport for an expo. Half of Wednesday is spent in the studio and the other half with the kids or doing research, reading up on things. On Thursday and Friday, we work on Table Dialogues. This is an ambitious multi-year immersive project in which we want to make five interacting performances in which the participants themselves help determine the direction of the performance. Thursday and Friday are often atypical days because these are the days on which theatre performances and/or performances are often scheduled. So, we have to regularly ‘work’ on those days in order to 'play' in the evening.
Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert, To break the window of opportunity: Frank and Robbert climb the pole, Fred & Ferry
You work with numerous media. Do you create everything together or is one of you better at screen printing and the other at coming up with a performance, for instance?
We’re both active in numerous media. And often we don't really know in advance which one we are going to work with. As a duo, we 'ping pong' with ideas, both conventional and in terms of content. And over the years, we’ve developed various lists. We have lists of possible works of art, but also lists of concepts, things we find interesting or that we just want to try out. Occasionally, there’s a project or exhibition that offers the opportunity to pick something from one of our lists and develop it purposefully. Those are unique cases. And we have to get lucky because those ideas are often material-related.
In a sense, we are both equals, but in practice, there are things that one of us is more likely to do. Robbert is more the installer-mechanic-computer designer and Frank is more the crafts guy who works with wood and clay and also the communicator who often makes the phone calls and WhatsApp messages and social media posts. In this way, we complement each other, though this changes occasionally. A few years ago, it was Frank who used FinalCutPro a lot to perform all kinds of video art experiments. But that’s changed and there is often no ‘grand plan’, but meanders that randomly guide things along.
Your current show is called Artwork of the Month. Can you briefly explain the topics you address?
We are at a pivoting point with Frank&Robbert Robbert&Frank – for the first time in four years. We just returned from living in Berlin for six months doing the Flemish residence at Air Berlin Alexanderplatz. It was prefect. We developed a completely new visual language and started working with our clay tablets and murals for the first time. We were really inspired by the museums in Berlin, such as the Altes Museum with its pre-Christian art. When we returned home, we had a huge solo exhibition at Be-Part in Waregem. That solo exhibition, entitled Breadcrumbs, was really meant to be a crumb trail: we showed the evolution of sculptural work built around the idea of travelable wooden suitcases towards pictorial wall drawings and narrative clay tablets in which we mythically document our life and work. It was a very exciting period that gave us considerable artistic satisfaction. And that 'sparkle' has been going on for four years now. In Berlin, we also began highlighting our own works of art. In short one-minute films, we activate our own works of art, often with humour. By now we have 50 videos. We share them with the public on the first day of every month. This collection of videos is the core of the expo at Fred&Ferry. The films provide the connection between static sculptures and activated objects. We also want to make new movies in the gallery, so we built a small film studio and even invite special guests. We consider the expo at the gallery a residency period. We’ve set up a studio and will create work on site (and then activate/film that work).
Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert, Sacred Ladder, 2022, Fred & Ferry
For Magic Mirrors, your first solo at Fred&Ferry in 2021, you made a number of mini shrines. What can we expect this time?
There will be some altars and shrines. That project is 'ongoing'. A shrine is a great object. It's a bit like a pedestal. It focuses attention very specifically on what you place in it. Some shrines have doors, which makes them small portals with an 'inside' and 'outside' space. Simply putting something 'in' the shrine is a form of activation. As a result, the boundary between object and performance is already fading in part. We are continuing that trend.
What’s new in this show is that we’re creating new work on the spot by drawing together in large format. We’re using large sheets of paper that we then screen print. On top of the silkscreen print, we continue to draw together. We hardly ever draw together, so this is a new adventure and a new way to continue to play ping pong and engage in dialogue.
Humour plays a major role in your work. Explaining a joke is, of course, the worst thing you can do, but can you explain why you like to use this tool?
We like to refer to Friedrich Schiller's playing man 'Homo Ludens'. Schiller argues that the playing human has reached the highest form of existence. This is interesting. What exactly does it mean? Is it about humans playing a game like football, a board game or a digital game? Or is it rather a reference to the aimless game that arises in the moment? Like a child who discovers the game while playing? In the former, there is a set of rules, while in the latter, there are none. The second option, that of the child, is somewhat like the Dao 道 described in Taoism: the path is unnameable and immeasurable. The path arises in the moment and cannot be captured. Nor can it be described or drawn. The path can only be walked and is different for everyone. The path only unfolds as you walk along it.
Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert, Blueprint - Bird Suitcase, 2018, Fred & Ferry
Are there projects you would have like to do, but for some reason have not yet been able to?
Where do we start… :) A F&R R&F board game or video game and a permanent installation of our work GO AWAY SORROW OF THE WORLD in a public place (preferably along the highway or on a tall building). Just like our work Tomb of the Last Downer, which was done in collaboration with Tony & Laurence at the Dr. Guislain Museum, which we would like to give a permanent place in a sculpture garden. We would also like to get a work of art into space (on the moon, for example) or simply floating in the infinity of the universe. And a monumental bronze sculpture of our totem pole that was made with all the scraps of wood from our studio.
What are you currently working on?
The Table Dialogues performance project in which we combine virtual reality experiences with corresponding analogue actions, touring with existing performances at home and abroad (see our website), making bricks with the mantra GO AWAY SORROW OF THE WORLD and permanently bricking them in on site (Leuven, Berlin, Hamburg, Ghent, etc), drawing together in the gallery, recording Artwork-of-the-Month films, making new ceramic sculptures and clay tablets and incubating new ideas, of course.
Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert, Fred & Ferry
