A. grey Sunday, late October 2010 at the Vleeshal (Meat Hall), in the very centre of Middelburg, the old capital of
Sealand, in the southwestern corner of The Netherlands. Officially dubbed so for political reasons, one should realize
we are talking about one of the older hot art spots in what is better known as Holland.
I am waiting for Ab van Hanegem, the painter whose work has constituted one of my main interests in the discipline
of the art of painting for a long time. Van Hanegem was born in the city of Vlissingen (Flushing), some three miles south
of Middelburg on the Scheldt river estuary, on a cold winter day, early in the year i960. The youngest of two sons of a
mechanical engineer that worked on the big ocean liners of the Holland America Line (HAL), Ab grew up around the
Royal Scheldt Wharf, located at the heart of the old town, whose origins date back all the way to the sixth century, when
fisherman gathered their daily food from sandy lagoons and creeks, that make up the complex labyrinth bordering
the waterfront of the North Sea, then called Frisian Ocean.
The Meat Hall gained its status as top art location mid 70s, when the artist Marinus Boezem (1934, Gorichem, NL)
invited American conceptual avant-garde artists and masters of the Italian Arte Povera Movement to show on the Island
of Walcheren. By then Boezem had been in an important international exhibition "Op Losse Schroeven: situaties en
cryptostructuren" Square Pegs in Round Holes: situations and Crypostructures) at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
The show was organized in the spring of 1969 by curator Wim BeerenHe headed the painting- and sculpture
department and invited more or less the same group of artists as did Harald Szeemann, director of the Kunsthalle Bern,
Switserland, for the now legendary show Live in Your Head: When Attitudes become Form-Works, Concepts, Processes,
Situations, Information." Boezem was in that show also together with his conceptual and minimalist friends:
Jan Dibbets 1941, Weert, NL) and Ger van Elk 1941, Amsterdam). The artists were represented by Riekje Swart, until
Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravesteijn Art Project) took over from across the street in the South district
of Amsterdam, very close to the Stedelijk Museum.
But whereas Dibbets later pursued an international career in close contact with American conceptual Eastcoast
artists like Lawrence Weiner, Soli Lewitt, Carl André, On Kawara and Donald Judd, Ger Van Elk had more affinity with
the conceptual counterparts at the Westcoast like Alan Ruppersberg, John Baldessari and Bill Leavitt. Boezem, settled
in Middelburg and through his Italian wife Maria linked up the Italian Arte Povera scene in Turino, Milano, Genua and
Rome, consisting of artists like Jannis Kounellis, Giovanni Anselmo, Mario Merz, Michelangelo Pistoletti and Gilberto
Zorio.
Van Hanegem and me had agreed to meet in the Meat Hall at the occasion of an important Jan Hoet lecture given
bij Boezem. Jan koet, the legendary director of the Smak Museum in Ghent, made his fame by the succesfull show
Chambres d'Amis (1986), in which Rob Scholte participated. In 1992 Hoet organized the ninth Kassei Documenta.
He ended his career at the Martha Museum at Herford, halfway Düsseldorf and Hannover. During his introduction
Hoet recalls the late 60s, early 70s, which is the topic of Boezem's presentation. Since I know the story, I start looking
around to spot Van Hanegem's bold head in the listening crowd. He is not there. From Amsterdam has arrived Miss
Edna Van Duyn, who works at the Apple Art Center in Amsterdam and did Boezem's oeuvre catalogue. From Walcheren
a number of artists are present. Jan van Munster, Piet Dieleman, well to do artists who made their international fame.
Whereas Dieleman resides in Middelbrug, Van Munster occupies the prestigious Watertoren (watertower), located at
the end of the freeway from Breda to Flushing. <f
As the lecture by Boezem develops, Hoet makes a number of clever remarks to keep up pace till the end. At the very
end of the informal presentation Ab van Hanegem walks in with his girl friend Marja Bosma, just in time to share in
the applause and cocktails afterwards. The couple has been shopping for new outfits. Jeans, jackets, boots. Van Hanegem
prefers shopping in Middelbrug over Amsterdam, because prices are modest and the personnel is more polite. Ab looks
happy in a newly acquired cap, which gives him the looks of the landed gentry. The artist has good news. There will 2011
spring shows at the Dick de Bruijn gallery in Middelbrug and the Marie Tak-Poortvliet Museum at Domburg, some 7
miles from Middelbrug. At de Bruijn's classic white cube spacethat moved from Amsterdam to Middelbrug in 2007,
Van Hanegem has a co exhibition with Jan van der Ploeg, the hard edge wall painter, whose career has been booming for
a number of years. Van der Ploeg and Van Hanegem have been collaborating in various shows since 2005 at the Glass
Palace in Heerlen, but also at a gallery in Palma de Mallorca. In a collective spirit with the artists Tim Ayres and Han
Schuil, all from Amsterdam, they published a informative manifesto book, called: Later on we shall simplify things.
When asked to summarize his current style, Van Hanegem told me he considered his work to be rigorously structured,
leaving space space for improvisations.
II I
Looking at his design for the Domburg museum the catchy phrase: "Long Time no Sea" seems adequate, although
the title of the exhibition has been borrowed from another show ten years ago at Breda. Van Hanegem followed to same
procedure of recycling older phrases in a recent exhibition he curated and participated in galerie Ruth Leuchter at
Düsseldorf, Germany. Han Schuil, the Groningen based painter Martijn Schuppers and Van Hanegem feature as three
Dutch painters under the headline: Ab Heute From today on). Schuppers and Van Hanegem showed their work in an
exhibition at the In Situ gallery in Aalst, Belgium. Plus: recently Van Hanegem did wall paintings based on earlier
paintings at Kunsthal Amersfoort and his gallery Vous Etes Ici You are here) in Amsterdam. The recycling of titles,
motives and locations is a recurrent element in the artist's career pattern. 2004 and 2007 Van Hanegem had solo shows
at Vous Etes Ici, his stable since 1999, that -in good understanding- he plans to leave. Although a lot of good things
happened, I was not really moving anymore," says Ab. He feels it is time for a new challenge. Domburg!
In 2001, when Van Hanegem spent three months in his home town Flushing at the guest studio of the Willem 3
complex, he invited over Bart Domburg, another painter from Amsterdam, who had been living and working in Berlin
since the millennium. Van Hanegem, Domburg and me drove over to Domburg in the Easter weekend to check out
the place. Bart Domburg took pictures of the North Sea, he planned to paint. We listened to a sermon and sang psalms
in the chinch, that Mondrian had painted a hundred years ago. Afterwards we strolled three times around the old sacred
building and wondered why Mondrian choose to pick this particular church for his project of primary colors. Finally
we grabbed a club sandwich on a terrace and drank beer.
All coming from a background in the Amsterdam art scene, we pondered the present situation and future
possibilities. Although the two painters were in their early forties, and me turned fifty, there was common sentiment
favorable to change. Van Hanegem had been muttering at the words of salvation by the minister and could hardly bring
himself to sing. Domburg, coming from a solid Christian Zwolle background, rejoiced in the pleasures of his youth at a
town that bore the same name as his family's. What a coincidence! I desperately needed a break, a fresh start on an
unpredictable course. Our common topic turned out to be Berlin. Bart Domburg had taken us there in 1999. Living and
working with Rineke Dijkstra in Zehlendorf, he found new inspiration and friends in the quickly expanding Berlin art
world. Waling Boers, an Amsterdam based curator, had moved to Berlin in 1997 and opened up Büro Friedrich on
Friedrichstrasse near Weidendammer Brücke (from 2001 at the Janowitz Briicke) on the Spree river. Boers had curated
an axhibition by Domburg at the town of Neuruppin, where the writer Theodor Fontane grew up. Büro Friedrich staged
shows en events by major Dutch artists and was respected and well established in the Berlin international art world.
Finally Boers invested in the club circuit around Münzerstrasse, a meeting point of young international artists.
Starting from Büro Friedrich we explored the districts of Mitte, Prenslauerberg, Friedrichshain Kreuzberg and
Charlottenburg. We took a dip of Russen disko at Kaffee Burger en got involved in the Ossi-Szene, crowded with ex-DDR
spies and femmes fatales. During a meeting of the Verbrecherclub club of criminals) Van Hanegem's keys were stolen.
Together with two busloads of Dutch anarchists we watched the favorite 30s alpinist movie of their role model Marinus
IN
Dalstar, Van Hanegem and Dogs Jispe St Jorrit at the Breda Museum de Beyerd, spring 2000 Dalstar performing poem Ab Heute at the Willem 3 opening
of the Van Hanegem exhibition in Flushing, spring 2001
