The next smart move was starting a magazine called Code, that drew original young writers en headhunting editors
like Dirk van Weelden, Martin Bril and Waling Boers. The Golden Years of the Living Room lasted until the early 90s,
when the First Gulf War hit and led to a wave of pessimism and diminishing returns in the New York gallery- and auction
circuit. The crisis spread to Europa. Paul Maenz closed his Cologne gallery, sold his Scholte paintings to the Boymans
Museum in Rotterdam and moved to Berlin to become a private dealer in the center of a united Germany. The Living
Room went bankrupt, as the Wild Bunch stable fell apart and Scholte moved to Brussels Belgium and from there to
Nagasaki in Japan, where he survived on a six million dollar art project.
On September 15th 1993, when Van Hanegem had his opening of a spectacular sell out show at Art Project in
Slootdorp in a desolate corner in the North of Holland, The Living Room staged its last group show in Amsterdam at
the Laurierstreet 70. As it turned out Van Hanegem as well as Scholte were at the top of their careers. Van Hanegem and
his girlfriend Marja Bosma had just bought a big loft close to the red light district in the eastern central section of the
inner city of Amsterdam. Scholte, who showed a street sign painting (Dead End Street) in the last Living Room show, was
able to buy up the gallery space and moved back from Brussels and Nagasaki with his new girl friend Mickey Hoogendijk,
whom he intended to marry the following year. But the happy marriage was never consumed. November 24th 1994, the
couple was car bombed in front of their newly acquired estate property. Although they survived and went their separate
ways, the crime was never solved.
Back in the fall of 1987 Ab van Hanegem entered his second year at the postgraduate Rijksacademy and was moving
up in the hierarchyHe was granted a studio at the front side of the school, facing the Wetering Canal and Nicolaas
Witzenkade. This move marks the painterly introduction of the long horizontal formats with bended canvas and curved
frames. Ab wanted to simulate the way we perceive by looking around. The painting, according to Van Hanegem's
explanation, is just an geometric chord or segment of the circumference of a circle. The painter starts to use a fixed
three meter long radius, marking the distance between the observer of the painting and the canvas itself.
At his Amsterdam studio Ab explained to me this early episode in his career by pointing at the complexities of
stereometrical perception, in which both human eyes view the same painting from slightly different points of view,
thereby conveying the illusion of depth. Putting his right hand before his right eye, the artist looked at me and asked:
"But is this the natural way of looking?" Of course it was. Stereometrical perception is an evolutionary accomplishment
of the human eyes in order to get a certain grip on the ever changing perspective of the world around. Covering one eye
with one hand does not change the realistic impression of the object we view, because the observer,- for all practical
purpose-, is used to a stereometrical visual convention of the species. Our brains are programmed this way. What Van
Hanegem did, by covering one eye, was mimicking the lens of a photographic camera. When we look at a photograph
stereometrically, we still see depth, because our brains follow the conventional perspective. Depending on the
manipulation of light surrounding the object, the isometric impression of the image of the object viewed can be
strengthened or weakened, according to purpose. To further illustrate his point on the bo-peep game, the artist covered
his left eye with his left hand, like children often do. I could not help smiling at Ab's experimental display of perception,
which flowed over into a interesting monologue about the interpretation of perceptions, isometrics, grids, outline,
shadows and holes in painted images, that the artist worked on during his two years at the postgraduate royal academy.
It was time for a tea break. Tea had been a recurrent element in our conversation, since I invited Ab as guest artist
to give a talk to my 1991 student workshop at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in AmsterdamAs a counter gift the class
presented him with black sweater carrying in white print the formula: There is no tea. The visiting painter inspected
the sweater and -good heavens!- discovered a brown coffee stain on its surface. Van Hanegem seemed insulted, but
relaxed when Three Graces from the student body offered him a drink on the couch, and inquired politely if the master
had any more desires.
By that time Ab's looks had changed. The velvet corduroy jacket had been replaced by a handsome red leather jacket
in 1989, when the artist graduated from the postgraduate school and was accepted in the stable of the prestigious gallery
Art Project, then located at Prinsengracht in Amsterdam. A P was accessible only by appointment after ringing
a loud bell. Van Hanegem's first show, carrying mainly works done at the Academy, was a straight sell out. By that
time the dreadlocks had disappeared in favor of a slick crewcut, that made the artist's face look even more southern.
The period 1989-1993 at Art Project constitute the laurel wreath of the artist's life and work. Not only did he receive
German encouragement prize of the Vordemberge-Gildewart Foundation (1989), but also the Dutch Charlotte Kohier
prize (1990).
X I
While Van Hanegem was getting tea from the loft, I looked around at the painters studio. It was a complete mess.
Paintings stood around, unfinished. Piles op books on geometry, Escher, the Isenheim Altar in Colmar, architectural
monographs on Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, art magazines, design sheets layouts, spreads, drawings, sketches for
paintings, newspaper cutouts a color photograph of the subterranean Cern Cyclotron near Geneva, where elementary
particles bombarded each other with nearly the speed of light. Jazz cd's, invitations to openings, slide trays, bundles of
snapshot photographs. Van Hanegem studio demonstrated a wide interest in the history of art, mathematics, quantum
mechanics, string theory, dark matter, and good old relativity theory. On a laptop screen was a display of the home page
of his website, with hundreds of painting listed.
When Ab returned with black tea and cake, I listened to an eloquent treatment on the didactical aspects in the
development of the theory and practice of geometrical perspective since the early renaissance. It all started with the
works of a certain Lorenzetti (1213-1248), a painter from Siena in Tuscany, the city known for its central square, the
beauty of its town hall and the yearly returning horse racing festival, where all town quarters compete for the honor
of winning the event. Lorenzetti is not only famous for his painting: "Citta sul Mare", but also known worldwide for
the first representation of the perspective of the city of Sienna. The bird's eye view. Based on an isometric model from
geometry, which Ab called grid. This way of depicting a view from aside and above had been used ever since in
drawings and paintings of cities by other artists. It reached Amsterdam in the middle the sixteenth century.
Van Hanegem started to use the diamond shapes and rectangular forms himself in the paintings he did during his
postgraduate years (1986-1989). The grid angles on the canvas screen could vary from zero to ninety degrees, producing
sharp edged horizontal or raised vertical surfaces. Working this way imaginary cities or formations of buildings are seen
half way from above. The motive of the grid appears all throughout Van Hanegem's oeuvre. Not only after he left Art
Project in 1993 and started to work on big public commissions for hospitals, congress centers, prisons and schools in
various parts of the Netherlands during the 90s, but also after 1999, when the artist was represented by Vous Etes Ici.
A good late example of the architectural trend in Van Hanegem's paintings is: Haus am Fluss House at the River,
2003), done in Berlin at the occasion of the opening of the new Dutch embassy on the Spree river. The design by architect
Rem Koolhaas perfectly matched the spot where the river splits itself in two at the southern tip of Museum Insel.
The stream is partially supported by a large lock system. Barges gather side by side in a basin, giving the impression
of the old port of Amsterdam.
As Van Hanegem showed his paintings on the laptop, he started talking about his method. First he draws sketches
and decides on the measurements of intertwining forms. If possible he writes down the favored color combinations for
a certain canvas or series of paintings. In between, the artist cited examples of paintings, done by late renaissance role
models Mantegna and Piero della Francesca. Ab elaborated on the catholic genre of serial painting referred to as Stages
of the Cross as in the Isenheimer Altar by Griinewald at Colmar, then raises one eyebrow, looked at me in horror and
said: "But of course I don't mean the Cross that Jesus Christ carried, when he was whipped. To me the cross simply refers
to intersecting lines, marking a central symmetry in the painting."
As we concluded the interview in Ab's studio, he kept going back to the happy post graduate years.
Just a few weeks ago Van Hanegem had gone to a farewell party of the old academy's director. At King's Hall in the
I XI
Early architectural grid painting by Van Hanegem, 1991 Van Hanegem painting, inspired by Lorenzetti's painting Citta sul Mare, 1991
