Tuesday 26 July 2016, JD 816 + 817

Journal Drawing 817, Tuesday 26 July 2016
explosive summer 2016
15,5 cm. pencil, ink and watercolour on paper, final drawing

Journal Drawing 816, Tuesday 26 July 2016
lot - fate - destin
15,5 cm. pencil and watercolour on paper, final drawing

Sunday 24 June 2016, Brussels

Sunday 24 July 2016, Forêt de Soignes, Brussels

Thursday 21 July 2014, Dordrecht - Rotterdam

Thursday 21 July 2016, Dordrecht, entropic pavement pattern

Thursday 21 July 2016, Tent Rotterdam, Arie de Groot collection

Thursday 21 July 2016, Tent Rotterdam, Arie de Groot drawing

Wednesday 20 July 2016, JD 815

Journal Drawing 815, Wednesday 20 July 2016
flat land
35 cm, pencil, watercolour and ink on paper, final drawing

Wednesday 2 July 2014, Little Sparta souvenir

Wednesday 2 July 2014, Little Sparta, the garden of Ian Hamilton Finlay, Dunsyre, Scotland
THE PRESENT ORDER IS THE DISORDER OF THE FUTURE / SAINT - JUST

Sunday 10 July 2016, Ecritures Souples Brussels

Sunday 10 July 2016, Thurn & Taxis Brussels
Henri Jacobs, 'écritures souples', concrete frames for the Herman Teirlinck building
in cooperation with Neutelings Riedijk Architects Rotterdam
execution General Contractors Van Laere nv Antwerp

Saturday 9 July 2016, Atelier

Saturday 9 July 2016
three recent Journal Drawings 

Friday 8 July 2016, JD 814

Journal Drawing 814, Friday 8 July 2016
tie-tiled
41 cm, pencil, watercolour and ink on paper, final drawing

Thursday 7 July 2016, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Thursday 7 July 2016, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Willem Oorebeek 'ogenblik' in Polak Building

Thursday 7 July 2016, Erasmus University Rotterdam, bas-relief by Dick Elffers

Thursday 7 July 2016, Erasmus University Rotterdam, pavement pattern

Thursday 7 July 2016, Erasmus University Rotterdam, reflection

Tuesday 5 July 2016, JD 813

Journal Drawing 813, Tuesday 5 July 2016
monkeys
21 cm, pencil and ink on paper, final drawing

Tuesday 5 July 2016, JD 812

Journal Drawing 812, Tuesday 5 July 2016
holes - trous
21 cm, pencil and ink on paper, final drawing

Monday 4 July 2016, JD 811

Journal Drawing 811, Monday 4 July 2016
Teeny
21 cm, pencil and ink on paper, final drawing

Thursday 30 June 2016, Bozar Brussels V-C poster

Poster Vaporisation - Crystallisation (homage to Marcel B.)
Bozar Brussels, opening was on Thursday 30 June 2016 at 18:00 h.

VAPORISATION – CRYSTALLISATION

THREE WALL DRAWINGS FOR BOZAR by Henri Jacobs

Kali – Homage to Marcel B. – Victor

Summer 2016

TIME IS CHANGING, in the early nineties Galerie Isy Brachot was showing Marcel Broodthaers mussel pots, egg-shell panels and plastic poetry plates in his gallery in Avenue Louise. The richness of contrasts and polarities in Broodthaers poetry and assemblages had quite some impact on me. The empty coalmine is the opposite of the chimney, the chimney is the negative of the smoke from the burning coal that comes from inside the earth. Feu, fumée, nuage. The same with a potato which is the beholder of the frites, the 26 letters in the alphabet which are the smallest elements to build words with, words to construct sentences. The backed brick to build a building, the mussel with an air bulb on the bottom of the sea is the negative of the sea. Broodthaers is a teacher teaching about potential content. A museum of the nineteenth century with empty picture crates, containers of belief or irony, furniture to make the museum visitor comfortable. His poetry album ‘Mon livre d’ogre’ didn’t sell, the artist put it in plaster and made a sculpture of it, which didn’t sell either. A poem about throwing art-works on the market of Cologne like you do with throwing fish on the market of Cologne. A ship in a storm on the sea…

I was drenched with Broodthaers at that time, and it was one of the reasons to move to Brussels, to find a place and to discover / to see if Brussels had a Broodthaers impact. In 1994, living in Rue Blaes in the centre of Brussels, Marcel’s phantom was in the windows of the shops, in the language of the street: Rue René Magritte Straat. Broodthaers daughter ran a gallery right in opposite of Palais Des Beaux Arts: Galerie Des Beaux Arts. The golden tomb of James Lee Byars was there on display with the artist Byars lying in his tomb. My first primitive catalogue I gave to her, the daughter of Marcel Broodthaers: ‘Etude sur l’ouie et la vue’, a simple booklet full of Marcel’s influence which Marie-Puck didn’t notice.

Broodthaers Camel in the entrance of Palais Des Beaux Arts in 1974, to open a group show with his ‘Jardin d’Hiver’. The plan was to loan a zebra for the opening performance, but zebras are much to wild. Broodthaers had the graphic black and white skin of the zebra in mind, perhaps the slow and staid calm camel is metaphorically better than a zebra for a post-colonial ‘Jardin d’Hiver’.

A Winter Garden then, at that time, today a Summer Bar and three wall drawings. A homage to Marcel Broodthaers, dedicated to him and inspired by Calcutta in India and by this Palais Des Beaux Arts by Victor Horta.

In the rotunda the Hindu God Kali is looking, gazing at the come and go in this Bozar beehive. The second drawing ‘Zebra’ with black Chinese ink is a homage to Marcel. And the one here, the third wall drawing fits in the diagonal floor grid from Victor Horta’s building. The convex and concave tiles in three sizes evoke the gaps between street tile patterns seen in Kolkata.

In this third drawing Broodthaers, Kolkata India and Horta meet through (1) the diagonal grid from Horta, (2) the tiles from Kolkata and (3) the gaps in between as left-over space, shaped emptiness, the fold as a Marcel Broodthaersalien idiom.

Thank you Sophie Lauwers to invite me, thanks to Adeline d'Ursel and Pauline Hatzigeorgiou the organisers of the Art on Paper Fair who helped create the opportunity, thanks to Evelyne Hinque and the many members of the Bozar technical equipe. And many thanks to the four assistants helping with the drawings, Delphine Plas, Lana Schneider, Ines Claus and Maika Pieters. Their handwriting is in the drawings; it was an intense experience to draw these drawings in two weeks’ time.

TILES, EYES AND STRIPES, TIME IS CHANGING.

Henri Jacobs, Thursday 27 June 2016 – 18:00 h, opening speech Bozar Brussels.

Thursday 30 June 2016, Vaporisation - Crystallisation (Kali)
detail of the first of three wall drawings by Henri Jacobs, Bozar Brussels
with a neon light work by Pascale Marthine Tayou

Thursday 30 June 2016, Vaporisation - Crystallisation (homage to Marcel B.)
detail of the second of three wall drawings by Henri Jacobs, Bozar Brussels

Thursday 30 June 2016, Vaporisation - Crystallisation (Victor)
detail of the third of three wall drawings by Henri Jacobs, Bozar Brussels

Thursday 30 June 2016, Vaporisation - Crystallisation (Victor)
third of three wall drawings by Henri Jacobs, Bozar Brussels