DENK paper: ARNE QUINZE by Arne Quinze

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Can the city save the world?

Prof. Dr Eric Corijn on the future of our cities

Bizarre Spaces – Marta Herford

An interview with curator Friederike Fast

Reclaiming cities

Artist Arne Quinze talks about his daily fight to reclaim cities

Matthew Gardocki

The new gallery director for DENK

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DENK

DENK gallery at 749 E. Temple St. A new gallery opening 2017 in the Arts District of Los Angeles, California

EXHIBITION

Jungle Cities

Arne Quinze to launch his new exhibition – JUNGLE CITIES – at DENK gallery, Los Angeles JANUARY 25 - APRIL 15, 2017

As an artist, Arne Quinze might be described as one of the more ambitious players or even gamblers of his profession. A gambler is someone who exuberantly puts everything on a single card and doesn’t always play by the rules. Quinze experiments with various forms and connections between predecessors from the history of art, the public space and modern-day depictions of nature. His large, sometimes outsized sculptures put up in public spaces in recent years are characterized by bulky shapes, chaotically

sprawling movements, and anonymous, graffiti-like traces. With their intense colours, they act like conspicuously dynamic artefacts which seem to actively encourage their viewers to participate in something playing with visual stimuli or even “overstimulation”. In his projects challenging all the senses, Quinze attempts – as he himself stresses – to address the lack of diversity and variety in today’s culture, whose richness tends to be spoken and written about rather than 12 experienced.

Natural Chaos Marta Herford - Bizarre Spaces in the Frank Gehry galleries, Herford, Germany. © Arne Quinze Studio

DENK OPENING JANUARY 25

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REFLECTION

Prof. Dr. ERIC CORIJN

Can the city save the world… and America? The world is undergoing a profound transition. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, globalisation has become a driving force. The world market has been unified. A global redistribution of the labour market has been at work. Industry has declined in the most advanced continents, to be developed instead in emergent countries and other “tigers”. Globalisation also means urbanisation. The majority (54%) of the world population, is now living in cities. That simple fact alone constitutes “a watershed in human history, comparable to the Neolithic or Industrial revolutions,” according to Mike Davis. It is within that framework of profound economic, political, and resultant cultural change, that we must assess the situation and develop sound solutions. The world of the Twentieth Century will never return. Economies based on industries and contained within independent countries are history. Today’s world is interdependent. Markets are global. Even large countries are caught up in planetary turmoil. The dynamics of both the world system as well as of urban networks, transcend the regulations of countries and the systems of nation-states. Nation-states are particularly dysfunctional because they concentrate on a contained state of affairs, and cannot sufficiently regulate transborder flows and interactions. As long as the bulk of interactions are territorially contained within national borders, a territorial political authority, government and

laws, are able to regulate them. But when they substantially exceed the borders, there are only two options for regulation. On the one hand, political territories can be integrated in supranational bodies, transferring sovereignty and creating new forms of supranational states. That is what happened in cross border integration such as the European Union, the North American Union, and the ASEAN in Southeast Asia. On the other hand, gatekeeping of flows can be organised through collaboration of the (urban) nodal points in the networks. Interfaces of all kinds such as ports, airports, universities, arrival places, become gateways. That is why many networks of cities have been developed over the last few decades. Any political authority that promises the closure of borders, with or without physical walls, is doomed to fail. These leaders close the borders to people and cultures, whilst trying to maintain the circulation of capital, money and goods. They are in fact putting up a screen to hide their own globalisation, and preventing people from being a part of it. That is why cities tend to be increasingly in opposition to the central state. Not only because the state blocks their development and competences, but also because it favours suburban populations and uses institutions to resist urbanity. We have witnessed a growing tension between the urban and the suburban in Brexit, as well as the recent presidential elections in the US, and in many other places such as Turkey and Latin America.

Can the city sa To maintain the market and profits, states tend to become more authoritarian, thereby reducing individual freedoms. That is why the crisis of democracy in its current form as a representative democracy, as well as the growing divide between citizenship and politics, is mostly acutely felt in cities. The complexity of that type of mixed economy and superdiverse population cannot be “represented” through elected officers mandated to express public opinion on all matters and choices. Urban citizens have to be consulted, they want participation, they are co-producers. Urban civil society is not necessarily attached to political or ideological parties, and not the automatic extension of the government. That means that good urban governance depends much more upon leadership and authority rather than power and force. Urban politicians are not the “boss” but rather the “directors” who stage urban society.

Cities are closer to the world than countries. This is becoming the main contradiction to solving the great challenges of the world. For cities, climate change, social fairness, and intercultural cohesion are high on the agenda, coupled with a certain sense of urgency. Nation-states tend to get in the way, to deny planetary needs, to sustain exploitation of nature and labour for the benefit of the national elite. But they are putting humanity at risk. Therefore, some radicalism, going to the “radix”, the roots, is necessary. Under those conditions the city, its citizens, and a new form of post-national urbanity, might save the world. Let’s do it.

Text: Eric Corijn

A city is not a country. Cities are the core of democratic society, urbanity is now the condition of most humans. That is the story to be told, beyond the isolation of the nation-state.

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ave the world? City view of Shanghai city. ÂŠ Arne Quinze Studio

Cities as nodes in the world system

Globalization has taken on the form of urbanization. This is an undeniable fact. In the space of just one century, the urban population has increased from some 220 million (in the year 1900) to nearly 5 billion predicted by 2030. In 1900, we had 11 cities with 1 million inhabitants, in 1950 we had 83 cities larger than 1 million, and in 1960 there were 166 cities, of which 19 had a population of more than 5 million. Currently, there are 545 urban areas of more than a million, 14 of which have a population of over 20 million! In 1950, only New York exceeded 10 million inhabitants, but today there are 28 megacities, with Tokyo being the largest, totalling nearly 40 million inhabitants. In 2030, 750 cities will exceed that 1 million mark, of which 150 will be in China. Urbanised metropolises are the undeniable trend of the future. But despite the fact that the human species is becoming increasingly urbanised, humankind is culturally not yet fully prepared for it. Moreover, globalisation has created a world system that reaches far beyond the borders of countries and their international institutions. It has created a world market that is not so much an expansion of territories, but more a network of interactions. The global economy is operated within a space of flows, with the cities as nodal points. Post-industrial economies are concentrated within the cities. These are the centres for innovation, for business and consumption, for cultural industries, services and care. Cities are also the places of arrival for newcomers, migrants, expats or any other starter in life. They form the new

complex frames of human activities and societies. The three global challenges, the ecological, the social and the cultural, are at the core of any urban project. They have to be met in a process of urban transition. They have to be integrated as a sustainable urban ecosystem, and also necessitate the development of an urban commons and a model for multicultural citizenship. But at the same time, such urban models are the only solution to systemic global threats, and the starting point for necessary multi-scalar governance. Text: Eric Corijn Cultural philosopher and social scientist. Professor Urban Studies at the Free University of Brussels (Belgium). Founder of COSMOPOLIS, the Centre for Urban Research at the Free University of Brussels, vice-chair of the Brussels Studies Institute, director of Brussels Academy and member of the Advisory Board for the Global Parliament of Mayors Project. He is the author of more than 250 publications. eacorijn@vub.ac.be

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MUSEUM EXHIBITION

Bizarre Spaces – Attacks, Transformations, Explosions 29 October 2016 – 05 February 2017 A project by

Marta Herford This exhibition dares to make a diagnosis of the times by responding to the contemporary need to become aware of one’s own body in relation to the alienated space. But the subversive gesture of the artistic intervention still leaves room for poetic moments and an almost childish sense of astonishment. Friederike Fast

Marta Herford, Germany. Courtesy Marta Herford © Helmut Claus

BIZARRE SPACES Marta Herford A hole in the ceiling of the Marta Dome opens access to another world; gentle murals are revealed on closer inspection as deep cracks in the skin of the museum; a colourful jungle of heavy steel is connected by fine wires to the walls – with the exhibition “Bizarre Spaces”, the Museum Marta Herford receives a complete makeover. With radical artistic interventions, eight international artists interrogate the familiar museum building by star architect Frank Gehry, and engage with the space as an artistic field of action. The exhibition “Bizarre Spaces – Attacks, Transformations, Explosions” is the result of a reinvention after ten years of museum history. Eight installations intervening deeply into the space, all developed and produced for Marta Herford, await visitors, and allow unprecedented experiences. While Gehry is heavily influenced as an architect by artists, and designed Marta as a sculpture,

this inspiration relationship is now reversed. As soon as they are in the entrance gallery, the visitors find themselves in a completely different space: the installation by Esther Stocker uses a rhythmic play of black surfaces to transform the room into a threedimensional constructivist painting. The dynamic solidified in the building is turned back into optical motion. The work of art and the architecture merge to form a unit. A seven-meter construction scaffold in the Marta Dome allows access to the truly bizarre space. The opening of part of the roof as a radical intervention in the architecture allows for the first time a view into the innards of the Marta building. Looking into this mysterious interim space does not in any way explain the building, but shows a mysterious parasite by the Belgian artist Peter Buggenhout. There is also a sense of the parasitical about the installation by the Brazilian artist, Henrique Oliveira that breaks through the walls of the Marta Dome like a powerful, inexorable river. The bark and the wood of the shell contrast here in their wild and

Curator Friederike Fast. © Veit Mette

raw aesthetic with the gently curved, white walls, while the walk-in interior opens up a side with a soft and organic feel. In the process-like and spontaneously reacting creation of the GermanPolish artist, Monika Grzymala, kilometres of black adhesive tape become a physical structure, whose role between appropriation and support of the architecture cannot be clearly determined. This tensioning of energies in the space continues in a different form with the installation by the Swedish-Greek artist Anastasia Ax, who in a highly physical, rituallike performance for the opening created an explosion of colour. Colour and dynamics meet up again in the room installation of the Belgian artist Arne Quinze, reflecting the power of nature with bent steel girders, but also with filigree wires and stones. Overstimulation is materialised here, accompanied by a tropical sound installation: instead of making culture in abstraction to the theme, here it can be sensually and directly experienced. In contrast the artist Christoph Weber draws dynamic gestures from concrete.

Fine cracks in the exhibited sculptures contrast in their gentleness with the monolithic, overbearing material. His surface-filling wall drawing turns out on closer inspection to be a violent crack in the museum wall. For the first time in Marta’s history, the museum education section has collaborated with an artist to develop and conceive an installation. While the artist Stefan Eberstadt responds to the swinging curves of the long gallery with a labyrinthine structure, steering the perception of the room with spaces within spaces, visitors can join the museum educators in practically tracing the room structures, reacting to the architecture and changing it. Text: Marta Herford

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Henrique Oliveira Parietal Passage, 2016 Plywood, veneer, bark, PVC pipes

Courtesy Marta Herford. © Hans Schröder

Esther Stocker Konturen innerer Zustände, 2016 Kapa cardboard

Courtesy Marta Herford © Hans Schröder

Arne Quinze Natural Chaos Marta Herford, 2016 Coloured Steel, aluminium, wires, stones, skulls

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INTERVIEW

Reclaiming Cities Arne Quinze Arne Quinze in conversation with Dave Bruel DB: Let’s start at the beginning. Where does your fascination with cities and nature come from? AQ: I grew up in the country. When I was small, I already had some ideas about what the world was like. The natural world around me was so rich that I thought cities must be amazing places. Encouraged by my child’s imagination, I built my own fantasy cities in shoe boxes. In the garden, I built my own imaginary world with anything I could find: moss, branches and so on. My image of a city was a fantastic place, full of variety. And I decided, when I was still very young, to visit all the cities in the world. DB: Do you remember if you had a mentor at that time? AQ: As a child, my first mentor was the natural world. As a youngster, I played outdoors a lot, in the nearby fields, meadows and woods. Every day I discovered something new. Insects, plants and the countryside all fed my imagination. My father often came with me on my explorations. As an ornithologist, he always had a story to tell on the spur of the moment. He is still doing it today. DB: When did you realise that your image of the world didn’t match with reality? AQ: At some point, we moved from the country to the city. All the diversity I thought I would find in the city just didn’t exist. The city seemed very boring to me. I had imagined a completely different life in the city and I was unhappy. I felt like my imagination had tricked me. Luckily, I found a video library nearby. I went there whenever I could, and rented the oddest films. I really enjoyed Japanese anime films like Akira & Nausicaä. I didn’t understand a single word of Japanese, but I thought they were great. My eyes were really opened by Tron, the first computer-generated film, and Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice. All my hard-won pocket money went on arcade games like Space Invaders, Asteroids and Tempest. Comic strip books became a real obsession. It was films, games and cartoons which revived my imagination in this grey city. DB: So was it there that your true quest began? AQ: I was a very inquisitive youngster. I was always looking for new things to learn and constantly needed new stimuli. I was very impatient, insatiable, I always wanted more. Anything new attracted my attention. I only identified with extremes. I got caught up with the world of punk and hardcore. Excited by films like Colors by Denis Hopper, we would take to the streets. I used to go to all the concerts with Dead Kennedys, Front 242 and Kraftwerk, but also to hang out with biker gangs and go to obscure rave parties which I later started to help organise. DB: More and more, faster and faster? It had to stop one day, didn’t it? AQ: The city had disappointed me. It hadn’t turned out to be the utopia of my childhood, but a grey mass, governed by old rules, and only excess seemed

to excite me. I was increasingly suffocated within its gloomy walls. There then followed a period of criminality, drugs and bad company. As a teenager, I was very moody, but I was driven to and wanted to climb those grey walls. And I knew that nothing could stop me. DB: Do you remember when this drive for new sensations was for the first time transformed into a burst of creativity? AQ: This grey-walled, monotonous city that I lived in actually made me fight back. I couldn’t understand how people managed to live in identical rabbit hutches. The city had only shown me its sad and unhealthy side. I couldn’t see any creativity or impetus anywhere. At one point, I cracked. I wanted to bring my personal touch to the city. I started with graffiti. The aim was straightforward: to give the city more colour and perhaps provoke a reaction. A lot of my works were illegal, but I didn’t care at all. I was convinced I was bringing something to the character of the city. I remember one project. We intended, on the occasion of the inauguration of a new metro station, to work on an entire train. We worked all night, without a break, and then, exhausted but delighted, we blended incognito with the onlookers who had come to see this new “construction”. When the first train arrived, the reactions exceeded our expectations: some people showed their disgust, but others thought our actions were amazing. We had succeeded! Ministers, burgomasters and onlookers began talking; we had finally succeeded in awakening this grey mass. It was great. I learned a lot from these kinds of experiences, and I decided that my vocation was to bring people out of their lethargy. The challenge had been set: to bring more colours into the world. In the years that followed, I travelled and had the opportunity to work in Amsterdam with the early New York graffiti artists, like Lee, Futura 2000, Lady Pink and Daze. I also worked on several walls with Mode 2. My team and I were very active. We did graffiti every day. We were real tattooed punks with long hair, but we were accepted in the difficult world of Hip Hop where RunDMC, the Beastie Boys & Public Enemy ruled. Street festivals commissioned our first legal works. That’s how we started earning money. The 1980s were my source of inspiration. Now, 30 years later, I see that really clearly. Today I still use the electric colours and quirky shapes of that era. DB: So, studying probably wasn’t on the cards, then? AQ: I am truly self-taught. I never had any artistic training; I was just too impatient for that. I wanted to create things! That said, I remember the first time I opened an art book clearly. It was a monograph of James Rosenquist. It was as if, after all those years of mad rush, I could at last draw breath. I read it avidly and marvelled at each page of this art book. I understood that I knew nothing. It was a new world opening up to me. That was when I decided to collect art books. To start with, lots of books on pop art, and monographs of the Old Masters. But gradually, my collection extended to African art and landscape painting. Once I had seen The Cremaster I (2005) by Matthew Barney, I also began to get interested in video. Today, I am very proud of my collection of over 2000 books, which guide my dreams.

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Rock Strangers - Ostend, Belgium, 2012. Camille - Rouen, France, 2010. One World - Tomorrowland, Belgium, 2015. © Arne Quinze Studio

DB: Was it a logical step to move from 2D graffiti to your “in the space” installations? AQ: Moving from working in 2D to 3D took a lot of time. In my eyes, the main element in my creative work was social interaction. For me, what was most important was the reaction of people to the works I imposed on them. I remember at the beginning of the 1990s, I received one of my first paid commissions. The owner of a discotheque asked me to paint his building. As he had given me very few instructions, I worked like crazy. I gave free vein to my mad creativity and I projected an enormous amount of paint on the walls with the help of adapted garden sprays. In no time at all, I had repainted everything, from the floor to the ceiling: it was a chaos of colours and dripping paint. I thought the result was great up until the time the owner saw it. He was furious and I was promptly sacked. He thought it didn’t look like anything. The following day, professional painters came and repainted everything: one monotonous colour on all the walls. I quickly understood that if I truly wanted to change the urban landscape, I had to construct my works better and leave illegality behind. I tried hard to convince the local municipal authorities to allow me to work legally, and I looked for partners who really believed in me. To see the bigger picture and to work in a more organised way. An enormous challenge, which required several years of development. To start with, my ideas really didn’t interest anyone. But I never gave up, I continued the fight. Once I began to convince people, I understood that creating works in 3 dimensions was the best way to help the spectator into my universe. DB: Was this the birth of the concept of cities as open-air museums, where you create your “in the space” works? AQ: Yes, indeed, this was when the idea was born. All forms of culture, music, education and art must, in my opinion, get down onto the streets. In the streets they can unleash a process of change. I love museums and cultural centres, but they only attract a small group of visitors. With my openair works, I want to engage people who are put off by culture, and demonstrate that it can come to them.

The curiosity about how we live, communicate with each other and our relationship with nature, has nurtured the research for my public installations and work. People are always central to all my work. Arne Quinze DB: You have constructed your works in megacities such as New York, Beirut and Shanghai. Are there marked differences in the construction process in these different cities? AQ: It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, once a spectator is confronted with one of my open-air works, a passionate dialogue follows. This demonstrates to me the absolute necessity of culture in our society. People do not realise that public spaces belong to them. They only really react when there is a spectacular intervention. Of course, some works provoke more reactions than others. This is related to the geographical location of the work, but also, and above all, to the social climate of the neighbourhood around the location. The more comfortable the neighbourhood, the stronger the reaction. In a rich neighbourhood, people are settled in their comfortable lives and protest more quickly and more vigorously against the unknown. In poorer neighbourhoods however, people are quicker to accept the foreign element; they grow used to it, they grow proud of it, and are inspired by it. DB: Is provoking a reaction the ultimate aim of your works? AQ: Getting a reaction is indeed an important step, but to see what people will do with the experience they have had is really my ultimate objective. My works improve the quality of life where they stand by boosting the social and commercial climate. People are attracted by my works, they spend

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INTERVIEW

1980s and 1990s were without doubt the worst period in terms of urban development. Even today, our cities still carry the scars from the introduction of cars into cities. City squares are empty, the streets are glacial. As a romantic, I want to change all that. In cities, I want people to feel the changing seasons, to see nature in all its diversity, to be able to touch its shapes, and rediscover its palette of colours. That’s what I want to see again in our cities. DB: How long does it take to develop a medium-sized work?

more time around them, they start conversations with strangers more easily and do their shopping right there. Then I consider I have succeeded. I also want to start a wider discussion on how we could develop our cities better. This is based on two important cornerstones: nature and culture. Diversity is present in both themes. It’s this diversity that I want to introduce into our unduly monotonous cities. I want to demonstrate through my works another way of doing things. My ultimate goal is to get everyone moving, inhabitants, architects, politicians, investors and shopkeepers, so that they will bring more diversity into their environment and, in that way, create a better quality of life. Once my work is constructed, it no longer belongs to me. It becomes public property. DB: That’s a very noble objective. AQ: In a society, everyone is responsible for doing their bit. For creative people, I feel it is an obligation to dare and to take the initiative to inspire people. DB: Is that still operating? Or does it go wrong sometimes? AQ: With more than 20 years of expertise, my team and I are really beginning to understand clearly which approach is most relevant for certain spaces. We are more and more professional in our preparation, both in terms of content and technique. We try to fully understand the climate in which we are working by means of a socio-economic and historical study. Each place is unique. In

the past, we sometimes got it wrong and we didn’t receive the hoped-for reactions. Today, we are sometimes scared by the hyper-positive impact we have. We are very clear about what we can or cannot do in relation to the place. With this knowledge we are motivated go a little further each time and to work in a very precise way. The difficult part of the exercise is to know how far I can go. Paul Dujardin, director of Bozar in Brussels, once called me a “romantic terrorist”. It’s a superb compliment. DB: Are you a romantic? AQ: You probably wouldn’t think so, but I must admit that I am a real romantic. In both my private and professional life, I can be a real vagabond. I am always seeking, always doubting - I break things to rebuild them, and my brain never stops. Physically also, I never stop. I travel the world, I brave the elements, I visit cities. I flee from monotony and inhumane coldness. For me, the

AQ: For some works, it’s quite fast, but others take several years. You need to reckon on at least 2 years for the development of the project. It’s very difficult to work in a public space. You have to be aware of everything, from the political to the urban development point of view. Sometimes it can take years before everything falls into place and we obtain approval to finish a project. Again, my works are becoming more and more complex in terms of their technical nature and their size. Sometimes, I negotiate and work for hours with my engineers on complex elements. But I always follow my instinct and I push in a certain direction well before everything is completely settled 100%. That’s the way I operate. The large works we are building today present huge challenges, involving sometimes more than 100 people working on them, from engineers to painters. DB: How do you choose the precise location for a work? AQ: That varies a great deal from one city to another. Each city has its problematic and its beautiful neighbourhoods. I always explore the city where I’m going to work. I visit everything, from the smallest street to the largest city square. I walk about and get lost, I see things in daytime and at night, I speak to people and visit institutions. I have to feel completely impregnated by the city before I can start constructing anything. The decision to construct or not to construct depends on numerous factors, including the support of the public authorities, which is of prime importance. Even when budgets, permits and partners are on our side, it’s their endorsement which determines whether we’ll be able to construct the work. I have noticed things have changed for the better over the last 20 years. In the past it was almost impossible to get things sorted by the municipal administrations. I have to admit that sometimes we dared push them a bit to start the construction. Things have changed a lot nowadays; cities are beginning to understand that having a cultural angle is an absolute necessity. And that’s a good thing.

In the course of my travels I’ve notices that in cities, you always see the same big apartment blocks. You don’t see any basic difference between a building in China, Germany or Brazil. The linking factor should be human, but this humanity seems to be living in isolated compartments. So what’s the orchestration involved, and what’s my orchestration going to be? Arne Quinze

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Uchronia - Nevada Desert, US, 2006

Natural Chaos - Museum Beelden aan Zee, Netherlands, 2016

The Visitor - Beirut Souks, Lebanon, 2009

Wind - Shanghai, China, 2013

Natural Chaos - Maison International Le Bocholtz, Liège, Belgium, 2016

Whispers - San Antonio Missions, US, 2015

Wooden Installation - Matarazzo São Paulo, Brazil, 2015

Uchronia - Nevada Desert, US, 2006. © NK Guy. Natural Chaos - Museum Beelden aan Zee, Netherlands, 2016. The Visitor - Beirut Souks, Lebanon, 2009. Natural Chaos - Maison Le Bocholtz, Liège, Belgium, 2016. Wind - Shanghai, China, 2013. Whispers - San Antonio Missiones, US, 2016. Wooden Installation - Matarazzo São Paulo, Brazil, 2015. © Arne Quinze Studio

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INTERVIEW

Natural Chaos - Museum Beelden aan Zee, Netherlands, 2016

De Zoeker, 2016. Detail from Natural Chaos - Maison Le Bocholtz, Liège, Belgium, 2016. Arne Quinze at his studio, 2015. Natural Chaos - Museum Beelden aan Zee, Netherlands, 2016. Detail from Natural Chaos Marta Herford - Bizarre Spaces in the Frank Gehry galleries, Herford, Germany. © Arne Quinze Studio

DB: Are museums and cultural centres ready for this cultural wave breaking across cities? AQ: The year 2016 will be an important one for future historians. There has never been so much progress made in the sciences, architecture, education, medicine or technology. As a creative artist, this is a very interesting period for contributing to making our cities viable and good places to live. We can paint outside the lines and develop the craziest things. Cultural centres have caught on to this and one of their main missions now is to reflect this. They have to emerge from behind their walls. I have already seen amazing initiatives in Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris and Hong Kong – where cultural centres are once again successful at being in step with their environments. It’s great. DB: Is there a difference between constructing within a museum rather than in the street? AQ: Museums are places of work where you feel safe, steeped in culture. You feel free there, anything is possible. Making constructions in public spaces is much more complex. The confrontation is more direct. All sorts of reactions can occur. The Rock Strangers, which we installed in the Zeeheldenplein square in Ostend in 2012, provides a very good example of the wave of reactions we provoked when the monumental cubes burst on to this major historical site. People went crazy, and organised neighbourhood committees to express their disgust. I remember being invited to a meeting. We felt uneasy when we began our speech: we thought we might get tomatoes and rotten eggs thrown at us. But during the debate, people began to understand my objective and I thanked them for their impassioned criticisms. I was so pleased with the result that I suggested sending flowers to my most outspoken critics. With their impetus, the project became really popular. They brought life to the work and they drew unprecedented media attention. People who weren’t the slightest bit interested in art flooded in to see the work and began discussing it. We couldn’t have hoped for a better result. Today we still receive letters and emails from people who think the work is fantastic. We realise that it really became part of the local landscape. For me, this work is a gamble that paid off. If I had placed it in a museum, the reactions would have been totally different.

DB: The ideal city of the future? Is it a utopian vision? AQ: The answer is simple. Each generation has a new vision of the city of tomorrow. Except that today the situation is exceptional. Things will have to change drastically to avoid creating serious problems for future generations. We must plant trees on those city squares which have been stripped bare and are now full of cars. Urban landscapes have to see some profound changes made. We know, more than ever, what needs to be done. That’s what I am working hard to achieve every day. DB: Whenever I look at your work, I can clearly see an evolution. At the beginning, the structures were red, made of wood. Then, they evolved more and more towards a multi-coloured, organic mix of metals and other materials. As an artist, is this a development you have sought? AQ: I am very curious. Each stage has to be a challenge for me. Constructing and destroying, doubting, rejecting, continuing. Constantly evolving. I learn or discover something new every day. Gaining more technical skill and developing new construction techniques means that I can produce increasingly complex creations. That is how I reinvent myself each time and motivate myself to keep going at 100%. DB: This new work for the DENK GALLERY is very organic and colourful; is this a new departure for you? AQ: For me, any new work is a new development. There are a few recurring themes. For the past 15 years, it has been “chaos”. I have studied chaos and then applied it as a visual base in my art works. After all this time, I finally feel that I have found a certain balance. I feel literally impregnated by chaos. A much more recent theme which I really enjoy working with, is the theme of “the jungle”. It’s a leftover from the 1980s, my youth. The beauty of the jungle is a new world opening up to me and in which I can go to find momentum, colour and diversity. It seems very abstract, but I am applying my years of work on chaos to the jungle theme. A search for a new balance between shape, colour and materiality, and its potential application in public spaces. What a challenge! But nothing is as much fun as stepping out of your comfort zone! Text: Dave Bruel

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Arne Quinze was born in 1971 in Belgium and lives and works in Sint-MartensLatem, Belgium and Shanghai, China. In the eighties he began working as a graffiti artist but he never finished an official art education. Quinze creates large and small sculptures, drawings, paintings, and large-scale installations. Smaller works, sketches, and drawings are the basis and research for his large installations. Recurring fundamentals in his oeuvre are the use of wood and metal; electrical colors in fluorescent paint; and themes referring to social interaction, communication, and urbanism. Monumental Public Installations CITIES LIKE OPEN AIR MUSEUMS ‘Cities like open air museums – it sounds like an idealistic dream, but I am striving to realize this dream. Confronting a public surrounded by art every day. Art has a positive influence on people and their personal development: it broadens their horizons and renders them more tolerant towards differences in society.’ - Arne Quinze What drives Quinze is the belief in the possible realization of an idealistic society where all individuals communicate and interact, aiming to bring people together and push them into a vigorous dialogue. His unconventional public installations have challenged perceptions in the city centers of Belgium (Cityscape, The Sequence), Germany (The Traveller), France (Camille, Rock Strangers), Lebanon (The Visitor), China (Red Beacon), Brazil (Matarazzo), the USA (Uchronia, Timegate, Whispers), among others. Sculptural works ‘My sculptures came into being after my numerous personal encounters with the unbridled beauty of nature. They symbolise my reflection on todays growing differences between the diversity of nature and the ongoing expansion of monotone cities. While continuously unraveling the physical processes of complex demographies they react to all impulses in order to keep equilibrium. Resulting in a play of attraction and rejection that shapes the organic forms and electric bright colours. At first glance they seem vulnerable, but they wil persist a vigour dialoge just like nature.’ - Arne Quinze In every culture Quinze comes across, he unravels physical processes, drawing inspiration for his oeuvre, and is fueled by overwhelming optimism. Every new creative breed captures his research and study on interaction, and urban movement expressing the continuously evolution of human beings and their surroundings. Besides building architectural sculptures, he creates complex art pieces and video installations inscribing his vision in society of how people see themselves and society. Works as Bidonvilles, Stilthouses, Chaos, My Home My House My Stilthouse, My Safe Garden, Natural Chaos and Natural Chaos Satellites have been shown on several exhibitions.

Arne Quinze. © Maks Richter

Arne Quinze - Represented by:

Arne Quinze - Direct contact:

DENK Gallery Katja Van Herle & David Hoey, Matthew Gardocki 749 East Temple Street, Los Angeles CA 90012, US matthew@denkgallery.com www.denkgallery.com +1 323 537 6736

MONUMENTAL & PUBLIC PROJECTS Lien De Brabander lien@arnequinze.com +32 (0) 496 60 91 05

At The Gallery Kathy de Nève & Wilfried Keteleer, Frédéric Keteleer Leopoldstraat 57, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium info@atthegallery.be www.atthegallery.be + 32 0468 15 00 65

PRESS & PUBLICATIONS Dave Bruel dave@arnequinze.com +32 (0) 486 29 51 21

Purple Roof Art Gallery / Mao Space Julia Mao & Peter Zhao, Michelle Yang Yichang Rd, Shanghai, China artmichelle.yang@purpleroof.com.cn www.purpleroof.com.cn +86 21 5175 2711

NATURAL CHAOS Golden Edition No. 1 - in collaboration with VERIDOR

Dimensions: 1.30 m × 1.25 m × 1.55 m (L × W × H) — 45 kg Materials: Rose gold 18 kt: 27,955.50 g, White gold 18 kt: 5,708.60 g, Fine palladium: 770.66 g, Fine silver: 11,380.00 g 176 meters of the highest quality precious metal products have been used to make Natural Chaos Golden Edition No. 1.

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Jungle Cities Arne Quinze to launch his new exhibition – JUNGLE CITIES – at DENK gallery, Los Angeles JANUARY 25 - APRIL 15, 2017 As an artist, Arne Quinze might be described as one of the more ambitious players or even gamblers of his profession. A gambler is someone who exuberantly puts everything on a single card and doesn’t always play by the rules. Quinze experiments with various forms and connections between predecessors from the history of art, the public space and modern-day depictions of nature. His large, sometimes outsized sculptures put up in public spaces in recent years are characterized by bulky shapes, chaotically sprawling movements, and anonymous, graffiti-like traces. With their intense colours, they

act like conspicuously dynamic artefacts which seem to actively encourage their viewers to participate in something playing with visual stimuli or even “overstimulation”. In his projects challenging all the senses, Quinze attempts – as he himself stresses – to address the lack of diversity and variety in today’s culture, whose richness tends to be spoken and written about rather than experienced. Can there be a greater contrast between Arne Quinze and the associations we attach to nineteenth-century Romantic art? Quite unlike, say, Caspar David Friedrich, who swept up viewers

in the contemplative silence of his melancholic picture planes, Arne Quinze’s viewers are directly tossed into the swirling chaos of different perspectives with immediate impact. Whereas the Romantic artists regarded nature above all as a place of quiet contemplation, Quinze uses historical associations with nature (such as “chaos” and “sublimity”) as ideas for images which he transforms into structures between art and nature. The wild elements of his sculptures move awkwardly into the surrounding space as if groping for imaginary, unknown connections. Often appearing oddly diversified at first glance, each of his projects both materially and spiritually demands a form, challenging viewers to come up with their own associations. The demonstratively staged fragmentation (emphasized by the artist almost like a hallmark in his spatial structures) embodies ideas and views which cross the Romantic traditions of nature (especially the sublime) with the expectations of spectacular contemporary

performances. In the “chaos of nature”, the image of a constantly reactivated treatment of art appears. Entranced by the dynamics of Quinze’s structures, viewers discover their active participation in the occurrence in space. Just as in times past the public enjoyed conjuring up ideal images of timeless nature, those viewing Arne Quinze’s works understand how nature and dynamics, space and image are blended into each other, artistically and explosively in equal measure. To quote the artist: “Natural chaos represents a symbolic and physical connection between people and tries to provoke reaction.” Nature becomes a playful place for new associations and surprising metamorphoses; the artist transforms his “Natural Chaos Sculptures” into forms of excessive energy which directly respond to the imagination of their viewers. Text: Michael Kroeger

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INTERVIEW

Matthew Gardocki is the gallery director for DENK at 749 E. Temple St. a new gallery opening 2017 in the Arts District of Los Angeles, California

and abroad. My focus will be to cultivate DENK’s dialogue within Los Angeles as well as the larger international contemporary art community.

Gardocki cultivated his career in Contemporary Art starting out with Patrick Painter in Santa Monica from 2005-2010, and then Mark Moore Gallery 2010-2016 in Culver City.

Q: What is the vision for DENK?

Q: What will your role be with DENK? A: As gallery director, I will start the process of laying the groundwork for programming and the gallery’s vision for the future. DENK will start with a captivating exhibition by Belgian conceptual artist Arne Quinze and then move to curate a series of small group exhibitions with a focus on select artists from Los Angeles

A: DENK will present a diverse program featuring a range of local and international contemporary artists working across a wide range of mediums. The goal is to curate a series of engaging exhibitions by providing a space that will allow artists the opportunity for their own concepts and visions to become a reality. Q: When did you know you wanted to work in the arts? A: I had always wanted to work in the arts from a very young age. For me it was starting out as an artist myself. Although, it was as an opportunity to work at Patrick Painter (Santa Monica) that was my first exposure to the inner workings of the gallery world. After a number

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of years there I moved onto to become a Director at Mark Moore Gallery (Culver City). This new position allowed me to work more closely with the artists and clients to develop lasting relationships. I began to find myself less interested in my own studio practice and more interested in the dialogues and collaborations happening with the artists in the studio and those galleries that represented them. Working directly with artists, especially younger artists has been very fulfilling for me and I hope to take the knowledge gained from my experiences to help build DENK into a truly special exhibition space. Q: What are some planned upcoming exhibitions? A: Everyone will have to wait and see.

DENK gallery at 749 E. Temple St. A new gallery opening 2017 in the Arts District of Los Angeles, California

Katja Van Herle Principal Info@denkgallery.com

David Hoey Principal david@denkgallery.com +1 424 362 3700

Matthew Gardocki Art Director matthew@denkgallery.com +1 323 537 6736

DENK OPENING JANUARY 25

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INSIGHT

Atelier Melens & Dejardin

When Arne Quinze first came to our workshop, he had a cardboard model under his arm. He explained to us that he wanted a large-scale version of the same and he was looking for a resistant material, steel. That was in 2010, six years ago already, six years of a happy and enduring working relationship. Although we were already accustomed to large-scale realisations in industrial furnaces, art and architecture, with Arne we dared to embark on other types of monumental sculptures,

combining structural parts with other, lighter elements, suggesting chaos. This development occurred naturally, thanks to the skills of each person in our workshop but also thanks to the truly interactive collaboration between Arne and all the members of our team. Melens & Dejardin is a company situated at Jupille-sur-Meuse (Liège), Belgium. It was founded there in 1932 and now has the experience of three generations of steel enthusiasts and strategists in tune with their time.

In order to adapt to the changes that have affected the Liège steel industry, the company has branched out into profoundly diversified activities. Beginning with industrial furnaces, it has directed its activity towards architecture, availing itself of specialist design firms such as Greisch, and towards art, working with the most daring contemporary artists and sculptors such as Arne Quinze.

ATELIER MELENS & DEJARDIN Rue Désiré Simonis 55, 4020 Liège, Belgium + 32 (0)4 362 62 20

Gérard Dejardin

Art Casting Van Geert

ART CASTING VAN GEERT Wijngaardveld 15/B, 9300 Aalst, Belgium + 32 (0)53 71 13 31

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;In this day and age we can see clearly, for the first time, the impact mankind has had on the natural world, and the terrible environmental consequences which have followed. I was shocked to learn that since I was born in 1971, we, as humans, have managed to destroy onethird of the flora and fauna existing at that time. As an artist I consider it my duty to use my art to call for a better balance between culture and nature. I am trying to encourage a conversation that will change the way we think and ask questions. By doing so, I want to raise the awareness of the viewing public, resulting in a more careful and considered approach to our urban planning context.â&#x20AC;? Arne Quinze

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JUNGLE CITIES ARNE QUINZE JANUARY 25 - APRIL 25, 2017 DENK gallery, Los Angeles