Wunderkammer: Valentin van der Meulen

Every week, AGENDA goes in search of the sound & vision of Brussels. This time, Valentin van der Meulen welcomed us into his studio in Vorst/Forest and drew our attention to the aesthetic magnetism of erasing.

Valentin van der Meulen’s studio has a ceiling that is 6 m 75 high. Located under the roof, it is a bit like an arrow pointed towards the sky, a real little Sixtine Chapel. Six shaded windows block the sun’s rays, so the room is lit by two neon lights mounted on stands. The studio’s imposing dimensions are no mere caprice: they are related to the large format of the works of this 37-year-old French artist, who divides his time between Brussels and Paris. Van der Meulen explains: “My studio in Paris is more logistic: it allows me to take on larger formats, to store them, and to send them to the galleries that represent me in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium. In Brussels, it’s different: I have a more intimate relationship with my works. Here, I live among them: no doubt, that’s why, when I’m here, I work seven days a week.”

In the middle of the room, a structure made of wooden beams divides the space in two. Even though there are plenty of canvases and tools there too, the outer perimeter is mainly devoted to everyday life; it includes a little kitchen and a bed on a mezzanine. Beyond, separated by a tarpaulin-like sheet of plastic, is the space devoted to creative work. The reason for this partition is the artist’s systematic utilisation of black chalk, a drawing material made up of ampelite and pigment that generates a lot of dust.

At first sight, one might describe Van der Meulen’s work as “photographic and spectacular”. But that would be to completely miss the point: his approach is infinitely more subtle than that. For this artist, a drawing is less a goal than a process. And that process starts off with the collecting of images, sometimes personal, sometimes anonymous, sometimes taken from the Internet, sometimes found in a second-hand bookshop.

DESTRUCTION AS ENRICHMENT
Taking this raw material as his starting point, Van der Meulen first of all sets about its cropping and its transposition into black and white. The image appropriated in this way then serves as the model for a drawing the artist makes, freehand, using charcoal. Next, he goes back over this sketch with black chalk, hatching and thus imbuing the paper with a brilliant outre-noir (“beyond black”), which he spreads using a ribbed rubber (eraser). This process enables him to add new contours and nuances of grey to the composition. Not only that: the rubber inscribes his action directly in the mounted paper (Canson 224 grammes). This results in effects of texture and movement that shatter any strictly “photographic” reading of the work.

To clear up misunderstandings, Valentin van der Meulen performs in public. “I demonstrate live what the erasure contributes: what might be taken for destruction is actually enriching… It’s about dismantling the objectivity that we attribute to images. By altering them, I reveal their true nature.” This instinctive work on form can only be understood in terms of the thematic content the French artist explores. “The subjects that preoccupy me are those of memory, of time passing, of History with a capital H,” observes Van der Meulen. This can be appraised via three portraits currently on show at the Mazel Galerie, which serve as a kind of teaser in advance of a solo show programmed for June at the same gallery.

One large-format studio work that is fairly emblematic of his approach represents the blurred face of Rosemary Kennedy. The blurring carried out by the artist emphasises the gaze “at once marked by age and afraid like a child” of JFK’s sister. Her tragic destiny was reduced to the status of a small-print footnote to the story of her prestigious family. For a reason: at the request of her parents, Rosemary underwent a lobotomy that reduced her to the mental age of a young child. Van der Meulen explains: “The official version was that the operation was to protect her from herself, but it seems that in reality her unstable behaviour was seen as something that might damage her big brother’s career. From one day to the next, she disappeared from the family albums… That’s what is fascinating about that story: an image that speaks about images.”

BLACK ARCHIVES
Since he has had a studio of his own in Brussels, Valentin van der Meulen has explored a more personal trail. “One side of my family is from Brussels, so by coming here, I’m fulfilling a sort of duty of remembrance.” This return to his roots has been accompanied by some work on family images, as in the drawing that he is currently making.

“I made this sketch on the basis of a photograph of my great-grandfather, who had the same name as me. I became interested in his story because of a parallel my grandmother drew between her father’s life and the lives of today’s illegal immigrants. That inspired me to undertake this project, which will make visible the gradual realisation of this work through a cross fading based on the ideas of transmission and transmutation: out of areas of black, made on the paper using black chalk, emerges the white outline of my great-grandfather’s face, while mine will be blackened by the dust.”

Borough: Vorst/Forest
Exhibition: “Créations belges” (group show): > 9/4, Mazel Galerie, www.mazelgalerie.com
Info: www.valentinvandermeulen.com