#Artist #Levi #van #Veluw #renovating #Singer #Laren #cover #chic #hardwood #floor #kilos #marbled #clay
Sunday March 17
There is no art without context
Around 7 a.m. I drive into the deserted storage area. Here are hundreds of bulkheads, glass plates, painted balls, bags of coal and more than 1,500 replicas of my own head. Today everything is transported in four large trucks.
There is a washing machine workshop in the front part of the storage. Two men work continuously on repairing washing machines. When I walk by I think back to my childhood and to our garden full of dishwashers, refrigerators and freezers. The place where we played endless hide-and-seek among the stacked white goods.
While my father isolated himself in his workshop for days and dealt with repairs and collecting invoices, we set our own rules. I realize that the urge for a liberal profession was probably formed at this young age.
A visit to the storage facility is always accompanied by mixed feelings. On the one hand it brings back memories of my youth and on the other hand it brings art back to absolute zero. Because what is actually left of art when you strip it of its context? In this dreary barn I need all my imagination.
Monday March 18
The reunion
Today felt like a twelve hour episode of The reunion. Everyone was there. All nice people I have worked with over the past fifteen years, bam, all at once in Laren.
It is uncomfortable for a moment, but soon the stories start about France, where we filled a centuries-old period room in a chateau with 5,000 liters of black water. How everyone lay awake at night thinking that a single mistake could destroy three hundred years of heritage in 24 hours, by a tsunami of black ink.
Everyone laughs when we talk about Italy, where we slept on eco straw beds and suffered from back pain. Except René, because he used to have such a mattress thanks to his anthroposophical upbringing. How we drunkenly cut his hair and discovered the next morning that he had turned into Kim Jong-un’s brother. Or the roller coaster ride in an abandoned amusement park, where the cart was filled with sandbags and mannequins, and Stas’ pale face when we left.
Unfortunately no days off this time, because we only have eight days to renovate this entire museum. At 9 a.m. sharp I have to play the boss and break the fun. “Okay guys, let’s get started!”
Tuesday March 19
Of metamorphosis
The museum staff quickly removes the works from the previous exhibition from the rooms. There are crates, pallet trucks and scaffolding everywhere. I run from room to room like a referee without a whistle and try to coordinate everything properly.
I try to keep my cool. I keep seeing my assistants coming into the hallway with parts of installations. We have created a large part in recent months, but there are also works of art that I have not touched in fifteen years.
I shout: “Careful. those balls are fragile.” And: “Watch out for the corners of the mirrors!”
Normally only paintings hang on a wall in this museum. But now the chic hardwood floor will be covered with terracotta-colored panels and 15,000 pounds of marbled clay. The freshly plastered wall is covered with blue latex and the high-tech ceiling is hidden under brown textile.
The museum staff views this total transformation of their beloved museum with great suspicion. The project leader looks at me anxiously: “It looks very different from the photos, as if you have emptied the entire Praxis…” I also start to have doubts. It does indeed look like a hardware store warehouse at the moment.
Photo Bram Petraeus
Thursday March 21
The glue gun
Twelve years ago I made three installations, inspired by nightmares from my youth. One of these installations includes my former bedroom, the walls and all objects of which are covered with more than 10,000 wooden balls. Museum Arnhem purchased this work of art in 2016. We have it on loan for this exhibition.
I emailed back and forth a few times asking if it was really necessary. Yes, it was really necessary, it was a fixed protocol that could not be deviated from: the installation of the artwork had to be attended by a museum collection employee. The fact that this employee had never attended a construction of the work and therefore had no idea which screw belonged where was irrelevant.
As I walk into the room to see how the process is going, I see a few wooden balls rolling across the floor. My knowledge of glue was still underdeveloped in the early years of my career, so I glued the 10,000 wooden balls in place with hot glue. I see the collection employee furiously taking notes in his notepad, slightly panicking. When he looks up again after a few seconds, the balls are back in place and I unperturbedly put the glue gun back in the toolbox. Still, it’s a nice idea that they treat my installation so carefully.
Every part must remain exactly as I intended it to be. Strange, it still felt like my work of art, but it wasn’t that anymore.
Tuesday March 26
The opening
My children think I’m a cultural barbarian. You would probably expect a museum to be an artist’s natural habitat. In my spare time I prefer to walk around it with a wide berth. In a museum I mainly think about working, I can’t walk around there uninhibited. So I like to leave that part of raising children to my wife.
Today was an exception, because it was my own opening. So many people, a whole theater full, my wife and children, my family, friends, assistants, collectors, my dear gallery owner Ron and all other loyal followers of my work. It was a race against time to build everything up within a week, muscle pain, bags under the eyes and a bruised foot, but what a relief. I receive the Singer Prize in a packed room and talk about the exhibition.
Then I receive so many compliments that I wake up the next day with a hangover. Let’s put everything into perspective again today, luckily I’m pretty good at that.
In the section Culture diary Every week an artist shares this week’s experiences.
A version of this article also appeared in
the newspaper of April 4, 2024.
