A collection of images, an image ledger: an inventory of lines
referring to an endless number of possibilities. (Johan De Wilde, Particles p.40) >line
A collection of teeth; Annelies Slabbynck. Every set of teeth is
on principle a collection of teeth; at the same time it is not a collection. The
collection originates out of the functional context of every element of the set.
A collection of mail therefore de facto isn’t compatible with mail art as an
interactive technique. The mail artist uses stamps, a stamp collector gathers
them. Things that on the contrary are collected in the mail art scene (mail art
people are roughly speaking ardent collectionists) are dies, pieces of paper,
vignettes, mail art itself, addresses, artists’ stamps, junk, rubbish as such,
clippings, single-copy booklets, etc.
The unfinished infinity suggested by the words and so forth.
To complete the enumeration of an insect collection of 12
specimens by calling the twelfth specimen all other insects.
Alan Smith (GB) collects hammers. Krysztof Denek collects
newspaper clippings. Annelies Slabbynck collect fingers vingers. Johan De Wilde
collects a-nostalgic snapshots, an inventory of experiences. Larry Krone (US) collects
hairs he harvests from the bathtub drain. Karien Vandekerkhove collects shoe
boxes; was collecting, because past time.
Numbering. An inventory of group- and solo projects. Reduction
of identities to numbers. Tinka Pittoors collects wool, hair and colourful patches
of fabric. Lou M. C. Mulder collects snapshots./ The collection of Martha De
Brabandere, dog of Mario De Brabandere
(sequel >BASICS 2): chestnuts, twigs, pieces of wood, strings of hemp,
plastic garbage (etcetera). The mental self-castigation of a text consisting
only of enumerations. The collector’s ritual: Mario De Brabandere recycles the objets trouvés that Martha the dog
brings home but only does so when Martha brings them literally over the
doorstep; then he finishes each specimen with a string and a number code and
keeps them in a wooden box. It is the box that ends up in BASICS 2, together
with a wooden crate on wheels, especially designed to move Martha’s collection to
their new address
Another collection of Annelies Slabbynck: X-rays. The bantam
hens, oil on panel, transformed by Rik Soenen in an installation window (crox
141, May 2005). The encyclopedia, a collection of entries. Collections of
accounting and administrative documents: minutes of board meetings, reports of
meetings, settlement of expenses, piles of bills and receipts.
COLLECTOMANIA:THE WRATH OF THE GATHERER
Inventary of a collection of collections:
-animals - fetussen of rabbits – cuddly toy (bears, bunnies) -
snails – a jackdaw, unexpected visitor during the buildup of a project – a
horse wrapped in gauze – deer heads – the black bear cub on the cover of the
folio edition of novels by Patrick Modiano – the females in some of the other
collections of Nicolas Leus - windhound, horse, rabbit and hare, iconografic
elements in the painted works by L. Vervaecke – the butterflies in the
photocopy art of German artist Wolfgang Hainke – the black cat on the left
shoulder of Georges Perec on the cover of the translation of W ou le souvenir
d'enfance published by Arbeiderspers in the series Privé-Domein;
-apple trees – a series of b/w photo’s of apple trees from
Calvados, an inventory by Marc Coene;
-benches in Paris, a series of b/w photo’s by Marc Coene;
-birth mark – six paintings by Florin Buta; the pinkish spots
are based on the mother of all birth marks: Gorbachev’s;
-black – black tape wound round cardboard tubes – the sides of
the paintings of Jerry Heymans - black polka dots – drawings in charcoal and
ink – black tape, used or fresh, parts of the remains of crox project 118 shown in a glass case - black
tape appears frequently in the SHCORR mail art series – the outside of the
black folders Sjoerd uses to save his part of the SHCORR mail art reeks – several
series of b/w photo’s – the striped cloth of the tailored suit Thomas Broadbent
used in his multi-sleeve piece – the name of the author, Fukwell, on one of the
books from the orange series of Nicolas Leus – a limited number of stamps
Ryosuke Cohen gathered on the many sheets of stamp-art – the black inside
caused by a crack in a stone found in the abbey itself – some of the champagne caps
in the in situ work by a certain Phillippe – the grounding of a number of
paitings from the collection of L. Vervaecke - the collection of round and
triangular supports of some hundred single - the mark Collectione di Stief Desmet, written with charcoal on a quarto sheet of
paper – the felt pens, shown in one of the glass cases by which CarianaCarianne
expressed the hard labour of the One Zillion Cows during crox project 118 in 2004.
-books; the Perec-collection of Hans van Heirseele - 8 copies
from the collection of Paris books of Nicolas Leus - 8 copies from the orange
series of Nicolas Leus (eroticism and
porn) - 8 copies from a series of old sex mags – the green book of Nicolas Leus
- 8 art pockets from the zwartebeertjes series [black bear editions] - part 4 of
a five part edition about Auschwitz, from the crox 118-box – the first
visitor’s book of croxhapox, 1990-2000 period - 8 novels by Patrick Modiano from
the Gallimard folio-series, illustrated by Le Tann (Nicolas) - two copies of the
1969 Querido edition of Kaas [Cheese]
by Willem Elsschot, a collection of Hans van Heirseele - a publication by Guy
Bleus on mail art, a biography of Kurt Schwitters and an interview with Joseph
Beuys, a book from the French Tandem series;
-Cohen, Ryosuke (Jap) – mail arts with stamp prints by Japanese artist
Ryosuke Cohen from the collection of Frips;
-crox 118, a box with the remains of the Borders-project of
CarianaCarianne;
-Crozier, Robin; mail art pieces from the private collection of
Sjoerd Paridaen;
-doors – doors at Sauve, a series of b/w photo’s by Marc Coene;
-drawer – the drawer chest, or rather, the front of a drawer
chest, an ingenious and somewhat brilliant find of the KAMP-collective: one of the
drawers is open, its back end extending meters further into the passage of the
stairwell: the virtual collection of all collections together;
-drawings – a series of recent works by Windy Corteel - drawings
in epoxy by W.O.K – three sketchbooks from Jos Van Meerssche – drawings and
clippings of Robin Crozier from the collection of Sjoerd Paridaen - recycled
combinations of lines, one of the collections of Nicolas Leus – children’s
drawings – line drawings with markers and felt-tips, frequent appearances in
the SHCORR collection;
-Elsschot – two times Kaas, Querido-edition of 1969;
-fetus – a number of fetusses of rabbits;
-Ferrari – brand of one of the cars in the matchbox case 41
collection of Thomas Bogaert;
-film - a collection of movie magazines (kritisch filmforum e.a.) from the sixties;
-gauze – sculptures wrapped in gauze, one of which representing
a horse with a funnel round its neck, recent
work by Ingrid Apers;
-heads of deer, a collection of Stief Desmet;
-houses of commerce – a series of b/w photo’s made in Ecuador by
Marc Coene;
-identity card identiteitskaart - de ID card van
CarianaCarianne;
-indirect correspondence - TIPS, a work from 1999 by Johan De
Wilde;
-invisible – the sheets of paper with stamps – except for one,
the uppermost – from the private collection of Frips – the content of the
wooden box of Mario De Brabandere’s dog - the painted sides of the black
paintings of Jerry Heymans - the mail arts Frips and Marc Coene exchanged, apart
from the backside of the top one - the
mail arts by Herman Kruiskamp apart from the front of the top one – some of the
pieces by Norma Markley who are partly hidden under the red t-shirt of Larry
Krone – those remains of the crox 118 box which aren’t in the glass case, not
next to the box or not peering out of the box - the movie magazines, apart from
the top one – the inner pages of the collections of books (8 items in each) Nicolas
Leus showed – the inner pages of the books from the Perec collection, apart
from one: Les Mots Croisés opens on a
page in the middle – the contents of the suitcases of J. Van der Borght, apart from one – the content
of a number of archaic mails from the collection of Sjoerd Paridaen – the upper
side of most of the paintings by L. Vervaecke – all copies of a mail art mailing
of PARIDADA apart from a couple – the inside
of a small suitcase marked MATCHBOX SERIES CASE NR 41 – the small neons, two of
them, lighting the work of Nancy Delille – the spots of the salvo of pigeon
poo, scraped away with a kitchen knife after the passage of a squadron of city
pigeons - the mail arts in the shoe boxes Hans van Heirseele keeps his part of
the SHCORR collection in, unless someone takes them out and looks at them - the
collections of drawings and paintings from the pupils at the Tekenakademie [Art
School], apart from the top one – the content of the sketchbooks of Jos Van
meerssche, unless someone opens them to browse – almost invisible: the title of
La Disparition [A Void];
-iron and the like - the weapons collection of J. Van der Borght
– one of the Pinocchio skulls is made of
bronze, the other of aluminium – a number of rusty hinges of a greenhouse – a
pair of tweezers, a number of steel nails and a small screwdriver, parts from
the crox 118 box - the matchbox case NR 41 collection – a number of caps of champagne bottles, an in
situ work by one of the students of the Mixed Media department – two black bulldog
clips;
-jars and other containers – the bidons of Peter Lagast – the flasks, tubes and bottles
painted in white gesso from Ann Van der Gucht – conic containers (3 each time) from
the collection of Hans van Heirseele - Windy Corteel’s bottle filled with
broches – jars with rabbit fetusses in formalin, a vegetable added to each
fetus;
-jewels – a series of colourful necklaces by Windy Corteel;
-Kruiskamp, Herman (NL) - 5 mail arts by Herman Kruiskamp from
the collection of Frips;
-mail art - TIPS, an indirect correspondence project by Johan De
Wilde – mail art from Stefaan Claeys (pupil Tekenakademie) - fragments from the
private collections of Sjoerd Paridaen (Robin Crozier...), Frips (Herman
Kruiskamp, Ryosuke Cohen) - the SHCORR-collection of Sjoerd Paridaen and Hans
van Heirseele;
-matchboxes, some 30 from the collection of Thomas Bogaert;
-medallion - two medaillons of Evelien Geysen;
-Modiano, 8 novels from the folio-series from Gallimard;
-mythic beings - Philemon and Baucis, puppets wrapped in gauze,
recent work by Ingrid Apers; mythic books: La Disparition & Les Revenentes by
Georges Perec;
-North Sea - 8 picture postcards from the North Sea, one of the
collections of Nicolas Leus;
-paintings – the black paintings of Jerry Heymans – two
paintings by Jos Van Meerssche from a private collection – six paintings by
Florin Buta – works of pupils of the Tekenakademiie – a gouache by Hans van
Heirseele - ninety paintings from the cartload of paintings L. Vervaecke produces
yearly – the painter’s palette of Hans van Heirseele, period 1994-1999 – the
painted skulls from some of the Pinocchioskulls from Peter Lagast, also a
rectuangular piece of wood, more or less in de shape of a skull, with some
iconographic elements of a skull painted on in black and white;
-Paris - 8 Parisbook from the collection of Nicolas Leus - the
graves at the cimetery of Montmartre and the benches in the inner city of Paris,
two series of photo's by Marc Coene – an as yet to be sent via indirect
correspondence book with Paris as intermediairy destination;
-pebbles - the collection of Nathan (pupil Tekenakademie) - two lovely
stones (one of them somewhat resembles a dog’s head) found at the site;
-photocopy art by Jürgen O. Olbrich, Franz John, Wolfgang
Hainke, Ervin Szubori and Istvan Tenke, from the crox-archive;
-photo's – a series of series by Marc Coene - polaroids by
Ingrid Apers - 6 photo's by Nancy Delille;
-picture postcards: 8 picture postcards from the North Sea and 8
cards from parks from the many collections of Nicolas Leus - the SHCORR mail
art collection of Sjoerd Paridaen and Hans van Heirseele – a number of mail arts
from Frips and Marc Coene;
-plaster - three plaster tablets, work by a pupil of Tekenademie
- the deer heads by Stief Desmet;
-plastic: all kinds of lids, not all of plastic, a collection of
Sjoerd Paridaen – structures of netting, different colours of fishing net yarn,
pieces of plastic and plastic bags, four collections of Nicolas Leus – a
serving tray with polka dots, from Windy Corteel – blinking eyes and several
other elemnts from the collection of Norma Markley – a rolled up, transparent
water bag with a fitting tube, one of many pieces from the crox 118 box - the
transparant plastic bags Nicolas Leus uses to wrap each of the items of his
many collections – the flasks, tubes and other make-up stuff painted with white
gesso by Ann Van der Gucht – a number of
plastic displays of a type that is used in borders to mark the names of plants
and a pile of empty casette tape boxes, two collections of Sjoerd Paridaen - several
pieces from the collection of objets
trouvés from Ann Cannoot – plastic sheets for folders – the folders, 8 of
them, which Sjoerd Paridaen uses to keep the SHCORR pieces – three yellow
semi-transparant tumblers – the tumblers of Peter Lagast – a small suitcase
marked MATCHBOX SERIES;
-porn - 8 orange books with or about eroticism and 8 girlie
magazines from the fifties and sixties, collected by Nicolas Leus;
-rabbit – recurring iconographic element in the paintings of L.
Vervaecke - fetussen of rabbits in formaline;
-rope and strings – carefully rolled up and tied up lengths of
string, shown in a glass case from the crox
118 box - yarn – a length of white plastic rope used to tie up the wooden box
of Martha's collection – combinations of lines made of wool and strings and
similar materials, one of the many collections of Nicolas Leus;
-round - the green sphere from the collection of HAP-spheres - the
dots and numerous objets & papiers
trouvés in the SHCORR mail
art collection – polka dots - the plates, one of them adorned with polka dots, Windy
Corteel brought forward – the beads of colourful necklaces from a collection of
Windy Corteel – a limited number of powder
compact and other usefuls painted white with gesso, from the collection of Ann
Van der Gucht – the jars filled with formaline – the used and new rolls of tape
from the crox 118 box – a galvanized plate – a number of glass containers, part
of the collections of Ann Cannoot;
-Shakespeare - all Shakespeare sonnets copied on top of one
another, a photocopy art piece from the Hungarian artist Ervin Szubori hwo used
trasparants for the copying;
-shoe – black lady’s pumps with a pattern of light blue polka
dots, from Windy Corteel;
-soap – leftovers of soap collected by Nicolas Leus;
-utensils – a pair of pincers, screwdrivers, plyers, all from
the crox 118-box of CarianaCarianne;
-vegetable – a vegetable or a piece of apple has been added to
each of the rabbit fetusses in formaline – the figurines of Philemon &
Baucis wrapped in gauze resemble ginseng roots;