‘The subject of this book is concerned with
spaces and things, or to be more precise, how
to look at them,’ announce Nicolas de Oliveira summarily invoked (they are). Your eyes start
and Nicola Oxley with a mixture of grandeur and to water and you reach for the gin. Not because
imprecision in the first line of their introduction to any of these thinkers (or more relevantly, their
this monograph. ‘These are some of the motifs thoughts) are beside the point. Rather because
deployed by the Belgian artist Hans Op de there’s nothing more likely to smother and
Beeck’, they continue, ‘who will not be mentioned overpower the romance of artwork than an
again by name, he will simply be referred to as overabundance of this kind of (mainly) French
the artist.’ Which allows them to launch forth sauce. And despite the fact that, on many
into a laudable explanation of how the artist’s occasions, boredom – empty road crossings,
personality is irrelevant as a tool to deciphering his deserted motorway cafés, children vacantly
work and, furthermore, that the work is essentially staring out the back window of a car – seems to
unknowable through its representation in the be its central theme, Op de Beeck’s work has a
form of the wonderful photographs of it that litter fair degree of poetry at its heart.
this book. And with that fell swoop, they manage But don’t panic. Put the lid back on the
both to erase ‘the subject of this book’ and turn gin. It’s not all as terrifying as it seems. This book
him into some strange, unknowable Prince-like presents a decade of Op de Beeck’s works,
god figure whose name must never be mentioned and given that these have been executed in
(even though it is everpresent in big type on the almost every media imaginable – film, video,
cover and would, presumably, be the only reason animation, installation, drawing, sculpture, text
anyone would pick up, let alone open the book in and photography – attempting to create some
the first place) for fear of bringing on some sort sort of fog of coherence around them is no
of perceptual and methodological Armageddon. bad tactic. Ultimately, De Oliveira and Oxley’s
By the end of these Revelations, the authors, texts are little more than extremely aggravated
like a pair of self-flagellants, have managed to footnotes (they might prefer to describe them
limit themselves to promising to ‘point’ their as labyrinths of thought) to the extracts from
quaking collective finger at various things that Op de Beeck’s novella My Brother’s Gardens
may, in a circuitous way, constitute some sort of (2001) that form the basis of his captivating film
atmosphere that oxygenates the work. by that name and mark out many of the furrows
But as that pointing finger begins to his works plough: among them the relationships
waggle in the direction of philosopher Michel between spectators and spectacles, between the
de Certeau’s analysis of narrative, novelist imaginary and the real, and between the ordinary
André Gide’s construction of the mis en abîme and extraordinary.
and anthropologist Marc Augé’s categorisation Ultimately you’ll end up thinking that, over
of ‘non-places’, your heart begins to sink. And the last decade or so, Op de Beeck has assembled
you wait for the great gods of French thinking an extremely impressive and coherent body of
– Foucault, Derrida, Bachelard, et al. – to be work. A monograph of this size is exactly what he
needs and deserves. Perhaps it’s understandable
that he’s held in such awe. Mark Rappolt
HANS OP DE BEECK:
ON VANISHING
By Nicolas de Oliveira & Nicola Oxley
Mercatorfonds/Xavier Hufkens, €65.99 (hardback)
p138-141 Books AR Jul07.indd 141 6/6/07 03:10:03
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