The Unbearable Joy of Pictures
This is the trailer for the solo exhibition ‘The Unbearable Joy of Pictures, The Herbarium of the Battlefield’ of Koen Broucke at De Garage, Mechelen (Belgium), March-May 2018. The artist walks during winter on the battlefield of Brustem in search for the weed plantain. The text of Ernst Jünger (Storm of Steel) describes the battlefield nearby Monchy-au-Bois in Autumn 1915. Voice: Matthew Lenton, Video: Jess De Gruyter. ‘Rank weeds climb up and through the barbed wire, symptomatic of a new and different type of flora taking root on the fallow fields. Wild flowers, of a sort that generally make only an occasional appearance in grain fields, dominate the scene; here and there even bushes and shrubs have taken hold. The paths too are overgrown, but easily identified by the presence on them of round-leaved plantains. Bird life thrives in such wilderness, partridges for instance, whose curious cries we often hear at night, or larks, whose choir starts up at first light over the trenches.’ Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel (In Stahlgewittern).
This is the trailer for the solo exhibition ‘The Unbearable Joy of Pictures, The Herbarium of the Battlefield’ of Koen Broucke at De Garage, Mechelen (Belgium), March-May 2018. The artist walks during winter on the battlefield of Brustem in search for the weed plantain. The text of Ernst Jünger (Storm of Steel) describes the battlefield nearby Monchy-au-Bois in Autumn 1915. Voice: Matthew Lenton, Video: Jess De Gruyter. ‘Rank weeds climb up and through the barbed wire, symptomatic of a new and different type of flora taking root on the fallow fields. Wild flowers, of a sort that generally make only an occasional appearance in grain fields, dominate the scene; here and there even bushes and shrubs have taken hold. The paths too are overgrown, but easily identified by the presence on them of round-leaved plantains. Bird life thrives in such wilderness, partridges for instance, whose curious cries we often hear at night, or larks, whose choir starts up at first light over the trenches.’ Ernst Jünger, Storm of Steel (In Stahlgewittern).
Death in Venice
Death in Venice premiered on January 16, 2016 in the St Nicholas Church in Willebroek (Belgium). Jan Michiels played music of Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner / Franz Liszt and Luigi Nono on a Steinway from 1875. Koen Broucke created the image to this performance.
On February 13, 1883 a long procession of gondolas drew onto the Grand Canal to the Santa Lucia station in Venice. In front, an impressive funeral gondola with the coffin of Richard Wagner en route to Bayreuth. He had succumbed to a heart attack in the Ca'Vendramin Calergi palace. A few weeks earlier, his father in law Franz Liszt visited him there. During this stay Liszt wrote, in a clairvoyant inspiration, his La lugubre gondola. Did he remember, happy days in Venice in 1838 with his mistress Countess Marie d'Agoult, during which he worked on the transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies and composed his Gondeliera?
Music in this video: Franz Liszt, La lugubre gondola I & II (piano: Jan Michiels)
Paintings: Koen Broucke
Video: Ellen Vermeulen
Geisterstimmen im Walde
A musical walk through the nightly forest with the music of Robert Schumann for oboe and piano, ‘Waldszenen’ and 'Geistervariationen’ for piano solo.
Jan Michiels (piano)
Piet Van Bockstal (oboe)
Koen Broucke (image & concept)
'But now the poor child was all alone in the great forest, and so terrified that she looked at every leaf of every tree, and did not know what to do. Then she began to run, and ran over sharp stones and through thorns, and the wild beasts ran past her, but did her no harm. She ran as long as her feet would go until it was almost evening; then she saw a little cottage and went into it to rest herself.'
Snow-white, Grimm’s Fairy Tales
A musical walk through the nightly forest with the music of Robert Schumann for oboe and piano, ‘Waldszenen’ and 'Geistervariationen’ for piano solo.
Jan Michiels (piano)
Piet Van Bockstal (oboe)
Koen Broucke (image & concept)
'But now the poor child was all alone in the great forest, and so terrified that she looked at every leaf of every tree, and did not know what to do. Then she began to run, and ran over sharp stones and through thorns, and the wild beasts ran past her, but did her no harm. She ran as long as her feet would go until it was almost evening; then she saw a little cottage and went into it to rest herself.'
Snow-white, Grimm’s Fairy Tales
Leslie François (Koen Broucke) entered a competition for visual art broadcasted on national television: Canvascollectie -- La Collection RTBF.
He got selected with one of his Liszt-Performances.
He got selected with one of his Liszt-Performances.