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look! the castle of king stephan! and there in the highest tower, dreaming of her true love, princess aurora. it happens that i make a workand i make it and it is good, and that is very surprising, since oftensince often it isn't so. mostly i make a painting, and i makeanother painting, and it stands there, and i simply see a painting and nothing more. but that is the addiction, i wait for it tohappen, you know. at a certain moment you createsomething and it surprises me,

and then i think what happened?it happened. i then don't have the feeling i've done it,i made it, it happened... and is that exceptional? is it mostly aniggling and a hassle? actually yes, mostly it's slogging, search,research, trying out things. sometimes you work very concentrated for thewhole day and you make a horrible thing and then at the end of the day you need tostay calm and not get inflamed. when are you satisfied with your work? it must move me, cut me at a certainpoint, 'a knife in the eye'. according to michaã«l borremans, thespirit of geraardsbergen,

where he was born in 1963, blows through him . blows through him . that spirit is as indefinable as his work,or as the soul of the 'mattetaart'. he makes painfully beautiful images, technically masterful, and always pregnant with the absurdnessof this existence. beauty with the charm of a razor. borremans plays the guitar for his ownpleasure, he studied graphics and photography andtaught himself how to paint, a late bloomer but with the career like arocket, from tokyo to new york, from ghent to geraardsbergen.

do you have salami? yes, but salami is not so good. i'll make just one with salami, okay? they're all going to change shape a little,they'll look a bit funny. ... and your bread box i have been told you like to wear a suit. yes, when i wear a suit i feel on mysunday's best. every day sunday? hum yes, i'll sooner not wear a suit onsunday then, of course. yes, i like to wear a suit.

earlier, when i painted, i didn't wear asuit, long ago, because i could have stained it. but one day i was walking around in a suitin my studio and i started to paint, unconsciously, and i felt i concentratedin a whole different way because i couldn't get any stains on meand it felt right and since then i always do this. look, i always lock myself up when i wantto make a work, it has something ritualistic. the studio as well, everything is in thesign of concentration, the focus of that moment.

those are important moments, yes... i can imagine that you paint more carefully,conscious that you are wearing a suit? careful is not the right word, i think, you are more focused, but you can't be too concentrated or careful, because then you make constipated work. you need to find a bizarre sort ofequilibrium. one way, you need to be very concentrated,on the other hand very loose... not restrained. you notice when you're working, you are completely into the painting, you're not aware of anything else.

that is also interesting, in connectionwith making music. when you improvise you can get totally captured by it. it is actually pleasing, it is beautifullypainted, it is carefully painted, it is painted academically. all is perfect, it all looks perfect and on the other hand it is defiant,also a little morbid, a little sour,

so it is the contradiction, a conflictalmost for example, when he draws, he makes apersonal world and you can almost compare that worldwith the place we are standing in now, the mismatch between... the scale ratioin the measure between man and and the gigantic thing here. it is almost a borremans' work wherewe're standing in now. here you see twice the same painting, thesame composition. it happens frequently that i re-use thesame theme. i paint something and then i think, maybeit should be smaller or larger,

or it should be more so or so. the bigger piece is stricter, harder, andmore psychological, it almost hurts. the other is more emotional and comesforward more as such so something can be said about both. is this one of those works that was madein one go? yes, this happened quite quickly.nowadays i work often with models and i had worked with a model, i think it must have been about a year ago that imade the basic photo material for these works.

but i made the painting only two months ago. sometimes i need to manipulate the material for some time before i have an idea what to do with it. sometimes it needs to ripen... time is a very important factor in the makingof my works, same with my drawings. i have never made a drawing in one session,it can take months. it is a dialogue, you add something to the paper in thecomposition and then it lies there and then you have to... it's q&a i like to give it time.

i prefer by far to formulate the exact answer and when i don't know it, i prefer to wait. and with painting, or with the materials i useto make paintings, this happens as well. the making of the painting goes faster.that takes one or two sessions. i would not be able to work in a studiothat is separated from my living space because i want the work to be available atall times. that i can always look at it, at all times,day and night, that i can think about it, that i interactwith it. it is a way of living. is a photograph necessary as startingpoint?

well there is a tradition in it, since theorigin of photography, painters have eagerly made use of it. in my case, earlier i used to work withmaterials i found and recuperated, but i added to it or took away from it,i mean, i am never going to copy the photograph, i always manipulate theimage, as well in light, in colors, in composition. even if you consciously don't manipulate, when you paint, you always do manipulate,whether you want to or not. can you hold it a little lower?

when you make a painting, you know youare using a technique with a whole history. many things depend on it.you can't disconnect it. i think it precisely interesting thatpainting has a history that you carry along. that you communicate. i do that veryconsciously. here you have... i will put it there, andthen you can see it better here you have a painting that refersconsciously to paintings of the past. the figure on it and the light, i mean, theangle of the light on the figure, make me think of the adam figure in thelamb of god in ghent. the light is also a little like caravaggio.the man clearly holds his nose.

the work is titled: 'man holding his nose'. it is eventually an absurd interpretation,but can also be translated psychologically. it is then very contemporary. i see it as a sort of mental self-portrait,the painter pretending. it is common knowledge that peoplewho often lie touch their nose. i found that interesting. that is also something typical in my work,the incision that has to do with cinematic view, photographical view,but also and certainly in my case with looking at art in reproductions.

i know of painting mainly from reproductionsin books, often detailed, and inscisions. and that it the way we treat it nowadays. you don't have to make a big paintingsin order to give it contents, power. it can be made very small. that is what i am trying with this series. i try to make a lot of small worksthat need a lot of space. that brings forward a lot, like a bomb, lots of little bombs on the wall.small knifes in the eyes. do you sometimes make big works?

yes, i already have when the subject callsfor it. the biggest work i made, but i don't make many, is named 'the avoidance', and is a man,some sort of shepherd; which i found had to be big, but you decide that intuitively. small, the image wouldn't have worked aspainting and it didn't feel to me that it had to besmall. it had to be big. it has been painted over there, on that wall,from the ground up to the ceiling some three meters and some... and it worked.

the major physical impact, a giant form,and it was a giant, and the work needed that. some dirt has fallen on it. this work for instance i got my inspiration from as small imagein an old encyclopedia. a veterinary school... and the students are standing around thecows. there were cows here in the middle, but i left them out and i... put copies of the figures in between.so they study themselves. for one or the other reason i didn'tcontinue working on it. i must have thought i’ll work on it laterbut it has meanwhile been so long since

that maybe it won't happen. now i think it is an interesting curiosity tokeep as unfinished work. i could sell it like this, but i don't want to. this combination is interesting. the plate makes one think of an areola and the very demure look but it is also very rowdy andderisive at the same time. i find that interesting. the hair very well painted. i'm very pleased with it... so velasquez almost. i'm very happy with that.

oh it is magnificent. so senseless. in a magnificent way senseless. what michaã«l does is, he uses film in adifferent way to make paintings and i don't know of anyone who has alreadyused this approach. there is a major video artist, bill viola, who has also worked with the idea that a video almost becomes a 'tableau vivant' but it is altogether very different. bill viola is very bombastic, super emotional,super charged. it deals with the major issues of life, death,birth, departure, while with michaã«l it is all very demure and also mysterious.

when you look at a number of films one of the aspects is: why the black actors? he uses them as some sort of puppets,nothing is being done with their identity, and it is only the aesthetics of beingblack. black contrasts with white and you could very much misunderstand that. with a very simple image he questions a lot. i'm hopeless with titles, so 'het meisje'(the girl); i call it 'het vlaams blok meisje' - which is not allowed by michaã«l -; the girlwith the flemish lion on her sweater, and when michaã«l borremans makes a filmfilm then it is this, a 'tableau vivant', a film that is not a film.

there is no activity, some sort of rotation,certainly no plot but also no motion, because the girl becomes some sort ofsculpture and in first instance you don't know whether it is a wax figure or a girl, in some way it is perverted because he reduces the body to an object. it looks very beautiful, emotive, innocent,nothing of a lolita, she really is a doll and then by putting the flemish lions onher breast, which i think only belgians, or people familiar with the belgian history, will know what a strange connotations this has. what michaã«l ironically commented on,saying he was sustained by the flemish

community; some sort of brand, a logo;that supports him financially. on the other hand it gets some 'brown'associations and in a work that is so delicate,it is very strange. there is truly a great demand for the workof michaã«l, which we absolutely cannot satisfy; there is just too much interest. he doesn't make so many works, so mostly we have to disappoint thepotential buyers. it is incredible... 'wait' has been sold to three museumsand there is a very important american collector, who is the director of a majormuseum, who has begged us to please let

to please let them have the ap(artist proof) of video. there is so much demand for his work.one can't keep up with it. when you have a representation on apainting, there is no doubt that it is imaginary, that it is a lie, it has no documentaryvalue. that is interesting. it is one of the main reasons that i paintand filmmaking has that as well. i also find early cinema... i also want to return to that perspective,the archaic,

i also work very archaically,with a fixed camera, like an amateur, i consciously look for it. it is a clear reference to early cinema,the way i work with it. this is also the result of my ignorance, making a virtue out of necessity. but it is also very difficult and hard. in fact i hate it, but i have to do it, i can't do otherwise. it is very tiresome, other people... i am not very social... you have to.. other people... it's not your own merit anymore. you have to work with people and they have a certain input as well.

it is absolutely a fact and i owe a numberof people. for instance nicolas karakatsanis, the cameraman, sometimes he has an idea that puts thefilm in another perspective, that changes the approach just a little.film in another perspective, sometimes it is only an accent, a detail, but it can make quite a difference. i forgot to read the text of magnuspetersen yesterday. michaã«l is a difficult, strict man, forhimself and for his work. how difficult is he to work with? not too bad, sometimes he is... it dependshow the painting develops.

when it goes well he is a fantastic personto work with, when it is difficult, when he doesn't know which direction he wants to go, it can be very hard. he can get significantly angry,react really cholerically. when something doesn't work like hehas it in his head, he can get really mad. but that passes rather quickly, by the evening it is mostly over. you are an artist yourself, is that anadvantage in such a relationship? yes i think so, we talk often about images,imaging and such, and we understand each other very well onthat point. he knows what he's got in me.

i ask him what he thinks of my photographs. i think it is an advantage, absolutely. a certain form of pollination?yes, yes. he has used you regularly as model?yes, once in a while, yes. sometimes i look for models because iknow which types he is looking for. can that be people off the street? yes, yes, the son of the baker around thecorner has modeled here as well. 'wait', the rotating girl with thepleated skirt, is originally a drawing, for which we then went looking for a girl.

drawing is in fact your first passion?you can say that, yes. since childhood?passion? i don't know. it's always been something very evident.i consider painting more as a passion. it is passionate, in the sense of intensemoments of attraction, but just as well intense moments of hatred. drawing, to me is more balance. something like writing? somethingcommonplace? yes, it almost has a literary function tome, like a diary. it has always been present in my life.it is something evident. i've drawn for much longer than i paint. in this i have, technically, more maturity.

hopefully this will be the same withpainting, that in 20 years i will be able to say that i have to throw away less. it would surprise me, but one never knows. are you never afraid of the white sheet? i never work on a white sheet. i havenever bought paper to draw on. earlier at school, maybe a sketchbook or so. i always work on a piece of paper that i find. recycling in fact?actually yes, recycling. as for this work for instance?

yes, look; this is the backside of a book,a worthless book, but it is nice to draw on. i remember in art school there was a boywho threw his sheet in the bin, that's when it started.there was a stain on the sheet and i thought it much more interesting withthe stain on it. often when there already is a trace... look this paper is beautiful, it is old, thereare grease stains on it. a lot was already on it before i started to draw so i had to add only a little. it is a very suggestive drawing. i don't like to draw on something white. also when i paint, look at this canvas for instance, beige/grey,

i always give it a colored coating, based on what is going to be painted on it. sometimes i use reddish hues, dependingon the background. it is a way of working that originated in the baroque. when you paint a human figure, the skin toneand the background are already in those hues, because it shines through, or when you omit to paint some part, it doesn't impede. you can see that clearly in the works ofvelasquez that sometimes the primer comes through. just a little hand on the background which was left out.

it is just an efficient way of working. working on a white canvas is pure horror. you put something on it and you have adialogue with all that white, you can't work that way, i think. in the past when i was still teaching,i often had a small sketchbook with me for when you have to wait between classes, or during lunchbreak. sometimes i drew a little,sometimes during classes as well. students find that interesting.here, this was an assignment, a fox holding a pitcher. i drew it as well, it motivated the students,

it makes the assignment credible, when they see that you are involved. very strange but...or figurative drawing. this is a little imaginative, it's some sortof... cartoon?it is a cartoon, a story based on a text of hans van heirsele, texts he sings in ourband, 'the singing painters'; the song is called 'brain dust' and i sort of made a cartoon of it. would you call michaã«l borremans amaverick? nonconformist purebred even. it is also inhis work. the power in michaã«l is that you arecompelled to look at the work.

the image holds you in its grip. as with a fabulous poem by rilke, you don't need to understand every sentence. why is it that for contemporary art it isexpected that a theoretical discourse should be held, while precisely michaã«l,more than any other artist, escapes this? he produced such sort of imagery that that precisely prohibits theorization. michaã«l and i have been in the same classtogether. we were friends from the start. thanks to michaã«l i came in the buildingwhere 'crox' started later on. in fact it is in his studio, that was left empty, thatthat everything started, in a squat. end of the 80's, there weren't so manyopportunities in ghent for a young artist.

the squat of those days has meanwhilebecome a real art center. this is also where he started, isn't it? the very first exhibition in '95, yes. i presume his first solo-project. the project before that was still in a furnitureshop, which says a lot about the career that michaã«l had at the time. then in '99 he had a second solo. that was the threshold of his bigbreakthrough? yes, in the sense that the 'provincie' andthe ‘smak’ came to see it.

subsequently things happened. you bring us here to velasquez. in this same museum is the most fabulouscollection of breughel’s in the world. why velasquez? i have a lot of admiration for breughel, it isfantastic work, but in my perspective, what i often saw as a young man, what hasstrongly inspired me to paint are the works of velasquez. i've known all these works since a long time, from reproductions and they have strongly influencedmy way of thinking about painting. is it then the 'mã©tier' of velasquez thatyou admire?

yes, in fact it is especially that with him... look, i enter like this... yesterday was the first time, i entered, i had seen a lot of other rooms with paintings, all very interesting. i enter here and i think,ah velasquez... and it is sort of a reprieve, because of that sparkle, freshness, thatstays. that is unique. that is a totally distinct feeling.and i look at it and i see this for instance, this magnificent little portrait, and we see this... and then i see, and then i can just as well enter and say:'ha-ha, charlie parker'.

you know it is just as light, the structure andand the accents which are being laid are almost music notes. how it is constructed. that is really 'kicking' for me. therefore, once i am in a room with this kind of works, i can hardly leave, i keep looking, i enjoy it enormously. it is a very sensual pleasure. and velasquez, it is well known, had brushes made with very long handles. that is why he has this spontaneous touch. you can't do that when you are this close. you'll never get that spontaneity, that directness. he knew very well what he was doing.he put those accents with a long brush.

one meter long. maybe longer. this is a modest painting, but hasaffected me the most in fact. not in the least because of the tragic ofthe work. we see a very classic portrait of a crownprince, a young crown prince. yes, he is two here, but he died when hewas four. yes, yes, he already was...it was already ominous... he was covered in amulets, which were to make him better, to protect him, because he was a sickly child and velasquez felt that intuitively and portrayed it as such.

the background is already very dark, thepremonition is there, it is also very 'gloomy' and that little dog looks like it's asking whatis going to happen here, which way will it go? i find it technically unequalled. it affects me each time. for someone like me it is also a littlediscouraging. a few velasquez i can handle, but when ivisit the prado, i can't paint for six months. it has also been your destiny, an an artist almost overnight, coming from 'scratch to riches’... yes, yes, it took some adapting.

it is better for an artist to be poor and have difficulties, of course. i won't deny that, but for me it is essential to be professional andbe focused enough on my original objective. i do my thing. if the market is satisfiedwith that, it is a bonus. i'm not sorry about it, absolutely not, but should the market bail out, also that will be my destiny. i think i must work with integrity, stay trueto what i want from it. that is sacred. in that i am very determined, also towardsmyself. it are two circles and those people liethere. i did ask people, do you see corpses in this and nobody saw that.

we then decided to do it. it is a fairly dark cover, just quite not morbid. michaã«l has done everything, he wrotethe texts, made the back, the 'inlay' for the cd and the vinyl is also magnificent, ofcourse the format we know. he makes it beautifully, the strikethroughsare in fact beautiful, without strikethroughs and errors and tipp-ex corrections it wouldnot have been as interesting. it is just great and he also didn't write on lines,the text sometimes goes up a bit. it just lives. it is just borremans, as it must. who buys michaã«l borremans? a lot of museums have bought his work,but also quite a lot of big collectors

and at this moment, the major problem are thethe brokers. they have noticed that, since a relatively short time, the works are very sought after. so much so, that we experienced... okay, meanwhile two works have beenput in an auction and have reached an enormous amount and it then becomesvery difficult for a young artist and a gallery owner to maintain an accurate price.it means that if we sell a work today and we sell it to the wrong person, this person can, within the month make three, four times the profit of theartist and gallery owner put together. i show my films like paintings are mostly shown, so they are in view on the wall.

it is not the intention to watch it entirely asspectator, to look for the story behind it. it is present. it is a presence in a space,exactly like a painting can be. you watch it as long as you want. a painting is, like my films, a sort of suggestive construction. in fact i always show as little information as possible. i always extract things. so as spectator you always have to play the role of an accomplice. i really like to leave it all open.the image always remains undefined. there is always a range of possibilities todeal with it.

what was i going to say? sorry, i lost my train of thoughts... later maybe... it was important, you know... the work is very claustrophobic, very very atmospherically closed, while the meaning is very open, very hard to understand, difficult.. oh and this is what i was going to say…,... i lost it again... this is incredible... are you looked upon, here in america, asa european artist? yes, i think so, i think that for an american this clearly isn't an american work. it is very... belgian, even.

i am from geraardsbergen, i think the spirit of geraardsbergen still wanders about in my works. i think he is one of the few who hasinfused the medium painting with new life, with such abandonment, even if it is even if it is related to old masters and to be placed in traditional painting;he saw the opportunity to make very authentic art, with an distinct voice, a personal voice. he pushes himself hard. as you just said, he had twenty paintings, but thought only five were good enough. more artists should do that.

this is more for helmut lotti, he would bebetter. my grandfather was the first person iknew who was involved with images. he he was a photographer. as a little boy i was often with him in thedark room. he developed films, photos. the magic of images that appeared in that dark little cellar, maybe that indeed has been decisive. would you say that was the womb of yourinterest for photography and movies? did you know quite early ‘i will be an artist’? artist, i didn't know that for sure, but iwanted to do something with images,

it didn't matter what. you are an excellent drawing artist,someone who mastered the mã©tier in all its aspects. that is not totally true. where you always? no, i was not particularly talented as achild. it was unremarked, i think. but it interested me a lot. i wanted to be skilled, draw technically and i worked hard for that. i don't have such a talent that i... i wasn'ta virtuoso, a wonder child or so.

maybe the opposite even. i had a period where i found painting anddrawing very annoying. for a long time i had a love-hate relationship relationship with it. but... it improves, gradually, because i work less. i don't do my utmost as much anymoreand that is much better really. i let paintings come when they come. working hard, laboring, maybe that isbeneficial to some painters, but it doesn't work for me. just a bunch of paintings which are almost good and that really isn't nice,

you can't do anything with them. so i'm becoming more philosophicalabout this. but you have to paint enough, of course,to continue to control the language. it isn't so that i would not paint for sixmonths. i will never do that. i haven't worked now for three weeks. ii am in between two shows and it already starts to become very difficult. being creative is a very big part ofmy identity. when i've made a good work, i am veryproud. i have then accomplished something that surprises me sometimes.

when it exceeds your own expectations...yes, those are pleasurable moments. i celebrate then as well, i drink champagne. look the castle of king stephan,with there in the highest tower, dreaming of her own true love,princess aurora. but isn't that the same peasant childthat our prince loves with whole his heart? hair golden like the sun, lips as red as the reddest rose, does she lies there, still and not breathing? time passes by, but one hundred years for such a committed heart pass by quickly and our prince is now again free and easy. away he rides on his noble steed,on his way to her that he loves

and proves with a real love kissthat true love overcomes.