Cinema between monochrome painting and light vibrations: Essentieel (1964) by Jef Verheyen and Paul De Vree

ABSTRACT

Essentieel (1964) is a short experimental film made by Belgian abstract painter Jef Verheyen in collaboration with poet Paul De Vree. A cinematic equivalent of Verheyen’s attempts in representing the warmth and vibrations of light in his monochrome or ‘essentialist’ paintings of the late 1950s and 1960s, the film plays on the tensions between abstract color surfaces and natural elements. Apart from offering a close-reading of Essentieel, this article investigates the film’s production context. In addition, it situates Essentieel in the history of experimental cinema, particularly abstract and visionary film, and it investigates the work’s relation to the aspirations of the landmark exhibition Vision in Motion – Motion in Vision (Antwerp, 1959), which is usually considered the first important international manifestation of the ZERO art movement. Consequently, this article analyzes Essentieel in the larger European context of ZERO and Verheyen’s collaborations and affinities with leading neo-avant-garde artists such as Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Yves Klein, and Jésus Rafael Soto.

KEYWORDS:

• Jef Verheyen
• Paul De Vree
• monochrome painting
• abstract film
• ZERO movement
• experimental film

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. On Jef Verheyen and his art, Willy Van den Bussche and Léonore Verheyen, Retrospectieve Jef Verheyen, 1932–1984. Brugge: Stichting Kunstboek, 1994; Freddy De Vree and Marie-Claire Nuyens (eds.), Jef Verheyen: Lux est Lex. Wijnegem: Vervoordt, 2004: and Jef Verheyen and Dirk Pörschmann, Jef Verheyen: Le Peintre flamant. Brussels: ASA, 2010.

2. Composer Jan Bruyndonckx, who created a soundscape for Essentieel, worked closely with filmmaker Jos Pustjens for, among others, the film Amen (1962). Together with De Vree, he also made several sound poems. Bruyndonckx also wrote the score for the experimental short Mijn Evanaaste (1963), which Pustjens structured on the basis of poems by De Vree. The three artists also collaborated on Kleine Caroli (1964) while Bruyndonckx also recorded the poem Een Roos a rose (1966) together with De Vree. At the 1962 Benelux Film Festival, Amen was awarded the prize for best film and best music. See Folder ‘Benelux Film Festival 1963,’ Antwerpen – Gevaert Auditorium – Nationaal Centrum voor Moderne Kunst. Archives Paul De Vree, M HKA, Antwerp. Pustjens and Bruyndonckx were highly respected in amateur film circles. On 5 November 1964, both ‘amateur cineasts with great renown’ were invited by Amateur Ciné Brabo to screen their most recent films and to elucidate their ‘sonorization.’ See N.N., ‘Mededelingen: Amateur Ciné Brabo,’ Gazet van Antwerpen (4 November 1964): 13. On De Vree’s sonorous poems, see Hugh Davies, Répertoire international des musiques electroacoustiques/International Electronic Music Catalog. Paris: Groupe de Recherches Musicales de l’O.R.T.F, 1968, 13–14.

3. On the problematic relation between Verheyen and G58.

4. Filmgroep 58 was associated with the Modernistisch Centrum, in 1960 renamed as Nationaal Centrum voor Moderne Kunst, with Paul De Vree as president. The Centrum brought together experimental poets with avant-garde artists and organized exhibitions, poetry programs, and film screenings (De Vree 1971, 15; Bern et. al. 1988). See also Filmgroep 58 brochure, Archives Letterenhuis, Antwerp.

5. Fugitive Cinema, 55.

6. On the journal De Tafelronde

7. See the letters by Piero Manzoni, Lucio Fontana, and Yves Klein as well as Verheyen’s short biography by Paul De Vree in De Tafelronde 8, 3 (1963): 5–10.

8. Verheyen and Pörschmann, Jef Verheyen, 5.

9. Verheyen and Pörschmann, Jef Verheyen, 5.

10. Verheyen and Pörschmann, 10. See also De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 112.

11. De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 114.

12. Verheyen, ‘Essentialisme,’ 36.

13. De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 113.

14. De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 113.

15. Verheyen and Pörschmann, Jef Verheyen, 133.

16. De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 112–113, 135.

17. De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 135.

18. De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 113. With the phrasing ‘specialized and stabilized’ De Vree refers to the 1958 exhibition of Yves Klein in Paris with the title La spécialisation de la sensibilité à l’état de matière première en sensibilité picturale stabilisée, which is primarily known as Le Vide. See Pierre Restany, ‘Yves Klein “Le Vide”: Die Leere von Yves Klein, Paris, den 28. April 1958,’ in Die Kunst der Ausstellung: Eine Dokumentation dreißig exemplarischer Kunstausstellungen dieses Jahrhunderts, edited by Bernd Klüser and Katharina Hegewisch. Frankfurt: Insel Verlag, 1991, 142–47; Thierry De Duve and Rosalind Krauss, ‘Yves Klein, or The Dead Dealer,’ October 49 (1989): 73–90; and Nuit Banai, ‘Rayonnement and the Readymade: Yves Klein and the End of Painting,’ RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 51 (2007): 202–15.

19. Their films were screened at the first edition of a festival (that was called EXPRMNTL only from its third edition in 1964), which was organized by Jacques Ledoux of the Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique in June 1949. See Les Beaux-Arts: Hebdomadaire d’information artistique 3, 460 (Vendredi 1er Juillet 1949) and Cobra 3 (1949).

20. On ZERO, see Anette Kuhn. ZERO. Eine Avantgarde der sechziger Jahre. Frankfurt am Main/Berlin: Propyläen, 1991; and Tiziana Caianiello, Mattijs Visser, et al. Zero 5: The Artist as Curator: Collaborative Initiatives in the International Zero Movement, 1957–1967. Ghent: MER Paper Kunsthalle, 2015; On ZERO in Antwerp specifically, see Johan Pas, ‘ZERO in Antwerp,’ in Zero 5: The Artist as Curator, 187–88.

21. Verheyen, ‘Essentialisme,’ 38.

22. Verheyen, ‘Essentialisme,’ 37.

23. De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 112.

24. De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 112–14.

25. De Vree, ‘Essentialisme 2,’ 112.

26. Verheyen, ‘Kombinatoriek,’ 137.

27. Caianiello, Visser, et al. Zero 5. On the Antwerp neo-avant-garde, see Johan Pas, ‘The Last Modernists: Jef Verheyen, Paul De Vree, and the “Flemish Landscape” of the 1960s,’ in Jef Verheyen: Le Peintre Flamant, 113–140; and Johan Pas, Neonlicht: Paul De Vree & de neo-avant-garde. Ghent: AsaMER, 2012.

28. Paul De Vree, [‘Short Bio of Jef Verheyen’], De Tafelronde 8 (1963): 7–8. The event was captured on film and is included in the opening credits of Gerd Winkler’s film OxO=Kunst (1962).

29. On 1 April, a newspaper announced that Ivo Michiels would be reading from his book on the opening night of the exhibition. A few days later De Vree asked the audience to excuse Ivo Michiels since the latter ‘unfortunately had not been encountered in Frankfurt yet.’ See an unidentified newspaper clipping and a handwritten speech by De Vree, Archives Paul De Vree, M HKA, Antwerp.

30. N.N., ‘2e Benelux-festival van experimentele kunst- en poëtische films met vooruitstrevend karakter,’ Gazet van Antwerpen (24 May 1965): 8.

31. See website Heinz Mack: https://www.mack-kunst.com/en/Desert-and-arctic.htm