Biography

Discussion

Anyone who compares Gérald van Der Kaap’s biography with a list of his publications and exhibitions will come to the conclusion that something strange is going on. The brief biography is in no way proportional to the long list of exhibitions and publications. We therefore have a young artist with a relatively small oeuvre and a very high return. This typifies the role that Kaap has assumed: not so much that of an artist or a photographer, but rather a ‘Showman of the Arts’. Unlike New York and the West Coast of the United States, in the Netherlands such a mentality finds little reception. One American critic described it as ‘the aesthetics of cute’: a kind of artistic blowing bubbles, with ‘fun’ and ‘fast’ as key words. Those artists who have mastered such an approach usually present their work as a sceptical commentary on serious, expressionistic modern art. Socio-critical motives hardly play a role, despite the wishful thinking of numerous American critics. These artists in no way intend to remove themselves from the official art circuit of galleries and magazines; some of them, such as Robert Longo, have already managed to penetrate deeply into the art world and are among the best paid artists at this moment. In this context, people like to use the word ‘irony’, which essentially means ‘conscious participation without having a viewpoint’.

This mentality can also be seen with Kaap. Whether it be the publication of the magazine ZIEN, organising exhibitions, producing an album or making photographic work, either alone or in collaboration with others: for him it all has the same value. The magazine ZIEN most clearly illustrates his anti-individualistic attitude towards making art. This becomes particularly noticeable starting with the fourth issue, in which a maximum unity is sought between the design (Gerard Hadders) and the content, unified under ‘thematic’ headings such as Entertainment Issue! or Peter Pan 1985 issue!. The aim is that, in this manner, the magazine itself is seen as a work of art.

Kaap organises his other activities in collaboration with others: a photographic artwork, with the image put together by two of Kaap’s artist friends; or an album with musical contributions made by Peter van de Klashorst, Robert Longo, and others. Kaap is not just the public relations manager backing his own work—part of his work is actually maintaining public relations. This is what determines the artistic path he has mapped out for himself.

Kaap’s career as ‘Dutch Master of Camp’ began with the project Fronto, de Lof van Rook en Stof: een reis langs tuinen in Europa (‘Fronto, The Praise of Smoke and Dust: a Journey along Gardens in Europe’), which he produced in 1980-’81 together with Martin Thomas. It consists of about twenty photos taken during a tour of various European gardens: Berlin, Prague, Hamburg, Vienna, etc. With this project, Kaap already sets the tone for his more recent work. Fronto directly is the name of a Roman orator, whose writings were accompanied by the subtitle Laude Fumi et Pulveris (‘In Praise of Smoke and Dust’). This title characterises Kaap’s by now firmly established preference for the least assuming raw matter, presented in an entourage of mystery, splendour, and profoundness. Smoke and dust: nothing could be more minimalistic. The series consists of Cibachrome colour prints made from shots of the most unattractive corners and piles of clutter, mounted in decorative passe-partouts bearing text fragments to be read by the observer. From this point forward, presentation is everything: meaning is reduced to total randomness—something always emphasised in statements made by those producing this kind of work: ‘Pebbles are more beautiful than princesses’ (Rommert Boonstra); a toy fish becomes special ‘because it looked at me so surprised’ (Henk Tas); a little doll appears for a second time, because it was expensive and ‘worth being used twice’ (Gérald Van Der Kaap). This kind of toy store iconography is strongly represented in the six staged photos that Kaap made two years later. Kaap speaks very explicitly about the realisation of these ‘photographies’ in an interview published about the same time in Elseviers Magazine. Regarding the title of the photo Debilitar, he says the following: ‘I came across the word Debilitar by coincidence in the typesetting of an Italian letter designer. (…) Debilitar means: the Weakened One. The doll has a disfigured head. I’ve painted a beautiful background with the doll. And because I had just torn down the fireplace in my apartment, I also used it, covering it with metallic copper and grey spray-paint, creating an exquisite ruin. To turn it into a masterpiece, I tore two of Rafael’s angels out of the book The Story of Art, who shoot at Debilitar. Everything in my surroundings is put to use. I initially had a phallus lying in this photo as well, because, of course, all of my work is about longing after women, but I took this out.’ This quote portrays Kaap’s artistic mentality quite effectively: the ostentatious emphasis on coincidence and randomness, with an ironic wink at ‘Important Art’, including the obligatory reference to pornography. All of these ingredients are to be found in New York’s East Village, where posing and irony are substitutions for official Art. Kaap has been frequenting these circles since 1983, together with his partner, Peter van de Klashorst. They currently rent an apartment together in New York.

In the Netherlands, Kaap’s mentality finds a degree of resonance with some artists, primarily in Rotterdam, including Lydia Schouten and the designers’ collective Hard Werken (‘Working Hard’). At this time, the project Kaap’s Mona Lisa best demonstrates Kaap’s ‘aesthetics of cute’. The extremely heavy frame of this work is painted pink and covered with worm-like strands. It holds a Plexiglas plate, behind which pornographic texts can be read, arranged to form the face of Mona Lisa. The form and title of this work piece are derived from Marcel Duchamp’s Mona Lisa. Besides Gilbert & George, Duchamp is one of Kaap’s key role models. With Kaap, the Aesthetic Relativism of these artists becomes a conscious opportunism—a continual shifting of style and approach, depending on which way the wind blows. Maintaining a working method of this kind is not as easy as it might seem. This is particularly evident when it comes to the work of many of Kaap’s counterparts in the United States, who frequently tend to attach added importance to their work once it garners official recognition.

Documentation