In this Van Gogh year, the painter has become part of a real group, an artist community, something he never managed to do during his lifetime. With the exhibition 'When I Give Myself, I give Myself' the Van Gogh Museum connects 23 contemporary artists to the lonely Van Gogh, who had hardly any friends during his lifetime and sold only one painting. The artists make the connection through Vincent's letters rather than his work. Leading figures such as Anish Kapoor, Jan Fabre and Job Koelewijn can thus give their own vision of Van Gogh, which for once is not about the sunflowers or the world-famous drawbridge, but about the doubts, dreams and ambitions the painter wrote down in his letters.
These thanks to the Van Gogh Museum, with support from the BankGiro Lottery created virtual artist community that Van Gogh never had in real life, produces exciting interactions. Posthumous conversations with the legendary artist, performed in images Van Gogh himself could never have dreamed of.
Thus Job Koelewijn perhaps not the most obvious artist when you think of Van Gogh. Could they have been friends? Both loved books and struggled(d) with their Protestant backgrounds. According to Vincent, a painter was not obliged to paint alone: he also had to immerse himself in life. Job Koelewijn's work consists of a bookcase on which, among other things, Van Gogh's collected letters lie. On top of each book is a stack of cassette tapes. Every day, Job Koelewijn reads aloud from this for 45 minutes, and records it. 'The word becomes flesh,' as Koelewijn himself puts it, 'or actually a cassette tape.'
At Jan Fabre see the other side of Van Gogh's faith: death. Vincent embraced the beauty of life in his paintings, but at the same time he was aware of mortality. He painted so much for a reason.
Van Gogh also knew that, above all, he had to paint a lot. After all, not all works could be equally good; some had to fail. He tried things out and took risks. 'Sometimes something comes out of the blue that is beyond your own capabilities,' also says Michael Borremans On his own work. 'That is an important factor for me in the creation of paintings.'
Navid Nuur tries to paint away the myth of Van Gogh by adopting typical Van Gogh brushstrokes in a dark green colour, from which the image has disappeared altogether. So is it a work by Van Gogh or by Navid Nuur?
Below is a selection from some other responses:
Van Gogh's influence may not be immediately apparent with all 23 artists, but it is understandable after some interpretation. When I Give Myself, I Give Myself shows that his style encompasses more than just those brightly coloured smudges of oil paint on canvas. Vincent's dream of his own artist community is probably not what he expected, but his work will continue to inspire future generations. And that can lead to sometimes surprising results.
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