Gebruiker:Isabel Chalmet/Kladblok

Tom Herck

Tom Herck
Born	Sint-Truiden, 22/6/1984
Nationality	Belgian
Known for	-Multidisciplinary art -Unconventional controversial public art installations
Notable work	-Holy Cow -’The Wall’, Burning Man festival
Movement	Conceptual art
Awards	2018 Corporated Art Awards - European Parlement, BE Special award for “A monumental work of art made of its core-business product” 2014 Atelier C / Museum M - Leuven, BE / Laureate 2014 Biennale de l'UMAM /     Château Grimaldi -     Cagnes-Sur-Mer, FR     Honorable mention

Contents

5.2 External Links

Tom Herck (born June 22, 1984, St. Truiden, Be) is a Belgian conceptual multidisciplinary artist. Raised in the unauthorized graffiti culture, Herck is best known for his unconventional and controversial public art installations. Herck also creates large and small sculptures, drawings, and paintings. The artist refines his techniques during his travels throughout Europe, leaving his mark in most of the capitals across the continent.

Early Years

Tom grew up in a creative environment. Especially his father -an artist as well- stimulated him to draw comics and build inventive constructions. Being an only child, Tom always felt the urge to create his own universe. Coming from a background with few chances and divorced parents he was always attracted to "outside" cultures like hooliganism and graffiti. He was the leader of the young hooligan firm arranging street fights against other hooligan crews for some years. His first pieces of art were actually hooligan related, making banners and putting tags of his crew in and around the city and province. We can still recognise this propaganda style in his work, for example in The Collector,  a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter jet plane he painted in Canada in 2017.

His second big love was graffiti. Tom quickly became obsessed with it. “My whole life was graffiti. I did not really care about university anymore and dropped out. Graffiti was my biggest love. Growing up in a ‘social neighbourhood’ living with my single mom, we never traveled a lot. Graffiti changed that for me.” After some problems with justice Tom slowed down his illegal graffiti activities -which mainly existed of painting trains and subway tracks in Europe-. 15 Min. of fame announced his change of direction from graffiti to contemporary art installations. He transformed an old Quick fast food restaurant into a contemporary church baptized as an exhibition space. Next to the ‘church’ a mural with a TV screen and the eye 3of God wandering around constantly replaced the face of Christ, symbolizing mass media worship and the lack of privacy in current society.

Tom has always been fascinated by religion and by Christian symbolism in particular. His grandmother was a `madame` -female pimp- owning some brothels in St.Truiden. She commited suicide by drowning herself when Tom's mother was pregnant.  She grew up like a street kid and the nuns took care of him from the age of 13. These family anecdotes have always inspired Tom  As can be seen in his canvases 15 Min. of fame (2013), Holy Cow (2017) and The Decline (2016), religion plays an important role in the life of the artist. Not knowing his grandmother and grandfather, Tom had always been interested in his roots and therefore in history itself as well. He is a wanderer who travels a lot. From a young age till this day people tell him he does not look like a typical Belgian. To unpuzzle his roots, Tom did a DNA test. About 30 percent of his ancestors appeared to be from to the Balkan area (Serbia and Greece in particular).

After a few years in the graffiti-scene, Tom decided to go back to school, get a social worker degree and worked with refugees for 4 years. He saw both the good and bad aspects of this system.Tom does not want to take stand on one side in his social/political work but chooses to reflect on both sides of the spectrum. This neutral attitude is very clear in his projects Eurovision (2018) or The Wall (2019)

From the ‘Decline project’, Tom started fully focusing on art again. “You can’t become an artist, you are born an artist. There is a lot of sacrifice to make and a lot of willpower needed. But for passion, nothing is too much. If you think 24/7 of creating and you have that itch or obsession, you find a way to make it happen. Coming from a background with few chances, dropping out of school, doing a lot of shitty jobs, taking a lot of risk and putting every penny into the development of my work, I can finally say that I’m an independent artist.” In some circles Herck is seen as a public figure due to the character of his artworks. His work frequently reached the Belgian news.

Symbolism

Using iconography and symbolism, Tom incorporates observations about developments and trends in classic and modern society, often using confrontational themes in his paintings, installations and sculptures. Combining traditional and contemporary elements and materials, the artist expands on their mystical properties by synthesizing new symbols with a very personal iconography. This enables him to tackle universal themes like life and death, ‘vanitas’, transformation and religion. He creates perspectives that challenge “universal” views.

The artist’s oeuvre is a stark reminder of humanity’s paradoxical core contradiction. The very spark that marks us as a species -thoughts, imagination, language, toolmaking and the ability to set ourselves apart from nature-, those very things give us capacity for unmatched destruction. The violence and aggression Tom recurrently shows are presented in a direct, bold and satirical manner.

Herck increasingly attaches importance to the use of ideas and concepts in his works using sharp contrasts, both in colour and in topic. “For me, the most important thing is the realisation and creation of my concept. The medium is not my biggest interest. I was always fascinated by big megalomaniac projects that conquer their space. Objects that look at you, not the other way around. My medium depends on the thing that I want to create for the particular concept. The older I get the more I fall in love with the building of installations and in situ work. In the end, I’m an allrounder.”

Tom calls into question the societal role of religion, (social) media on the background of a progressive and highly individuating society. While mixing old forms with new ones and using various cultural icons his work causes a significant tension with the spectator. Anchored in the present, Tom Herck’s art inspires for the challenging times ahead. The artist embraces the pleasure art creates for its beholder as well as the social functions of art and its ability to reinforce critical thinking.

Selected Works

-Projects/Installations

THE WALL, 2019

Tom Herck became the second Belgian artist to ever burn an installation at the famous Burning Man festival in the US. His interactive wooden figure “The Wall” was set alight on the final day of the counterculture festival, along with several other installations – a Burning Man tradition. Inspired by the story of the Trojan Horse, Herck created a 7m high piñata facing a wooden wall (12m wide and 4m high), celebrating change and examining the doubts of our era.

The Mexican piñata represents hope and blind faith in higher powers. Piñatas are originally stuffed with candy, the Trojan Horse contained soldiers; this work however, remains empty inside, because we can never be totally aware of what is going on in the inner circle and public authorities. Tom explores both sides of the wall conflict, not just in reference to the Mexican wall, but to a global trend of forting up.

  ‘The Wall’, and ‘The Wall’ set aflame during Burn Night, Tom Herck,  2019, Burning Man festival, Nevada, US

LAST WORDS / 2019

This artwork resonates the last words of the artist’s mother, Nicole Swennen. From the age of 13 , Nicole Swennen worked as a cleaning lady at St-Anna Hospital, later at the St-Jozef Hospital, where she worked until she was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 62.  TH: "A few months after the diagnosis of ALS-Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, my mother, Nicole, lost her speech. I asked her to always take notes, which resulted in some 20 booklets with daily anecdotes, correspondences and reflections. In the notes, the hospital plays an important role. I was all the family Nicole had. Her loyalty to the hospital and the obligation to work gave her life meaning. I make the people who once knew her feel pride and warmth, and tell a story about charity for future generation.”

This installation consists of about 19 handwritten texts, presented in plexiglass frames. Tom deliberately chose the plexiglass frames as a reference to gravestones and to the commemorative plaques that can be found on cemeteries and crematories. Nicole's last words connect the past with the present, and remind us of our own future or mortality. Last words help us lead a better life, coping with change or loss and they support patients making the transition to the 'other side.’ Beyond every language barrier and therefore beyond every 'normal' legibility, something higher becomes visible: writing as a universal phenomenon that connects all people.

`Last Words`, 2019, Tom Herck, copyright Tom Herck

WRECKAGE IN A BOTTLE / 2019

This artwork instantly evokes the image of a ‘message in a bottle’. Tom Herck plays with the mysterious, nostalgic allure of this concept. People have been sending messages in bottles for centuries for all kinds of reasons. Traditionally it was a method used by sailors hoping to send a message to the mainland and by castaways to advertise their distress to the outside world.

Though at first glance, Herck’s bottle might look like a ‘message in a bottle’, the bottle actually contains a large folded paper in the shape of a ship, that should contain a message. In times of war, the message in a bottle was a frequently used method. As a port city Ostend had an important role in the First and Second World War. Tom Herck used and combined these two graphic and iconic elements, message in a bottle and bottle vessels.The origami warvessel Tom Herck creates, is a seemingly contradictory combination of patience and aggression.

The message, normally an emergency letter, is now a 5 Euro banknote, folded in the shape of a warship. Why exactly 5 euros? This refers to a TV documentary the artist recently watched, that stipulated a grenade can be acquired for 5 euros. The extremely low sum is alarming. Food and basic necessities are rising in price, while the price of weapons is dropping. To indicate this imbalance, the artist opted for a milk bottle, as milk continues to rise in price.The milk bottle symbolizes food and drinks.

The work is a stark reminder of humanity’s core contradiction. Science allows us to communicate across the seas and fly above the clouds, to cure disease and understand the cosmos, but those same discoveries can be turned into more effective killing machines. The wars of the modern age teach us this truth. Technological progress without an equivalent progress in attitude can doom us.

Wreckage in a Bottle- 2019 -copyright Tom Herck

-EURO VISION (2018)

“I'ts the set of the sail that decides the goal, and not the storm of life.” But where are we heading today? Tom Herck’s interactive artwork Euro Vision (2018) explores whether our sails are still set for Europe, or if we might have lost our Eurovision. The good ship Europe appears to be sinking. The EU motto In varietate concordia (Latin for ‘united in diversity’) doesn’t correspond to the current mindset. Tom Herck created a new emblem with the motto 'divided in similarity', flanked by his own logo on both sides.

Euro Vision is a concept and interactive artwork to literally put some wind behind Europe’s sails and throw a lifebuoy to the current crisis. Herck’s project is not necessarily pro or anti-European, but serves  as an eye-opener (hence the eye in the Euro Vision title logo), to raise awareness of the declining European situation. The medium of the Euro Vision project is a two masted, 42-foot sailing ship with a height of 18 meters that headed to London July 2018, sailing along the legendary River Thames.

In his usual sarcastic manner, the artist transforms the yacht into a Viking ship. As a contemporary trademark of wealth, luxury and abundance, a yacht highlights the growing gap between rich and poor for the EU citizens. characteristic of the work of the artist and a metaphor for the old and new Europe. On the shields a coat of arms of every country of the EU is painted by hand. The text ‘Save Our Stars’ will be visible right above the sea surface as a metaphor to the well-known slogan ‘S.O.S.’ or ‘Save Our Souls’, a metaphor that asks for salvation, as in this case Europe sometimes does for a part of the population.

The ‘Euro Vision’ boat conquering the Noth Sea, Tom herck, July 2018