WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU MEAN AND OTHER PLEASANTRIES Julie Scheurweghs 1
WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU MEAN AND OTHER PLEASANTRIES Maarten Seghers & The Horrible Facts A FEAST OF FEELINGS Being born and having to hold out. That s Tough Shit. Tough Shit isn t a cripple and isn t blind. But there s a plank stuck to his face. That s Bad Luck. That is his fate. Tough Shit, helpless and awkward, goes entirely his own way, so clumsily it s to no avail. Which is how he creeps onto the stage. Tough Shit has brought a band with him The Horrible Facts: 6 oversized wooden sound boxes that assist him as both instruments and witnesses. He is imprisoned in his own song, to the rhythm and sounds of his special guest band. A song that cannot be stopped. It must and shall continue, passionate and intense, because there is no other option. Beyond pointlessness, beyond loneliness, beyond helplessness. With an elated optimism he sings of the art of living. In all its failures, in all its humour. He throws himself into an excess of rhythm, doggerel and emotions and takes this existential serenade to a physically absurd and musically hysterical peak. He suggests new meanings in the course of an anarchistic game of words. The six wooden sound-boxes that accompany him in this have become abstractions of instruments and help him to materialise sounds. Starting out with these expressionless sound-boxes, sculptures that are trying no longer to be a sculpture, Tough Shit goes in search of the expression of the blank object. Tough Shit sets his own body counter to these expressionless sound-boxes. Just like the late mediaeval grotesque figures and caprices of Hieronymus Bosch, a visual idiom characterised by fanciful figures, amazing inventions and unexpected twists, Tough Shit uses his whole body to portray the world and thereby become a true Bosch grotesque figure. 2
Anonymus (after Hieronymus Bosch). Grotesque figures. Engraving. 16 th century. Anonymous (after Hieronymus Bosch or Pieter Bruegel the Elder). Cripples. Engraving. 16 th century. Tough Shit emulates a character from Pieter Bruegel the Elder s painting The Fight between Carnival and Lent, in which a very human, unpleasant picture of everyday life is portrayed: a cripple who has just had two small, headless wooden toy horses put in his hands to pull himself along, chafes his chest over the unpaved and sewer-free village streets so as not to have to do it with his nails. Tough Shit embraces this absurd perseverance in Bruegel s figures, and also finds kindred spirits in Sisyphus and Albert Camus. Sisyphus was a mortal who rebelled against the gods and as a consequence was given the worst imaginable punishment: pointlessness; he was doomed forever to push a rock up a mountain only to watch it roll back down again and start from the beginning. The ultimate absurd hero. We have to imagine Sisyphus as a happy man, wrote Camus. Titiaan, Sisyphus. Oil on canvas. 1548-1549. 3
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Fight between Carnival and Lent. 1559. These three noncommittal approaches to the work of Bosch, Bruegel and Camus, each of whom in their own way praised the humanity of life and the imagination, share the same radical optimism as WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU MEAN AND OTHER PLEASANTRIES. From the formal nature of Bosch s grotesque figures, through the humble experience of mortality in Bruegel, to Camus realisation of the pointlessness of existence, which he then took up with a passion, they all colour this performance, making it the ultimate feast of existence. WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU MEAN AND OTHER PLEASANTRIES is a concert, an everlasting pop song, a sculptural dance, a sound installation, a stand-up comedy show, a performance. Through seeming absurdity, Seghers smartly and inimitably exposes art practice and with beauty and hilarity ploughs through the inevitability of our woes. This feast of feelings contains a human life full of love and tragedy. Elke Janssens 4
WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU MEAN AND OTHER PLEASANTRIES is a portrait of every human who seems to be persevering, beyond any logic, beyond the absurd. The image of the hopeful, struggling human as a shrieking poseur. Sisyphus who should not have to be told again he will not succeed, but Sisyphus who wants to make the trip up and down anyway. In short, extolling misery and celebrating the absurd. This optimism is human. Maarten Seghers WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU MEAN AND OTHER PLEASANTRIES, Maarten Seghers Maarten Seghers, 2014 5
I have to, I have to, I do I do and so do you We have to 3 4 5 To get through this life We have to, we do, we all It is nobody s call Even Fred Astaire Has to everywhere What will be Will be, you see Hear my voice: You have no choice We all know Where to go Straight ahead Until you re dead We have to, we will, we must It s fate we should trust Just as to this song You can t but dance along We have to all the time Come up with words that rhyme It does everyone good We do just what we should What will be Will be, you see Hear my voice You have no choice We all know Where to go Straight ahead Until you re dead 6
ON TOUR FIDENA, Bochum - 21, 22 May 2014 hth, CDN Montpellier - 27 November 2014 Kaaistudio s, Brussels - 19 December 2014 Festival Artdanthé, Théâtre de Vanves, Paris - 28 February 2015 ImPulsTanz, [8:TENSION], Schauspielhaus, Vienna - 16 July, 13, 14 August 2015 Destelheide, Kunsthumaniora Brussel, Dworp - 13 September 2015 SPIELART, i-camp, Neues Theater Munich - 26 October 2015 Best of the Fest, Eindhoven - 1 September 2016 DURING TEFAF festival 2017, Maastricht - 13 March 2017 Festival Artdanthé, Vanves - 25 March 2017 XL FESTIVAL, Bronks, Brussels - 21 April 2017 7
An extract from a review of Needlapb XX in Frankfurt in January 2014, when an initial sketch of WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU MEAN AND OTHER PLEASANTRIES was shown: [ ] The exact opposite of this glamour was presented by Maarten Seghers, whose tousled Dada-song with self-made boosters proved to be the joyful success of the evening. The way in which he gropes and fumbles from the forgotten password over the wooden speakers to the horseradish with sheer noise is unique and exhilarating. As he bids farewell to the world exit universe with an almost unbearable liturgical prayer, we get a preliminary glimpse of Needcompany projects still to come this year. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Eva-Maria Magel, 20 January 2014 A creation by Maarten Seghers Light, technical manager Marjolein Demey Sound Pierrick Drochmans Assistant to the director, dramaturgy Elke Janssens Production of the creation Chris Vanneste A Needcompany production, commissioned by FIDENA (Bochum) 2014. Thanks to Monty Kultuurfaktorij. With the support of the Flemish authorities. 8
MAARTEN SEGHERS & THE HORRIBLE FACTS Maarten Seghers is an artist, performer, composer and musician. In 2006 he set up OHNO COOPERATION together with Jan Lauwers and Elke Janssens. Performances, exhibitions and concerts by OHNO COOPERATION have been seen and heard at BOZAR (Brussels), Festival Temps d Images (La Ferme du Buisson, Marne-la-Vallée), La Condition Publique (Roubaix), CC Strombeek, Gr!M (Marseille), SPIELART (Munich), AIR ANTWERPEN (Antwerp), Campo (Ghent), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt) et al. Confrontations with other artists and musicians including Jean-Marc Montera, Eric Sleichim, Nicolas Field, Rombout Willems, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Michael Fliri, Nico Leunen, Fritz Welch, Peeesseye, Pontogor, Idan Hayosh, Rachel Lowther, Jaime Fennelly, Roberta Gigante et al. are crucial to the work of OHNO. OHNO COOPERATION is a Needcompany subgroup. Maarten Seghers has been a member of this international company of artists, founded by Jan Lauwers and Grace Ellen Barkey, since 2001. In addition to his unmistakable presence as a performer in the work of them both, his compositions make a substantial contribution to their productions. WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU MEAN AND OTHER PLEASANTRIES originates in the large wooden resonating sculptures Fountain (Late-Pornographic Balance) I & II created in 2010 (part of the permanent collection of FRAC Nord- Pas De Calais) and its continuation in the performance Uninteresting Result in 2011. This production was nominated for the 2015 Prix Jardin d Europe for choreographers. THE HORRIBLE FACTS is the name that has been given to Maarten Seghers fictitious occasional band since the creation of Uninteresting Result in 2011. In the performance O or The Challenge Of This Particular Show Was To Have Words Ending In O (2016), Maarten Seghers confronts himself with the artists, musicians and dancers Fritz Welch, Simon Lenski, Nicolas Field and Mohamed Toukabri, for whom he wrote an invocatory song about the noisiness of giving comfort. 9
Fountain (Late-Pornographic Balance) I, Maarten Seghers Kristien Daem bksm #10, 2010 Uninteresting Result, Maarten Seghers, Anu Vahtra, 2011 1
MAARTEN SEGHERS (BE, 1982) INSTALLATIONS So, man, (2007-2009) Fountain (Late-Pornographic Balance) (2010) VIDEO The OHNO Cooperation Conversation On The O.H.N.O.P.O.P.I.C.O.N.O Ontology (2007) The OHNO Cooperation Conversation On The O.H.N.O.P.O.P.I.C.O.N.O Tautology (2014) PERFORMANCE Angel Butcher (2001) So, man, (2007) The OHNO Cooperation Conversation (2007-2014) Uninteresting Result (2011) WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHAT DO YOU MEAN AND OTHER PLEASANTRIES (2014) O or The Challenge Of This Particular Show Was To Have Words Ending In O (2016) PERFORMANCE/CONCERT O.H.N.O.P.O.P.I.C.O.N.O. (2006-2009) an OHNO cooperation evening (2008), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt an OHNO cooperation evening (2009), CAMPO, Ghent an OHNO cooperation evening (2010), GR!M, Marseille The Tragedy of the Applause Roubaix (2009), La Condition Publique The Tragedy of the Applause Strombeek (2010), CC Strombeek OPEN AIR #5, Antwerp (2011) CURATOR The Tragedy of the Applause, Roubaix/Strombeek (2009/2010) AIR, Antwerp (May-October 2011) Open AIR #5, Antwerp (2011) PUBLICATIONS Catalogue The Tragedy of the Applause, Roubaix (2009) Catalogue The Good, the Bad & the Ugly, CC Strombeek (2010) RELEASES Isabella s remix (2004), CD Tracks to the world of Grace Ellen Barkey (2007), EP on vinyl Sad Face Happy Face (2008), CD Marketplace 76 (2012), CD PERFORMER IN Images of Affection (2002) (AND) (2002) Isabella s room (2004) Chunking (2005) The lobster shop (2006) The Porcelain Project (2007) The deer house(2008) Sad Face Happy Face (2008) This door is too small (for a bear) (2010) Needlapb (2001-2014) Deconstruction (BOZAR Brussels & haus der kunst Munich, 2007) The House of Our Fathers (Kunsthalle Mannheim, 2011) Marketplace 76 (2012) MUSH-ROOM (2013) The House of Our Fathers (Kunstfestspiele Hanover, 2013) Odd? But True! (2013) The blind poet (2015) The House of Our Fathers (McaM, Shanghai, 2016) FOREVER (2016) FESTIVALS SPIELART, Munich (2007) Movement Research Festival, New York (2009) Performatik, Brussels (2009) OPEN AIR #5, Antwerp (2011) Schillertage, Mannheim (2011) Kunstfestspiele, Hanover (2013) COMPOSITIONS FOR Images of Affection (2002) The Unauthorized Portrait (2002) (AND) (2002) No Comment (2003) Isabella s room (2004) Chunking (2005) The lobster shop (2006) The Porcelain Project (2007) The deer house(2008) Sad Face Happy Face (2008) This door is too small (for a bear) (2010) Needlapb (2001-2014) The art of entertainment (2011) Deconstruction (BOZAR Brussels & haus der kunst Munich, 2007) The House of Our Fathers (Kunsthalle Mannheim, 2011) Marketplace 76 (2012) The House of Our Fathers (Kunstfestspiele Hanover, 2013) Odd? But True! (2013) The blind poet (2015) The House of Our Fathers (McaM, Shanghai, 2016) 1
Maarten Seghers Jaimy Fenelly NEEDCOMPANY Rue Gabrielle Petit 4/4, 1080 Sint-Jans-Molenbeek www.needcompany.org Artistic director Jan Lauwers General manager Johan Penson: johan@needcompany.org Artistic coordination Elke Janssens: elke@needcompany.org Bookings & Planning Veerle Vaes: veerle@needcompany.org Assistant general manager Toon Geysen: toon@needcompany.org Production Marjolein Demey: marjolein@needcompany.org 9