Honesty and Immediacy
An interview with Peter De Potter by Mikel van den Boogaard
'een betreden bloem' from The Vanity of Certain Flowers Part Two
Five years after his first monograph, Belgian artist Peter De Potter is releasing a follow up: The Vanity of Certain Flowers Part Two. Published by MENDO in an edition of 750 copies. The book is available now.
Those that know Belgium know that it is somewhat devoid of glamour. The Dutch landscape isn’t that glamourous either, but we feel and see the difference whenever we cross the border. Its roads are rocky, its architecture quirky, and its weather (like the rest of the Lowlands) shows at least fifty shades of grey.
In one glance at his work, it should be evident that to Belgian artist Peter De Potter, that mundane environment is precisely the kind of vibe he wants to surround himself with. Yes, he’s been living in the fashion city of Antwerp, but anyone who has ever been on a pilgrimage to Dries, Raf, Martin or Ann will have to agree that it is not remotely reminiscent of Soho or Paris. Belgians are sober and modest. Operating from a corner of Europe that very rarely stands in the limelight.
Further down in that corner, roughly 80 kilometers from Antwerp, lies the small village of Edelare. With nearly 1000 citizens, it definitely isn’t a cultural capital, yet it has inspired millions of people. On a hilltop in Kerselare (part of Edelare, near the city of Oudenaarde) is a 16th-century chapel that has been a pilgrimage site for centuries. The Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van Kerselarekapel harbors a Maria statue, and was burned to the ground in 1961. The chapel was rebuilt, this time by Belgian architect Juliaan Lampens who turned it into a massive concrete chapel that brutally breaks the peaceful green environment of Kerselare. It was finished in 1966, four years before Peter De Potter was born.
De Potter lived a stone’s throw away from the chapel. From his bedroom, he could see the concrete tower over the trees. “At the time, it wasn’t such an important thing, but I think that view really shaped me,” he explains, sitting in the Prinsenkamer of Hotel De L’Europe. “At that time, everyone was quite traditional and Catholic in Belgium. To build this brutalist concrete bunker requires bravery. Everyone hated it, but I loved it. It was cold, scary and very mysterious. It was the ultimate for me.”
Lampens’ chapel was pivotal in De Potter’s view on aesthetics. At his eighteenth, he would move to Antwerp to attend the illustrious Royal Art Academy. He graduated from the infamous school that counts people like Martin Margiela, Dries van Noten and Demna Gvasalia as its alumni in 1991 to work at a record store. “I mostly sold dance records to Gabbers,” he recollects. “And Raf would come by to buy stuff like Kraftwerk. We were already too old back then,” he adds jokingly.
Raf is the first name of fashion designer and long-time collaborator Raf Simons. Between 2001 and 2010, De Potter worked with Simons on his eponymous label as a consultant, assisting with concepts and providing artworks. Together, they created Simons recognizable punk/youth culture aesthetic that would bring Raf Simons to international acclaim. Simons would later become creative director at Jil Sander, Dior, Calvin Klein, and since 2019, Prada, for which De Potter recently did artworks complementing the Spring-Summer 2021 collection.
However often he is linked to Raf Simons, Peter De Potter is, most of all, a man on his own. Before our meeting, MENDO’s Roy Rietstap told me that De Potter is not very fond of interviews or photographs. “It’s not my favorite pastime,” De Potter says upon asking. “I have noticed that many interviewers enter a conversation with some preconceived notion of who I am or what I do. I prefer to stay outside of those notions.”
'People pointed out to me that books have such a strong attraction for many people, especially young people.'
It once again shows that De Potter might be at his best outside of the limelight in Belgium. Yet, he has been recognized internationally by magazines such as Dazed, i-D (for which he briefly worked in the 90s) and Hypebeast, and collaborated with Raf Simons and none other than Kanye West. “I’ve been basically doing the same thing for over twenty years,” he says somewhat admittedly. “It’s funny that everyone associates me with Raf and Kanye as if that’s what defines me. Most of my work with Raf is from the aughts. Prada and Kanye have been my only commercial work in the past decade.”
His exclusivity undeniably contributes to his popularity. In the early 2010s, De Potter rose to international acclaim through Tumblr. His blogs functioned as online publications, an endless stream of experiments, collages and archival images found on the internet. “I didn’t have much affinity with print at first,” he admits. “I found out I was actually wrong when people pointed out to me that books have such a strong attraction for many people, especially young people. It’s not a worn-out medium at all; It is alive and well. But Tumblr is still my ideal form of expression. A complete blind canvas where everything was possible. And the image was the only thing that mattered. It’s not about who made it, how many likes it has, or who the maker has worked with. It’s purely about the image and the viewer deciding whether they like it or not.”
Shop The Vanity of Certain Flowers Part Two
De Potter published his first book himself in 2016, The Vanity of Certain Flowers. It was followed by All Statues Sing Protest Songs in 2017, published by IDEA and Vape Shop Olympia by Claire de Rouen Books in 2018. The Vanity of Certain Flowers Part Two is published by MENDO, after De Potter and MENDO’s Roy Rietstap found each other on Instagram.
Like in his previous online work, De Potter’s books present collages of words, images, graphics and screen prints juxtaposed in De Potter’s signature uncanny ways, often consisting of photos of male nudity. Because of the nudity, critics and fans often place his work in the queer category. Defined by terms like “photographer”, “queer”, “erotic”, and “punk,” you could have found his very limited books under these misdefined categories. Although he isn’t surprised hearing these terms, they are inconsistent with his own reality. “To me, my work is more about human psychology,” he explains. “I don’t want to tell people how they should look at it. And I don’t mind being put in the queer genre. But to me, there is a big difference between the glamorous homo-erotic eye-candy image and my work. I hope people see that. Yes, what you see is a naked man. But the nudity is only a small element in the work that I’ve made.”
However tiny that element might be, it is often the defining part of a recipe for scrutiny. De Potter almost exclusively has young, muscular models posing in front of his camera. “I hear it almost every time I do an interview,” he says. “It’s just my version of masculinity. I’m not trying to make it erotic. It is a visual representation of a spiritual experience. I am obsessed with people who withdraw and develop themselves. That could be a boy who trains very hard to impress a girl, or in the worst cases, an extremist fighter who turns his backyard into a military training base. Someone who can free himself from peer pressure and wants to elevate himself, I think that’s fantastic. A young man with a physically strong body symbolizes that for me. But I still think it’s only a part of it. Like a painter uses their brush and colors, so are the men in my work an element to tell a larger story.”
‘To me, my work is more about human psychology.’
‘To me, my work is more about human psychology.’
The Vanity of Certain Flowers Part Two tells a melancholic story of isolation. The idea for a follow up to his first monograph was born at the height of the pandemic in 2020, as De Potter felt the theme of his first book was more present than ever. Every page in the book has the title of a flower. They carry absurdities like Een secondelange bloem (A second long flower), Een onmiddellijke bloem (An immediate flower) or Een Schroomvallige bloem (A timid flower). “I really wanted to do something with the Dutch language,” De Potter explains. “It’s such a beautiful language, and I also think it looks beautiful.” In his Dutch words, De Potter draws a lot of inspiration from Jan Arends. The Dutch poet, who was known for his struggles with mental illness and alcoholism and committed suicide in 1974, wrote poetry that went deep into the depths of a dystopic mind. “Real heavy shit,” De Potter says with his eyes widening. “One of his famous phrases is Wie kan zo mager praten met de taal als ik? (Who can speak the language as thinly as I can?). You see that in his poetry. When I read his work, it’s like Joy Division. It inspired me to do something in Dutch but keep it as “thinly” as possible. That’s what you see in the texts in this book.”
The images that are presented with the titles carry a similar melancholic tension. Fractions of catholic symbols are combined with attractive young men, seemingly random objects and sceneries, and Dutch, English and French words. Upon asking, De Potter himself describes his work with two words: Honesty and immediacy. “I try to create scenes on the fly,” he elaborates. “I can understand that it can be hard for people to really understand what it means, but I don’t mind that. Sometimes it gets interesting when people start to ask questions.”
‘Now that I think about it, this book probably is the most Flemish thing I’ve ever made.'
All images were made in the past year, with four shoots done remotely by the models themselves due to travel restrictions. For some photos, he went back to his hometown to capture Lampens’ chapel, and on one of the final pages, he dedicated a text to it. “The older I get, the more important that thing becomes to me. With everything I make, I ask myself: ‘would it fit in that chapel’? It has become a sort of benchmark over time.”
Funny enough, De Potter’s name seems to be the biggest outside of his home country. “I don’t mind,” he says with a big smile. “Now that I think about it, this book probably is the most Flemish thing I’ve ever made.” However elusive he might be, as the chapel in Kerselare, he is one of the most conspicuous presences the country has. Yet, at the same time, Peter De Potter is always hiding in plain sight.
About the book
In an elaborate, feed-like series of images, Peter De Potter explores the idea of retreat in his now signature, instantly recognisable way, constructing images through resolutely blending his own photography and video work with his poetry, language, artworks, appropriations and graphic design.
Available exclusively at MENDO. Limited to 750 copies world-wide.
The book is also available as an Art Edition limited to 50 copies that come with a signed 20 x 26.5 cm Ilford Gold Fibre Gloss fine art print.
Continue reading
Erwin Olaf in conversation with Erik van Ginkel
Interview
Galerie Ron Mandos, MENDO and Studio Erwin Olaf present Erwin Olaf, April Fool 2020. In August Erik van Ginkel, Managing Director of Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, sat together with Erwin Olaf and…
Interview with Ali Kirby, art director at DENHAM
In January of 2018, DENHAM released the book A Decade of DENHAM, in collaboration with MENDO. We talked to DENHAM's art director Ali Kirby, driving force behind the book, about…
An interview with photographer Bastiaan Woudt
MENDO sat down with photographer Bastiaan Woudt to discuss his new book Rhythm, his practice and what he finds inspiring.
Pie Aerts: Towards living a better and fuller life
Tales From the Roads Less Traveled
MENDO is proud to present Tales From The Roads Less Traveled, the first monograph of Dutch photographer Pie Aerts, published with teNeues. The result of years of traveling done by…
MENDO and Union present Frame/Work
New book
The first MENDO publication of 2019 is a fact: Frame/Work, created in collaboration with Union, is a book that inspires every young metropolitan citizen.
Photographer
In our series Shelf Sessions we climb the shelves of MENDO’s friends. In this episode: Pieter Henket, a Dutch photographer in NYC. Check some of the books we spied on…
A tactile experience with Jean Pierrot
Interview
Pierrot: CLAY explores tactile simplicity through the natural environment and human form, designed and published by Pierrot himself (in a limited first run of 1000 copies). To celebrate the arrival…
Everything that is dear to me is on Vlieland. The nature, my friends, my camera.
Interview with David van Dartel
Photographer David van Dartel on his first book: This Time Tomorrow
Who the f*ck is Adam Katz Sinding?
A WhatsApp conversation with the photographer of This Is Not A F*cking Street Style Book
"I wasn't born with much of a filter. So when I see bullshit, I call "bullshit". A WhatsApp conversation with the photographer of This Is Not A F*cking Street Style…
Photographer Pie Aerts on capturing beauty
Interview
After introducing Pie Aerts, it’s time for a chat about his first book ‘Tales From The Roads Less Traveled’, which is designed by MENDO (expected July 2019), the visual stories…
How Dior defined the new look of fashion
Inside fashion houses
With the greatest names in fashion all under one roof, you could consider MENDO the house of all houses. In every episode we highlight one of the biggest names in…
Meet MENDO
People often ask us what our personal favorite books are. This is the list of Daniël Ferwerda, our 11 Berenstraat flagship store book specialist.
Joep Hijwegen exhibition at MENDO
Expo
A selection of Joep Hijwegen’s work is exhibited and for sale at MENDO, Nieuwe Doelenstraat 10 in Amsterdam. Meet Joep at MENDO on Saturday July 10th from 1pm - 4pm.
Daniel Arsham: Dislocating people in time
Interview
On Saturday 12 January Daniel Arsham visited MENDO to sign his new book. In anticipation of the book signing, MENDO talked with the multidisciplinary artist.
If even the best Nose says so…
A conversation with Nicolas Cloutier, president and co-founder of Nose Paris
‘Doing a collaboration like this means 1+1 = 3', says Nicolas Cloutier, president and co-founder of Nose in Paris in a conversation about the MENDO / ZENOLOGY room perfume 'Libri'.
Two LaChapelle books you want to get your hands on
An epic final chapter
The wait is over: the two (!) last books of David LaChapelle are here. Two colourful books, featuring dazzling portraits of our world’s best known celebrities and a colourful examination…
Shelf Sessions: Emilia van Lynden
Unseen Amsterdam
In our series Shelf Sessions we climb the shelves of MENDO’s friends. In this episode: Emilia van Lynden, (ex) Artistic Director of Unseen Amsterdam.
Intended for those in search of the rare and beautiful
Mona di Orio
At MENDO we have friends with brands that have a way of drawing out inspiration and creativity. Maison Mona di Orio was created by the perfumer, Mona di Orio, and…
A year in review
2018 draws to a close, and what a year it has been. We made 12 books, used 31 km of wrapping paper, and sent Adam Katz Sinding to sign his…
Fresh deliveries for the summer
New books
Summer is finally upon us and that usually means fresh new titles here at MENDO. Here’s a selection of some of our favorite new books that just arrived.