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Lot Essay
Chantoir (Model for a Mountain Hut), is a project conceived by Thierry De Cordier for the Skulptur Projekte Münster in 1987. Lots 19-21 include a intricately illustrated drawing of the concept, a folio containing five additional drawings, complete with handwritten notes and a model of the Chantoir, composed of a tin roof situated atop a wooden structure.
In one of his meticulously calligraphed concept pages, De Cordier describes the purpose of the project as a simultaneous fall-front desk and observatory for ‘a philosopher or a poet or a musician’ (‘pour une philosophe ou un poète ou un musicien’), intended to be built into the angle of a church. He employs the term scriptoire, an ancient variation of the term fall-front desk or secretary-desk. Thierry De Cordier’s work and persona as an artist is defined by his estrangement from the 20th century world of art and his affinity for Romanticism. As such, his work incorporates three recurring elements —his distance from contemporaneity, loneliness, and yearning for individuality. All three characteristics are fully embodied by the current work: the use of archaic terms speaks to his desire for a foregone time; the cavernous and uneven construction of the desk, intended to be built into a corner, personifies loneliness; and his handwritten instructions in blue ink belay a strong sense of individuality which echoes through the centuries.
Born in Oudenaarde in 1954, De Cordier went on to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. As a young artist he travelled extensively for ten years and developed an interest in architecture and its effect on social relations. It was also during this time that he began to explore and use his interest in philosophy more keenly. By 1985 he chose for a sedentary life and returned to the fine arts. In 1987, the same year as the Skulptur Projekte Münster, he moved to the Auvergne Region of France, using his own private garden to experiment with ways of expressing his own interpretations of the world. At the same time he began painting dark paintings of the desolate Flemish landscape in which he grew up. These paintings, the subject of which he affectionately referred to as ‘Fucking Flanders’, were exhibited in the Centre Pompidou in 2004-2005 and embody all the melancholy and wistfulness that De Cordier has incorporated into most other components of his oeuvre.
Chantoir was never executed for the Skulptur Projekte in Münster, due to the fact that the Council of St. Lamberti’s Church, where the work was intended to be installed, refused to permit its construction. While regrettable at the time, this decision was perhaps fortuitous, for thirteen years later, Chantoir would find a greater patron in S.M.A.K and their 2000 exhibition Over the Edges, which took inspiration from a 1986 exhibition called Chambres d’Amis, in which works of art were installed across the city of Ghent in public and private interiors. Chantoir was installed in an angle of the Ghent Cathedral. Over the Edges differed from the prior project in one significant respect: the works of art were intended for exterior display, to be dispersed across the historic city centre. During Over the Edges, Chantoir was used as a platform and stage for musicians, poets and other performers; it served as a true speaker's corner.
Jan Hoet, founder of S.M.A.K. and curator of Over the Edges, cited the displacement of the Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck from the Vijd Chapel to the Villa Chapel in 1986 as a supreme example of contemporaneity: ‘The displacement of the work charges it with the ultimate symbol of contemporaneity. A work of art of this stature is above history, above the chronology past-present-future. It is precisely the movement from one place to another, or the mere fact that it can be shown in another place, which lends it its contemporary character’ (Jan Hoet, quoted in Over the Edges, Ghent 2000, unpaged).
The optimism with which Hoet confronts the displacement of the Ghent Altarpiece — viewing it as a celebration of the entrance of aesthetics into all aspects of life, as opposed to a degradation of something once holy — stands as a warm counterpart to De Cordier’s own feeling of isolation from contemporaneity, marked as it is by dark melancholy and nostalgic archaism. On one of the accompanying illustrations of the project, De Cordier repeats the description of Chantoir in Dutch, and then writes underneath, ‘I am a tired philosopher’ (‘Je suis un philosophe fatigué’). This somber description, accompanying an architectural ode to pensive woefulness, is uplifted by the elated nature and goals of the exhibition itself, and De Cordier’s tired philosopher is made less lonesome by its installation at the beating heart of the historic city centre of Ghent.
In one of his meticulously calligraphed concept pages, De Cordier describes the purpose of the project as a simultaneous fall-front desk and observatory for ‘a philosopher or a poet or a musician’ (‘pour une philosophe ou un poète ou un musicien’), intended to be built into the angle of a church. He employs the term scriptoire, an ancient variation of the term fall-front desk or secretary-desk. Thierry De Cordier’s work and persona as an artist is defined by his estrangement from the 20th century world of art and his affinity for Romanticism. As such, his work incorporates three recurring elements —his distance from contemporaneity, loneliness, and yearning for individuality. All three characteristics are fully embodied by the current work: the use of archaic terms speaks to his desire for a foregone time; the cavernous and uneven construction of the desk, intended to be built into a corner, personifies loneliness; and his handwritten instructions in blue ink belay a strong sense of individuality which echoes through the centuries.
Born in Oudenaarde in 1954, De Cordier went on to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. As a young artist he travelled extensively for ten years and developed an interest in architecture and its effect on social relations. It was also during this time that he began to explore and use his interest in philosophy more keenly. By 1985 he chose for a sedentary life and returned to the fine arts. In 1987, the same year as the Skulptur Projekte Münster, he moved to the Auvergne Region of France, using his own private garden to experiment with ways of expressing his own interpretations of the world. At the same time he began painting dark paintings of the desolate Flemish landscape in which he grew up. These paintings, the subject of which he affectionately referred to as ‘Fucking Flanders’, were exhibited in the Centre Pompidou in 2004-2005 and embody all the melancholy and wistfulness that De Cordier has incorporated into most other components of his oeuvre.
Chantoir was never executed for the Skulptur Projekte in Münster, due to the fact that the Council of St. Lamberti’s Church, where the work was intended to be installed, refused to permit its construction. While regrettable at the time, this decision was perhaps fortuitous, for thirteen years later, Chantoir would find a greater patron in S.M.A.K and their 2000 exhibition Over the Edges, which took inspiration from a 1986 exhibition called Chambres d’Amis, in which works of art were installed across the city of Ghent in public and private interiors. Chantoir was installed in an angle of the Ghent Cathedral. Over the Edges differed from the prior project in one significant respect: the works of art were intended for exterior display, to be dispersed across the historic city centre. During Over the Edges, Chantoir was used as a platform and stage for musicians, poets and other performers; it served as a true speaker's corner.
Jan Hoet, founder of S.M.A.K. and curator of Over the Edges, cited the displacement of the Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck from the Vijd Chapel to the Villa Chapel in 1986 as a supreme example of contemporaneity: ‘The displacement of the work charges it with the ultimate symbol of contemporaneity. A work of art of this stature is above history, above the chronology past-present-future. It is precisely the movement from one place to another, or the mere fact that it can be shown in another place, which lends it its contemporary character’ (Jan Hoet, quoted in Over the Edges, Ghent 2000, unpaged).
The optimism with which Hoet confronts the displacement of the Ghent Altarpiece — viewing it as a celebration of the entrance of aesthetics into all aspects of life, as opposed to a degradation of something once holy — stands as a warm counterpart to De Cordier’s own feeling of isolation from contemporaneity, marked as it is by dark melancholy and nostalgic archaism. On one of the accompanying illustrations of the project, De Cordier repeats the description of Chantoir in Dutch, and then writes underneath, ‘I am a tired philosopher’ (‘Je suis un philosophe fatigué’). This somber description, accompanying an architectural ode to pensive woefulness, is uplifted by the elated nature and goals of the exhibition itself, and De Cordier’s tired philosopher is made less lonesome by its installation at the beating heart of the historic city centre of Ghent.