Eric Van Hove
Encyclopedia
Eric Van Hove is a Cameroon
raised Belgian conceptual artist, poet and traveler. He lives and works between Brussels
and Tokyo
.
in Tokyo. He obtained a PhD degree from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 2008.
Bordering on activism
with an existentialist tone, Van Hove's work is based on the artist's nomadic willing to simultaneously address local and global issues. It encompasses many media ranging from installation to performance, video, photography and writing. At times insubstantial and subversive, Van Hove's conceptually poetic interventions often ponder and cross-refer to sociological, political and ecological issues as shown with Japanese Constitution Worm Autodafé, Free Trade Concrete Mixer Kaleidoscope, or Shark Fin Piñata, which relates to the illegal Taiwanese shark finning in Costa Rica (1998–2006), portrayed in Rob Stewart
's documentary Sharkwater
. Made at the end of 2007, Dan Liever the Lucht In is a body of works responding to the 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis which was first shown in situ at the Belgian embassy in Tokyo before the building was destroyed for reconstruction.
Van Hove's work includes wanderlust
, defamiliarization
, psychogeography
and dérive
, and he early on acknowledged transcendentalist influences in trying to oppose a more spiritual and decentralized approach to the Eurocentric intellectualism of the contemporary art world.
Interested in bringing contemporary art
not only to the public space outside galleries and museums but outside of the Western context itself, Van Hove has been prolific in such diverse places as the Siwa Oasis
in Egypt, Mount Kailash
in Tibet, the Laguna de Perlas
in Nicaragua, the Issyk Kul
lake in eastern Kyrgyzstan, the Fianarantsoa
province in Madagascar or more recently the foothills of the Himalayas
in the northwestern part of Yunnan Province, China
. He also conducted artist talks (which calls “story-telling objects” or “oral exhibits”) in venues as different as Ramallah
, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
, the Darat al Funun in Amman
, and the University of Sarajevo
.
The "Metragram Series", a photographic series Van Hove started in 2005 crossing the artistic genre of self-portrait
, vanitas
, iconography
and Memento mori
in which he is seen inking the womb of women categorized as belonging to different types of groups, gathers images he produced in over 29 countries in 3 years. A digital slide show display of the Series was first presented as part of the Mediation Biennial in Poznań
in 2008 (other Belgian artists were Jan Fabre
and Koen Vanmechelen).
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
raised Belgian conceptual artist, poet and traveler. He lives and works between Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
and Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
.
Work
Eric Van Hove studied at the École de Recherche Graphique in Brussels and received a Master's degree in Traditional Japanese Calligraphy at the Tokyo Gakugei UniversityTokyo Gakugei University
Tokyo Gakugei University or Gakudai , for short, is a national university in Koganei, Tokyo. While its history may be traced to 1873, it was formally chartered as a university in 1949 through the merging of four teacher-training institutions....
in Tokyo. He obtained a PhD degree from the Tokyo University of the Arts in 2008.
Bordering on activism
Activism
Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...
with an existentialist tone, Van Hove's work is based on the artist's nomadic willing to simultaneously address local and global issues. It encompasses many media ranging from installation to performance, video, photography and writing. At times insubstantial and subversive, Van Hove's conceptually poetic interventions often ponder and cross-refer to sociological, political and ecological issues as shown with Japanese Constitution Worm Autodafé, Free Trade Concrete Mixer Kaleidoscope, or Shark Fin Piñata, which relates to the illegal Taiwanese shark finning in Costa Rica (1998–2006), portrayed in Rob Stewart
Rob Stewart
Rob Stewart is a Canadian actor born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada principally known for the lead role of Nick Slaughter in the 1991–93 television series Tropical Heat . He has also guest starred in numerous television roles and was one of the leads in the television show Peter Benchley's Amazon...
's documentary Sharkwater
Sharkwater
Sharkwater is a 2007 Canadian documentary film written and directed by Rob Stewart, who also narrates it. In the film, Stewart seeks to deflate current attitudes about sharks, and exposes how the voracious shark-hunting industry is driving them to extinction.Filmed in high definition video,...
. Made at the end of 2007, Dan Liever the Lucht In is a body of works responding to the 2007–2011 Belgian political crisis which was first shown in situ at the Belgian embassy in Tokyo before the building was destroyed for reconstruction.
Van Hove's work includes wanderlust
Wanderlust
Wanderlust is a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world.-Etymology:The loanword from German language became an English term in 1902 as a reflection of what was then seen as a characteristically German predilection for wandering that may be traced back to German...
, defamiliarization
Defamiliarization
Defamiliarization or ostranenie is the artistic technique of forcing the audience to see common things in an unfamiliar or strange way, in order to enhance perception of the familiar...
, psychogeography
Psychogeography
Psychogeography was defined in 1955 by Guy Debord as "the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals." Another definition is "a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for...
and dérive
Dérive
In psychogeography, a dérive is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, where an individual travels where the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture and geography subconsciously direct them with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic...
, and he early on acknowledged transcendentalist influences in trying to oppose a more spiritual and decentralized approach to the Eurocentric intellectualism of the contemporary art world.
Interested in bringing contemporary art
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
not only to the public space outside galleries and museums but outside of the Western context itself, Van Hove has been prolific in such diverse places as the Siwa Oasis
Siwa Oasis
The Siwa Oasis is an oasis in Egypt, located between the Qattara Depression and the Egyptian Sand Sea in the Libyan Desert, nearly 50 km east of the Libyan border, and 560 km from Cairo....
in Egypt, Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash
Mount Kailash is a peak in the Gangdisê Mountains, which are part of the Himalayas in Tibet...
in Tibet, the Laguna de Perlas
Laguna de Perlas
Pearl Lagoon is a town in the municipality by the same name. It is located in Región Autónoma del Atlántico Sur department of Nicaragua...
in Nicaragua, the Issyk Kul
Issyk Kul
Issyk Kul is an endorheic lake in the northern Tian Shan mountains in eastern Kyrgyzstan. It is the tenth largest lake in the world by volume and the second largest saline lake after the Caspian Sea. Although it is surrounded by snow-capped peaks, it never freezes; hence its name, which means "hot...
lake in eastern Kyrgyzstan, the Fianarantsoa
Fianarantsoa
Fianarantsoa is a city in south central Madagascar.Fianarantsoa is the capital of Haute Matsiatra Region. It was built in the early 19th century by the Merina as the administrative capital for the newly conquered Betsileo kingdoms....
province in Madagascar or more recently the foothills of the Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
in the northwestern part of Yunnan Province, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. He also conducted artist talks (which calls “story-telling objects” or “oral exhibits”) in venues as different as Ramallah
Ramallah
Ramallah is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority...
, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art is an art museum in Tehran, Iran.Inaugurated in 1977, and built adjacent to Tehran's Laleh Park, the museum was designed by Iranian architect Kamran Diba, who employed elements from traditional Persian architecture. The building can be listed as a contemporary...
, the Darat al Funun in Amman
Amman
Amman is the capital of Jordan. It is the country's political, cultural and commercial centre and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The Greater Amman area has a population of 2,842,629 as of 2010. The population of Amman is expected to jump from 2.8 million to almost...
, and the University of Sarajevo
University of Sarajevo
The University of Sarajevo is the first university in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was originally established in 1531 as a Madrasah or Islamic Law college, with a modern university being established and expanded on top of that in 1949. Today, with 23 faculties and around 55,000 enrolled students, it...
.
The "Metragram Series", a photographic series Van Hove started in 2005 crossing the artistic genre of self-portrait
Self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting...
, vanitas
Vanitas
In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with Northern European still life painting in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other places and periods. The word is Latin, meaning "emptiness" and loosely translated...
, iconography
Iconography
Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...
and Memento mori
Memento mori
Memento mori is a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die". It names a genre of artistic work which varies widely, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality...
in which he is seen inking the womb of women categorized as belonging to different types of groups, gathers images he produced in over 29 countries in 3 years. A digital slide show display of the Series was first presented as part of the Mediation Biennial in Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
in 2008 (other Belgian artists were Jan Fabre
Jan Fabre
Jan Fabre is a Belgian multidisciplinary artist, playwright, stage director, choreographer and designer.He studied at the Municipal Institute of Decorative Arts and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp...
and Koen Vanmechelen).