Guido Geelen

Thorn the Netherlands 1961
lives and works in Tilburg

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Clay is a raw material for potters and ceramists, and its use is associated more with applied arts than with monumental art. Guido Geelen manages to break with that tradition, though his unruly sculptures of clay contain many references to the decorative objects that adorn our living rooms.

Between 1989 and 1992 Geelen produced sculptures which bear a distinct affinity with the austere order of Minimal Art. The building blocks of Untitled (c.t. 55/15, r+s 63855 zwart, r+s 93602 wit), for example, are spattered alternately with back, then white glaze and stacked into straight columns, which in turn are arranged into the definite, geometric pattern of a checkerboard. The functional subtitles, which refer to the factory codes of the incorporated materials, also belong to the minimalist tradition. But in his use of detail in the sculptures, Geelen deviates from this altogether.

Untitled (r.k. 015) from 1992 looks like a decorative wall; it consists of five large and two smaller elements of bright reddish clay. The building blocks have a peculiar composition, however: one recognizes objects from the household domain, such as television sets, keyboards, vacuum cleaners and kitschy ceramic sculptures of animals – all of which have been thoroughly distorted. Geelen first produced molds of most of these items (the animals were industrial rejects) and then pressed clay into the molds. The forms of soft clay that resulted from this were subsequently forced into rectangular crates and fired.

There is something unsettling about this procedure. The whole of the work looks somewhat like a rubbish heap, chaotic and tidy at the same time, as though the entire muddle of our daily lives has been arranged in an orderly manner. On the other hand, this gives the rigid contours a beautiful fluid quality. The fascinating play of lights and darks and the unexpected, almost bizarre accumulation of objects lend a certain cheerfulness to the order. Such contradictions are characteristic of Geelen: order and chaos, the austere and the baroque, but also the artisanal and the industrial, the simple and the complex, art and kitsch enter into a natural alliance in his work.

Little by little, the geometric order gives way to baroque exuberance. Take, for instance, the wall sculpture Untitled (console with planks) from 1995. The console and the planks in themselves refer to the themes of the household and orderliness: they are elements on which various things can be displayed neatly, as in a still life. But Geelen’s planks of clay, across which miniature animals frolic, have been draped over the console. The multicolored membrane consists of traces of platinum glaze and a collage of scenes that the artist applied with the aid of transfers – decals from the ceramic industry, varying from atmospheric hunting scenes and winter landscapes to appetizing still lifes of fruit.

Any evidence of geometric order is just as indiscernible in his recent sculptures. What Geelen refers to as the ‘imploding’ sculptures – such as Untitled (r.k. 015) – have given way to  ‘exploding’, almost chaotic sculptures in bronze. Untitled (urinals) from 1994, with its irregular growth of protrusions, looks most like an alarmingly large beetle, whose limbs and antennae have been deformed by some grave illness. Those who feast their eyes, however, will notice that the protrusions are made from castings of old-fashioned Dutch clay pipes and that the ‘body’ consists of two joined castings of a urinal.

The interweaving of the traditions of art and applied arts that occurs in earlier work can also be seen here. The old-fashioned Dutch pipes refer to craftsmanship and the urinals are reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp, who exhibited a urinal in 1917 and thereby transformed a utilitarian object into a work of art. By doing so, Duchamp was in fact making the first assault on modernism. In his hybrid piece of work, Geelen has not removed the bronze of the many runners (pouring channels for casting), as is normally done in bronze casting, but has deliberately left them intact. They contribute significantly to the impression of chaos and uncontrolled growth, which is characteristic of the work.

It is typical of Geelen’s refinement that, by leaving the runners intact, he has actually done no more than to make the process of bronze casting visible. Here he applies a pre-eminently modernist principle, that of clarity. Just as a painting is no more than a flat surface with paint, a sculpture is merely a lump of bronze that has been molded. With this surprising work, Geelen has given birth to an anti-modernist-looking monster, by which he defies the strictness of modernism with its own arsenal of weapons.

For more information please vist the website of Guido Geelen.