Written by: Gea Vlahović Photos: Matej Paluh
Arne Quinze is a world-renowned Belgian artist whose public sculptures and installations have permanently altered the cityscapes of places such as Paris, Shanghai, Beirut, Washington, Brussels, Mumbai, and Sao Paulo
Art, luxury and nature in perfect harmony – there is no better way to sum up the sculpture garden at the Meneghetti Estate in Istria, officially inaugurated at the end of June, with the opening of the exhibition featuring the works of the Belgian contemporary artist called Arne Quinze, a world-renowned painter and sculptor whose six monumental sculptures have added an air of exquisite virtuosity to the realm of elite tourism at the luxury estate near Bale, leading to an enchanting fusion of contemporary sculpture and rural landscapes, thanks to which the Meneghetti Wine Hotel & Winery landed a permanent spot on the cultural map of Croatia, Europe and the world in general.
Arne Quinze is a world-renowned Belgian artist whose public sculptures and installations have permanently altered the cityscapes of places such as Paris, Shanghai, Beirut, Washington, Brussels, Mumbai, and Sao Paulo.
Born in Belgium in 1971, Quinze cut his artistic teeth on graffiti in the 1980s in Brussels. Inspired by nature, its (im)perfect beauty and colours, he has been trying to “bring nature back” to cities with his public art interventions for over 30 years now, creating cracks in the walls within which we live and encouraging the general public to question their environment and their place in it.
The artist who “strives to give colour back to the world” has produced a rich oeuvre ranging from sketches and paintings to large sculptures and huge installations. Nowadays, he lives and works in Sint-Martens-Latem, near Ghent, where he also grows a garden with over 150 thousand different plant species.
The Meneghetti sculpture garden features six monumental sculptures from his series titled “Lupines”, drawing inspiration from lupines, a flower species native to southern Istria. Symbolizing the circle of life, Quinze’s ingenious aluminium installations manage to capture the fragility of a delicate flower to a T, invoking visitors to reconsider nature’s dichotomies – strength and tenderness, fragility and brutality – the two polar opposites in the thick of which all life on Earth takes place: Quinze is on an ongoing mission to return man to nature.
This expo is the first in a series of scheduled exhibitions and it is curated by a Berlin-based art consultant, Reiner Opoku. It will be on display until October 2024.
Arne Quinze, the man himself, took time out of his training for the Alpine Half-Marathon, devoirs associated with the exhibition, and relaxing in the wonderful setting of the ultimate luxury of the Meneghetti Estate to attend the opening, and he also granted us the privilege of conducting this extremely interesting interview for the Symbol. The interview gave us an insight into this extraordinarily inspiring interlocutor and a fascinating artistic persona, whose idealism and passion defy every categorisation – Arne Quinze is unapologetically unique. Therefore, we start off with the first question that comes to mind.
For starters, could you tell us something about yourself and your view on life?
I’m this very curious person. I’m a proper nosey parker, interested in everything. I’m constantly on the lookout for new discoveries, always on the road to cognition. I like to taste the world, to explore it. That’s just who I am. At the same time, I’m a gardener, someone who immerses himself in his garden anew every day; it’s where I feel most at home. Nature. I’m not afraid of hitting a brick wall, nor do I fear failure. That’s why I keep taking risks, all in order to continue exploring. I’m equally devoted to introspection.
What provides you with tools for research and introspection, what is the connecting thread of your webs of reference, and the guiding principle in establishing your aesthetic criteria?
If you’re asking me what inspires me, it’s always nature and nothing but nature. Here’s how I see it: 300,000 years ago, heaven on Earth was shattered by a meteor that brought human DNA with it. We are aliens on this planet, we came here as outlanders and brought our special religion with us, a religion I like to call “the four walls”. You can find those four walls everywhere – they are the polar opposite of everything that nature provides. When we are born, our first interaction with the world occurs within the four sterile walls of the delivery room. Then it’s off to school, where we’re once again confined by our four brick walls. Later on, we start working, again within four concrete walls, and when we die, they lay us within the four walls of the coffin. We also carry these walls within us – we constantly limit ourselves in every possible way. That’s what I mean when I speak of our religion brought from somewhere out there in the universe.
And what do aliens do, at least in the movies? They come to Earth and attempt to conquer it. We’ve done the same. When we see a forest, what is the first thing that comes to our minds? Cut it down and cover it with concrete so we can build our four walls on the spot. I’ve lived in many places and it’s like that everywhere. At one point, I realised that I wanted to get away from all that and return to nature. I was born in the countryside and grew up surrounded by nature: until I was ten years old, my garden stretched on into infinity – across the fields, all the way to the horizon. The whole nature was my home. One day, while studying the work of the French painter Pierre Bonnard, one of his bushes catapulted me back to my early childhood and youth, to a time when I was still a kid – for me, that bush represented a place where I could truly feel at home, surrounded by my friends – butterflies, birds, and the like.
That was the trigger for my escape, my return to nature. I planted more than 150,000 different plants in the garden in front of my house just so I could live in my own heaven on Earth, studying my world.
I would describe my condition as that of permanent duality: on the one hand, I’m an alien here as well, but on the other, I strive to be in harmony with nature. It’s a constant struggle.
Where is your garden located?
Not far from Ghent, in the village of Sint-Martens-Latem, where the roads are mostly still unpaved.
Is man condemned to be a permanent anomaly that will ultimately destroy nature or can he ever truly fit in? How do you suggest we redefine our relationship to nature?
Everyone who comes to my studio with the intention of buying one of my sculptures must first visit my garden, kneel on the ground with me, and reconnect with nature, experiencing it from this new perspective. We’re so used to observing the world from above and attempting to control it, so that as soon as our alien brain detects a problem in our garden, we simply nip it in the bud, eradicate it. Nature, on the other hand, is in perfect balance; we just need to look at it from a different angle.
By observing it from a diametrically opposite perspective, by looking at it from the bottom up, we learn to see again. You see, we’ve forgotten that beauty is not only a flower in full bloom, but also a withering one. We strive for eternal youth and plastic beauty, but it’s also nice to be old and seasoned. This is what we must learn to see again.
How is all this reflected in your art?
In all my artistic pursuits, I do my best to open a window into my world, initiate a dialogue, convey the strength of fragility, and vice versa. I work with fragility in strength, which is the very secret of nature – look around you and notice how amazing nature is, how it’s both fragile and strong in perfect harmony.
You keep coming back to nature, to the inspiration you find in it, be it for life or art. What have you learned by paying close attention to the metamorphoses of nature over the years?
I’ve come to realise that it is a never-ending learning process. Something new takes my breath away each and every day. I’m baffled when I see how little we have seen so far and how much more there is to discover: we just need to immerse ourselves in the world and sail from one story to the next.
I’m like a kid in a candy store when it comes to this world; I wake up and my first thought is what a wonder the world is. I’m constantly exalted. When I’m not in my studio, I’m out and about in my garden – it’s like getting my daily dose of Netflix. Exploring that world is like Star Wars to me: temples of purity sown in my garden.
Must be nice living in Paradise and standing the test of modern times…
I have to admit, it’s no easy feat. It’s not possible to exist without leaving some kind of footprint; and with every step we take, we destroy something. The hardest part is trying to give something in return. I think that’s the key question that everyone must ask themselves: what can I give back to my environment? This question represents our future – how we may contribute, re-establish balance… not only within ourselves, but also in relation to our surroundings. And this is something we can learn from nature – it offers all the solutions.
You exhibit your works all over the world. How did this collaboration with Meneghetti come about? Is this your first expo in Croatia?
This is my first exhibition in Croatia, but not my first visit to the country. I first came here more than 40 years ago, when it was still part of Yugoslavia, and then again about 20 years ago. For me, this country is one of Europe’s best kept secrets. So much pristine nature!
Tell us something about the symbolism behind the title of the exhibition, “Lupine”…
Lupine is a plant, one that we have effectively destroyed in our Western European monoculture. This occurred to me while driving from Beijing to Paris in a 1927 vintage car. When driving that car, I could only reach a maximum speed of 80 kilometres per hour, so I drove quite slowly, and almost exclusively on side roads. I drove over the Gobi Desert, Siberia, and Kazakhstan in that convertible. It took me five weeks. The closer I got to Europe, the more aware I became of the gradual disappearance of natural diversity. As I went further west, I noticed that wild lupine was getting harder and harder to spot, and by the time I arrived at the German border, I saw there were none left. Not only was this part of the world devoid of lupine, but also of many other plant species.
That shocked me to my core. In just five weeks, I had witnessed such a huge difference thanks to having had enough time to notice this change, for which we will be held accountable. So the lupine became a symbol of my research on our impact on nature, a symbol with which I try to confront others, to open their eyes and say: look, this is our doing.
Let’s be clear, I’m no environmental activist on the barricades, although I admire those who are, because we desperately need them. I’m just trying to make a positive statement through my work, point out that we could just change our habits a bit, and that – if we were to let the grass grow instead of mowing every single blade of grass all around – our garden would come to life in just a few months, and all the butterflies, birds, and bugs would come closer to us.
These sculptures appear to be really challenging to make… How do you manage to capture the fragility of a flower in something so huge and made of coarse material? How do engineering and nature go together?
Almost 30 years ago, I saw Microcosmos, a documentary shot from the perspective of insects that opens the door to the microworld of nature, all of that enormous power on which we humans always look down. Using my installations, I aim to turn the world upside down, so that us people are the ones that are small and viewed from above.
Aluminium is a solid material, hard to the touch, so it’s tough to even imagine how to approach shaping it. I tame it with the help of large cranes to show the brutality of nature, which is very poetic and terribly fragile at the same time. I’m attempting to create a dialogue between the alien and nature.
Do you always use aluminium?
I spent years making installations from wood harvested from forests planted for the production of furniture, paper, etc. These installations were conceived as a kind of transit zone, a transitional phase, to be removed after five or six years. I placed them in cities, where children were growing up oblivious to the seasons or wilderness, hoping to provide them with an authentic experience, so that after their removal, a void would emerge, a void that was also part of the art installation, as a reminder of that which is no longer there.
However, I came to realise that I don’t want to be an artist who creates voids. I desired to fill that space. I looked for a material that could be recycled and one that could last forever.
And that’s where I came across aluminium.
In your artistic work, you question the role of cities. But you started your career on the streets, as a graffiti artist nonetheless! To what extent has that experience influenced your outlook towards cities?
I got my first taste of city life when I was ten years old. That was back in 1980, and I was looking forward to seeing my capital city and being able to see Star Wars in the cinema. But my arrival in Brussels turned out to be a huge disappointment. I found myself facing walls for the first time in my life – up until then I had lived in nature. I missed the colours. That’s when I first realized that I needed to do something to bring colours back into my life.
I was a teenager at the time, so I didn’t really have much of a choice, and the only thing I could do was restore the colour to the walls, so I started drawing graffiti wherever I could.
That was my starting point, the beginning of my art, which has always, in a way, been connected to public spaces. That was the fuse of the dynamite of my soul: my youthful rebellion fuelled my artistic spirit.
In that sense, does your art make any political statements? Is it necessary for art to be politically engaged to be good? Where do you draw the line between the political and the personal?
Politics must be present in art to the same extent as humour or sarcasm – all of this adds another depth to our perceptions of the world. At the same time, I don’t think that art must necessarily always be political.
And how political is my art? On the one hand, it is very apolitical – I try to stay as far away from politics as possible. On the other hand, however, I am currently dealing with the most important issue on the planet: nature. Climate change is the biggest and most pressing political issue of today, one that state policies are either oblivious to or fearful of confronting. Although some little progress is being achieved, it’s all terribly slow; in fact, 90 percent of all efforts are being directed towards goals that are completely opposite to what climate activists are fighting for.
Our children and grandchildren will regard us villains because of this.
Has your art ever gotten you into trouble?
It most certainly has! To begin with, back when I was a graffiti artist, I learned to run really fast.
Guess that’s why you ended up running marathons…
Yep, I’m running marathons now (laughter)…
You were extremely persistent and took a lot of risks at certain points in life, right?
When I started doing my monumental works about twenty years ago, I was always short of money. I’d have a budget of 100 thousand euros, when in reality I needed 300 or 400 thousand. But I was determined to go all the way and I’d usually rack up a debt of 200 or 300 thousand euros in three weeks. It was a very difficult period for me, a hard struggle. I always had to figure out how to make up for the shortfall. So, for the first 10 or 15 years, I literally had to invent food to survive. But I never, ever gave up.
And that is also something I learned on the streets. I basically grew up on the streets: I started fending for myself from the age of 14 and learned how to survive, how to not be afraid of life and my own mistakes and failings. You see, you can learn a lot from your mistakes, and that’s how you become stronger. That makes you tougher. Thanks to that, I didn’t experience fear later on: I wasn’t afraid to take risks, simply because I had nothing to lose.
Of course, things are completely different now, and I’m living a different life. But back then, I was barely making ends meet. If I hadn’t had that experience of living on the streets, I would never have had so much courage.
Every work of art is first and foremost a visual experience. We are interested in your attitude towards beauty – what is beauty to you?
Beauty is life. For me, beauty unravels as soon as I open my eyes, with the first glimpse of the sky. Be it’s clouded, rainy, sunny or teeming with snowflakes, it always fills me with a sense of happiness. I am happy every second of every day. Even the smallest of things make me as joyous as the big ones. I’m an optimist through and through.
Aren’t you ever sad? Does nothing make you depressed?
Of course I get depressed. I can weep like a child when I see certain things that are going on. But you have to strike back with hope. In that sense, art is a reflection of civilization, of everything we do in this world, and for me, it’s a never-ending struggle – because when you decide to face it, you’re in for a rocky ride.
Is there such a thing as the ethics of a work of art?
My art is very abstract, and it gives people the opportunity to incorporate their own ideas, visions, and imagination into it. Some people are able to do so, while some aren’t: it all depends on the beholder. I want to allow as much room for interpretation as possible so that whoever observes my work can enter my story and assume a role in it.
This openness is my ethics, which contrasts with the brutality with which I approach the material.
How do people react to your art? Do reactions differ in different parts of the world?
Since my works are so abstract, I can take them anywhere, penetrate any culture. I have, in fact, been almost everywhere; I’ve been to every continent except Antarctica, which I plan to visit in two years (I hope that won’t be too late and that there’ll still be some ice left!). What I’ve learned is that there’s only one race in the whole world – the human race. And that all people around the globe are the same. Every culture has the same social ladder, which runs from the gutters to the top one percent. Also, wherever you go, you’ll always run into the same people: likable, unlikable, smart, stupid, thin, fat…
I had assumed that people in India, for example, would react differently to my art than those in China, the United States or Europe. But the reactions have always been exactly the same: either they like it, or they don’t. Because art is not here to please everyone – that is not its purpose. The purpose of art is to spark a conversation, and it’s always the same conversations that take place all over the world, regardless of culture, age, or nationality.
What are you currently working on?
The list goes on for miles. I’m currently working on a large sculpture that will be permanently installed in London, which makes me very happy. I’m also working on a major public artwork in the south of France. Then I’m off to Brazil, Sao Paulo, where I’m scheduled to do a 90-meter-high sculpture for which we are currently in the process of obtaining permits. When you make huge interventions in public locations, you are bound to run into politics – you have to obtain permits, win over the local community, etc.
The road from idea to realisation is always long. Sometimes it takes but a year, while at times it may take five, seven, and, on occasion, even ten years.
How are these sculptures created; what does your creative process look like?
The process begins with being immersed in nature. I study structures, contemplate harmony, and draw sketches. Then, based on these sketches, I create paper models that I send to my team of engineers, who then do the math. Based on their estimations, I develop a construction project with a team of architects. All of this involves a lot of communication across several echelons and among many partakers before reaching a final solution, especially when it comes to enormous, monumental sculptures.
The finished project then goes to the manufacturing department – since we make our own sculptures– and the cherry on top is placing the sculpture somewhere in the world.
That involves a lot of machinery and people… How do you come to the decision that your work is the real deal; how do you know that the sculpture is finished?
I just feel it in my gut. I approach painting the same way. I paint with that feeling in my stomach, abstractly, from all angles. Paintings are windows into my inner being. Everything I do, every piece of art I create, represents a journey on the road to cognition; each one is a research study. That’s why all of them are different – because art is constantly opening new doors. And behind every door, there is another door.
Okay, so how would you like us to see and perceive the sculptures at Meneghetti?
They seem fragile from afar, but when you get close to them, when you touch them, you’ll be startled by their rigidity and firmness. In most cases, the first reaction to that is pondering, and I like that; I love it when people start asking questions. It doesn’t matter whether they understand what they see, or how they understand it: what matters is that it engages them in a dialogue, an exchange between the work of art and the beholder.
Oftentimes I sneak up and listen to what people are saying about my work, and it’s always an extremely pleasant experience. It’s very interesting to listen to these conversations, to hear how different people perceive my work, how they supplement that tale, my story, which is also their story.
The moment I exhibit my sculpture in public, it belongs to everyone – it’s no longer just mine.
Reiner Opoku
The Curator Behind It All
The main “culprit” for Arne Quinze’s exhibition at the Meneghetti Wine Hotel and Winery is the renowned German curator and art dealer called Reiner Opoku. He has lived with his family in Fažana for quite a while now, splitting his time between Istria and Berlin, where his office is located.
He became close friends with the owner of Meneghetti, Miroslav Plišo, which led to a cooperation that acknowledged the enormous potential of this estate to become, in addition to being an elite winery and hotel, an important cultural destination. The owner’s willingness to open the estate to contemporary art prompted Opoku to devise a cultural programme including events such as exhibitions, presentations of artists and various projects related to contemporary art, the backbone of which is this fantastic hotel.
He gave the grand opening slot to Quinze, an artist with whom he had collaborated for 15 years and whose endeavours and work are closely connected to and inspired by nature, offering a new, fresh perspective on art in public spaces. Quinze is continuously seeking for new ways to cover cityscapes in art; his expression is extremely authentic and modern, and he was the obvious choice for this place.
The wonderful thing about this exhibition is that Quinze’s sculptures will be on display at Meneghetti for more than a year, until October 2024, and as such will become an integral part of the hotel, which, in addition to its gastronomic and tourist attractions, will become an attractive cultural destination for art connoisseurs.
