If we can define camp as a reappraisal of the detritus of a culture marked by excess, risk, blatant honesty and garbage glamour, then we’re well on the way to illuminating certain aspects of the work of Michiel Ceulers (°1986)

The Belgian artist (born 1986 in Waregem), who trained at the Ghent Academy (KASK) and Amsterdam’s Rijksakademie, indulges in the pleasure of freely exploring the myriad possibilities that lie within the traditions of painting and sometimes sculpture. Unrestrained, it seems, but also cautious. Messy, with slimy and even trashy elements. Definitely antithetical, like the painting entitled Internationale Gemeinschaft für gegenseitige Hilfe (2017 – 2020) or the sculpture entitled Bereits Katzen werden an die Spitze getrieben / Silvio Gessel in Front of the Money Dressed as a Dut… (2020). But there’s also bright yellow. And there’s glitter: shimmer, delight, even frivolous, dirty decoration, as in The Return of the Dead Mother with New Problems (2020). (…)

Ceulers works on the history and contemporaneity of painting and art in general. It’s not a burden to succumb to, like Kippenberger, who believed that the only option left to art was to talk about what already existed, rather than invent new artistic idioms, styles and so on. Kippenberger – and, in his view, every artist – was stuck in an endless state of postmodern “Uber das Uber” existence. Ceulers, on the other hand, revels in references. Not surprisingly, he mentions Martin Kippenberger, Walter Swennen, Sigmar Polke, Dieter Roth. He admires the work of Roger Raveel. He appreciates that Roth pours “coke and sugar over certain drawings” or “lets his salami rot”. He likes Polke’s play with alchemy and humor. He loves Dada, Rauschenberg, the art of assemblage, Michael Krebber, Albert Oehlen, Christopher Wool, Wade Guyton, Gerard Richter, Raoul De Keyser, the wordplay of Marcel Broodthaers, Noam Rappaport and so on. No artistic position is monolithic and singular. There are only nuances, connections, tensions, overlaps, divergences, dialogues, cross-dressings, commentaries, puns, relationships… In Denkmall / no punn intended (2018), Ceulers takes up the refined aesthetic of Jan De Cock’s popular Denkmal sculptures. Like De Cock’s work, Ceulers has created a sculpture that can be used by the public. However, the neglected appearance of Ceulers’ work contrasts sharply with the sober aestheticism of De Cock’s work. Schlechte Ubersetzungen sind preiswerter (2009) is the title of another work. Perfection, Ceulers seems to suggest, is a phantasm. His world is that of the imperfect, the damaged or the discarded.

Full text: https: //www.nadjavilenne.com/artistes/michiel-ceulers