FUTURISTIC VIEW

INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST HUGO KAAGMAN

Hugo Kaagman has been active as an artist for years. In the 1970s he left his mark on tunnels, magazines and walls with stencils and spray paint. In the 1980s he moved from the streets to the canvas and in the 1990s he developed his own contemporary spray paint version of traditional delftware.

In 1996 he became world famous when on commissioned from British Airways he painted the tail sections of nineteen planes in his by-now familiar delftware style. A recently completed power station in the Roombeek fireworks region in Enschede designed by Architekten Cie. is covered from top to bottom with a print burned into aluminium by Kaagman. ‘Street art’, the form of art in which he feels at home and which is experiencing a revival from London to New York to Amsterdam, is ‘the intelligent little brother of graffiti’, he says.

For four years now, Kaagman has been working in a former kiosk between platforms 1 and 2 at the RAI train station in the Zuidas. Every couple of minutes the double-decker trains arriving right next to his studio spew out hundreds of travellers.

‘I was working on a commission for Centraal Station, was looking for work space and could rent this from ProRail. The former renter had covered up all the windows, but I really like being in the midst of the public and that people can see my work.’

Kaagman is present in his studio every day. He cuts out his stencils at home – that’s solitary work. At the RAI station, he sprays his stencils onto canvas and paper. Since having the studio, he works in a different way. Whereas he used to mainly work on commission, here he makes autonomous work that he exhibits in the windows. For the first time, he is also making paintings in editions, on rollable surfaces or on tiles, so that buyers can easily carry them under the arm. Kaagman is very enthusiastic about ‘his’
little piece of the Zuidas, which has a view of the RAI and the telecommunications tower. ‘I like such futuristic areas on the outskirts of the city. Unlike the centre ofAmsterdam, there is plenty of room here for new things, including art. I hope that Joop van den Ende’s theatre goes through and that there will be breeding grounds for artists in open, idiosyncratic buildings. I’m also an advocate of a Paleis voor Volksvlijt – a big art hall like the one in Rotterdam, but then surrounded with studios, music and theatre shows. So that something is always going on.’ Kaagman sees lots of travellers with suitcases passing by every day. ‘Those people populate the hotels and restaurants in the area for three days because they have come to a fair at the RAI. A lot of money gets passed around. Wouldn’t it be good to offer them culture as well for a change?’ Onlangs verscheen het overzichtsboek Hugo Kaagman, Stencil King, bij Lebowski Publishers.
www.kaagman.nl

The retrospective book ‘Hugo Kaagman, Stencil King’ was recently brought out by Lebowski Publishers. www.kaagman.nl