Thierry De Cordier

2 Fontaines: a: Trunkenbild b: Ik-vertering (P.V.)

‘De Onherbergzame’

Thierry De Cordier, artiste belge, né en 1954, est l’auteur d’une œuvre singulière qui comprend des peintures, des sculptures, des écrits et des dessins. À la fois ironique et fragile, son œuvre s’inscrit par maints aspects dans la lignée expressionniste et symboliste de James Ensor ou Léon Spilliaert, artistes belges, à la personnalité complexe…

Doctoraalscriptie: Thierry de Cordier and Mark Manders

In what follows, I do not want to deal with the Thierry De Cordier who, in 1985, made his entry in the world as a performer on the steps of the Museum in Ghent, and did repeat that performance in his meanwhile famous ‘Speech to the World’ (1885). Neither with the Thierry De Cordier of the mountain refuges, the tents, the ‘chantoirs’, the observation posts, let alone ‘The Chapel of Nothingness’ in Duffel (2007). Neither with the Thierry De Cordier who, in the vein of Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys, intended to turn his life in an ‘artwork’. Neither with the Thierry De Cordier who only dares to make drawings when a lot of text is scribbled around them like with Da Vinci, Duchamp of Panamarenko. Neither with the Thierry De Cordier who only dares to paint a seascape when he can do so under the cloak of Kazimir Malevich or Robert Ryman. Even less with the Thierry De Cordier who, as a ‘Sunday philosopher’, understands all his actions in terms of the meanwhile somewhat outdated Lacanian ‘code à la mode’. Already more with the Thierry De Cordier of some ‘surrealistic’ objects. And – although the drawn versions as mostly more interesting – even more with the Thierry De Cordier of dolls like the ‘Pain Catcher’ (‘Attrape-Souffrance’) in Puycelsi (1988)…