Carl Uytterhaegen: Portfolio 'Eternal Memory'
When talking about cemeteries-and we are talking about cemeteries indeed-I only want to look at the pictures which tell something about those I know: the Belgian cemeteries. The other places certainly give me an impression of strange , surprising, exotic, even charming places. Places where one would like to have a walk, to stop to read, to picnic, to have a conversation. So only the picture of graves in a line behind a stone wall and granites -real or false, what difference does it make-touches me, because it's there where my parents, my friends are. It's also there where I show my sadness of having them lost and my remorse of not having loved them enough, or not having expressed my love. The attachment and sorry we feel for the dead is expressed in the world by monuments in different shapes. It would be ridiculous wanting to discover there more or less beauty, calmness or feelings. The shape of the stele is that one the heart likes because it is the meeting place of the souvenir, without talking about discovering a vain aesthetic aspect. The beauty of cemeteries is in no way a question of materials, of pastures or of large spaces. We are always clumsy with the immense pain of separation. Everywhere, we are poor before the poor deceased. Laurent Busine Along with 'Eternal Memory In 1976, when I made an exhibition with "Fünfzehn Photographen aus Flandern" during my young enthousiatic years in Vienna, Carl Uytterhaegen was there with 9 landscapes from Belgium, England and the Netherlands. I already had met the photographer with his sharp eye and sense of humour at the Antwerp International Cultural Centre and we had easily become friends. We both loved photography and took it very seriously. On top of that, we shared the opinion that everyone could talk about art, but that knowing and controlling a métier meant something else. In those years, Carl took photographs of mainly landscapes, but also what he called 'contact portraits'. That meant that he made look his models straight into the objective in order to obtain intensity by the direct look-relation. For Carl, a photograph had to possess contents, a meaning, and thereby power, and he required the highest quality of the technical performance. That went as well for a landscape as for a portrait and it typified a mentality of severe honesty and a craving for perfection. 'One of the aspects of my creative work is the landscape', he wrote in 1976. 'For me, it is the symbol of freedom, of limitlessness, of thinking in dreams.' In the works of Carl Uytterhaegen, the landscape has indeed consequently been a source of inspiration, or should I say the main motif around which many of the other works occur. Anyway, he has continuously made experiments with landscapes, for example with panoramic shots, a technique that requires a completely different way of photographically looking. All these works were always signed by him, and always respected the subject. Keeping that in mind, I looked at the photographs from'Eternal Souvenir'and I was immediately convinced again. Churchyards talk about culture by their location, the nature and the style of the monuments, certainly also by the way in which they are preserved or deteriorated. This, and the atmosphere of transitoriness turns them into places where sensitive souls with reason like to hang around. In my opinion, Carl expressed that very well in pictures with a tangible tension between landscapes and graves. As far as vision control is concerned, the photographs function excellently: the look is led from foreground to background and vice versa so spontaneously, with a strong depth effect as a result, that it is clear that a lot of skill was needed. My favourites ? Flanders, Wales and South Dakota. Put them in that order in a line and you get more breath. Roger Coenen The memento mori of Carl Uytterhaegen. Death and transitoriness derived from it, are universal concepts which fascinated artists from all disciplines and in all times. Death is also an intrinsic element of each religion; the cult of the dead is is not only an element of saying goodbye but also the souvenir of a memory. This 'souvenir of transitoriness' is among other things reflected in the culture of the grave. Almost all races honour their deceased at cemeteries and memorise the deceased with visible signs. God's acres are a part of the cultural history of a race, a community, a tribe. They are just like islands in the middle of or next to the community, a city into a city, a necropolis; godly maintained, sometimes destroyed, desolated or languished, but signs of an eternal souvenir. It's fascinating to see how many photographers feel attracted to these monuments of death. If for some persons it's important to show the mere 'monument' as a theme with variations, for other persons it's a transcendental interpretation of their own dealing with transitoriness. Carl Uytterhaegen goes further in his photograph-essay 'Eternal Souvenir'. In his photographs, life as dead are closely linked with each other, they form a unity, they are in line. He collected his material in the whole world, almost all cultures are collected but almost always the sign of the deceased rests in the shadow of the living. The metropolis (mother town) and the necropolis are in line. In some cases, one can't see the town, but there are signs which indicate human life such as a grave next to the main road in South Dakota, or there is a wall indicating a frontier between dead and living. Sometimes, there is only nature, weed grown, a grave between monumental trees in Sri Lanka, the extended fields and forests at the background of stone steles in wales. But always life in one form or another. A photograph is the reflection of reality, it is said. It would be better to say that it is a reflection of a reality that exists of course, but that was given an exclusive significance by the photographer who fixed it forever. That way, and just like that, seen through his eyes, formed by his emotions, chosen by his intelligence. That way, Carl Uytterhaegen lifted the signs of the deceased to universal and metaphysical symbols which remind of life, but which aren't abandoned by it. He couldn't have paid a more beautiful sensitive and intellectual homage to his parents and all, dear deceased. Ludo Bekkers Flandres The churchyard, the garden around the church, is a word referring directly to Flanders, not only to the folklore of burying around the church, but in fact to a Christian world view, in which life and death occur out of God's love. God who's not Out there but In There (J.A.T. Robinson), the God of intimacy, as met ritually in the church in case of life, symbol of interiority, and after death, ritually, in the earth, symbol of hidden fertility which becomes visible in the wealth of the garden. The churchyard is the ritual place where man rests symbolically in the intimacy of reality, In There , where God lives. Who gives life. The churchyard is a closed space, only open at the top, at the sky which is unreachable. Which offers light, symbol of the spirit for romantics. I don't want to assume religious expressions in the least. This consideration is just a personal line of thought regarding the significant poetry of the traditional Flemish funeral ritual, which is suggested to me in the picture of a Flemish churchyard of Carl Uytterhaegen. It is extremely beautiful in a whole thematic series of shining photographs. The photographer watches over the wall of the churchyard into the seclusion of the garden in which the beloved deceased lie. The seclusion of the cemetery is also the seclusion of the photograph: indicated at the top and to the right by the framework of twigs and bushes, at the front by the wall and at the back by the scene of grey curtains of the wood, the line of vertical trunks in the horizontal framework, through which the light shines. The openness at the top isn't shown. The churchyard is the enclosed space. If you want to visit a grave you have to enter the garden of the deceased, in which the meeting can take place in intimacy. That way, the churchyard is also meeting yourself, descending into your own depth. The churchyard: a place of modesty, of being introvert, of return to the Source. A picture of great Silence. Flanders. Karel Van Deuren A short comment on some pictures from "Eternal Memory": Carl Uytterhaegen, the one we know as the author of the moving documentary 'Les Corons d'Auchel', has changed course. His concern with his fellow man has become a concern with oneself. The kind of 'concerned photographer', for whom the subject is the occasion to show quiet considerations, aesthetic philosophies at the way people commemorate their deceased. Churchyards recall emotions. They remember transitoriness of life, the inevitable finiteness. It's a tragic that is felt the stronger and the more subtle as we confront it with the diversity of the civilisations and the individual perception of an artist. As a cultural anthropologist, Uytterhaegen travelled worldwide. Spain, Morocco, Turkey, Flanders, Wales, America, Japan, India, China, Sri Lanka, Hongkong and Malta. Each time again new graves, new landscapes new clouds and a new light and at every time the vitality of a rich figurative language, that lifts the grave over death. Tragic is being recreated in a lyrical spectacle of strange contrasts, lapidary conclusions and graphic interactions. With this series of pictures, Uytterhaegen proves that he possesses an enjoyable width and depth. Jan Coppens Churchyards: I almost wrote that it is a pleasure to look at these pictures. Displaying the printed replicas in front of me on my desk. But is pleasure the appropriate word? They are churchyards, in Flandres euphemistically indicated on signposts as 'begraafplaatsen'(burial places. How can you feel comfortable with that? Certainly not if you might have got to visit them repeatedly lately: mourning, trying to hide your sadness. Still it's nice to look at these pictures. They aren't obtrusive. They have not been made emphazically, but with a certain restraint, modesty is also a good word. The language of the photographs of Carl is surprisingly simple. It seems as if it is very usual. As there have been made photographs just like that. Perhaps you think at amateur photographs of places where a tourist memory has been registered. However, if you look very thoroughly, you can see the power going out from it. They are pictures plenty of details. Each one tells a story. They get a more than ordinary convincing power of expression from a diversity of picture elements. In the foreground, a wall is shown. In Flanders, this is an tidy built wall, sharply completed at the top. In Spain, it is made of casually piled up stones. Here and there, it already begins to show signs of decline. Distinguishing marks of a national character: reliability and eternity against playfulness and fantasy, which is less concerned with eternity. Fascinating is the picture of an isolated grave in Kashmir. As meant for another world, you see the geometric figures and lines. Hieroglyphs form symbols of hope of better times. Especially the thorny plant extending like the fingers of a hand, catches attention. In a desertlike environment, it controls discreetly the environment and with an inexhaustible power. Each time again, you see in the series of photographs of Carl a vision that doesn't limit itself to details. He has attention for a vastness that involves the entire environment and thus the way of life of man. You can partly see from it how life is like over there. In this environment of death it's not easy to make photographs that are at the same time clear and transparent. They fathom what's going on. Therefore, you have to know a lot. In the foreground, there are white tombstones. In the distance, there is also a white city. In Morocco, people try hard to have everything merged harmoniously into a whole. Rest and simplicity are innate over there. A suspension bridge shows elegance and at the same time a dynamic power. At the front, however, there's only decline. The churchyard has become a ruin. Is that a general characteristic of Turkey? The crenellated fortress wall and a small represented white marble cross with draped waistcloth: once symbols of the Spanish confrontation between power and tendency to dominate against the crave for a religious drama. In Wales, with its wide and undulating landscape, there is an old gravestone, straight in the foreground. It reminds you of the Celtic menhirs of the old ancestors of the Welshman. History is never far away in the remote corner of the British Isles. With this series of photographs, Carl Uytterhaegen again has added a rich source of information to the increasing contemporary flood of pictures. As opposed to many others-newspaper photographs, television images-they aren't superficial. They have a lasting informative value. They also came about by the hand of a master. Interesting effects of light and shadow, refined composition, we're used to that when it comes from Carl. And still, it doesn't come into existence just like that. You have to be a born photographer to be able to control photography perfectly regarding content as well as technique. Xavier Rombouts Tribute to continuity -an element deeply rooted in Carl Uytterhaegen's photographs: Last time whenWhen from dust and stars / of which we are born / appears suddenly the polished stone of time / by the last guardians / from our memory/ When faces blur / like the past lives / and the present keeps on being/ encrusted / against nothingness, forgetting / When the graves are made / like cloths / stiffened by infinite regret / by lost innocence / When a birth lies here / charged with so many resonances / and countries / When / in the width of the walkways of the cemeteries / in the labyrinths of the flowered graves / or abandoned / in the earth / distantly turned over / and here / the exact place / in the field of the others / the lonely walker / without a purpose / sets quiet steps / in those of the beyond / he perceives its extent / immortalising the holy aura / of this existence / and then, he leaves again / lonely against the mirrors / frontiers between black and white / When now / the short passage of the trajectory / will reunite history / forever definitive / somebody will sketch / and breach the image / to make it alive for us / this ultimate tribute Madeleine Van Oudenhove Impressions at the edge of life: In the photographs of Carl Uytterhaegen, space plays the most important role. It's a space plenty of signs of the ultimate silence, death. These signs, whether they are registrated in Turkey or in Flanders, belong to earth, grass, trees, hills. With the airs, the clouds, they represent an almost unreal silence. The eyes of the spectator stray. There is no movement. Don't move, the photographer says, but for this shot, he'll only have said it to the wind. Photographs make the present past, a photograph always stops time. That's why a photograph has a 'romantic' relation with reality, because it shows what's already past. In Susan Sontag's novel 'The Benefactor', there is a sentence: 'Live is a movie. Death is a photograph'. Death is a photograph. Don't move, the photographer says. Only stones hold their breath. The sky stops. A good photograph stimulates, just like every work of art having quality. It must delight the spectator, excite him, challenge him. In the photographs of Carl Uytterhaegen, no one moves, there's nobody in it. At the very most, you can surmise there are people, far away in the background, in a car, in a house. His photographs are made literally at the edge of life, his subject intrigues. Very romantic, by the way. The space of the landscape plays the main part, the grave is well-placed here. Often an ideal place, you would wish it yourself. As if it always had been that way, as if it has to be that way. That's the power of it, the spectator keeps on being surprised about it, straying, stimulated. No one around. Fortunately Here's no time of hours, phones, excavations, traffic, agendas. And everybody hopes it still exists this way, because the photograph is past. We have a tendency to ask the photographer about it. Cemeteries for our deceased, on the distant hill, at the other uninhabited side of the river, also in the middle of the city. There, we give our deceased to the earth, we place our memorials, there, nature often rules. Nature is also of all times. Now and then, we visit them, we feel fragile, sometimes we celebrate for that reason with the deceased. Mors certa, hora incerta: death is sure, the hour not. The photographs of Carl Uytterhaegen show special shots of the grave culture from all over the world. His photographs offer that other side all space, and we, insignificant, surprised, have to pay attention to it, because each one of us, everywhere is touched by it. Cees van Raak, Tilburg, A globetrotter in pursuit of inner calm: The eye of a daughter watches further and sees more. For me, the photographs are the result of my father's pursuit and his passion for eternity. Eternity meaning calm as well as beauty. It's a passion I felt growing. The photographs overwhelmed me by a hundred feelings at the same time. In thoughts, they bring us to the inevitable final point: death. They are like photographs of mortality, but more direct than the paintings depicting the same subject. A brusque confrontation with the graves indicates the Unavoidable Aspect. They show us how we recall and how we are being recalled. Feelings overwhelm us, though we don't have a direct link with the things shown, because they have been shown in a picture veiled by beauty. My father keeps on travelling. My father keeps on being on his way. In pursuit of that 'other' feeling of the cemetery-whispering silence, eternal calm, inner calm. All unpleasant feelings about death drain off in peace, eternity and beauty. Graves are therefore a reflection of the higher forces of life. My father has difficulties in expressing his restlessness through words. It's easier through images. The photographs seem aloof, but they are so personal, so fragile. They unite joy and sorrow. They seem infinite, though they conjure up finiteness. At the same time, they bring to higher forces of feelings and eternal peace, something my father still hasn't found yet. Sarah Uytterhaegen August 1993 |