Philippe Vandenberg

From the late 1980s onward, Philippe Vandenberg’s work became increasingly political. As a result, the Neo-Expressionist painter developed a chilling visual language pointing to the new post–Cold War battles. Its recurring motifs are repressive experiences and interior enemies—including those within the self. Vandenberg links historical conflicts with current events as well as mythological, political, and literary sources. A favorite subject of his are suppressed and frequently misinterpreted figures such as Ulrike Meinhof or Yasser Arafat. Elsewhere, in the series L’ennemi intérieur (The Interior Enemy), the dog—“man’s best friend”—reigns supreme over humans.

Philippe Vandenberg (1952, Ghent, Belgium–2009, Brussels, Belgium) was an artist whose work oscillates between abstraction and figuration, between the visceral and the cerebral, skillfully combining the personal with the political. Since his death, numerous solo exhibitions have been devoted to him, including at Hamburger Kunsthalle (2018); Drawing Room, London (2016); La Maison Rouge, Paris (2014); and Museum De Pont, Tilburg (2012). In 2020–21, Vandenberg’s first major posthumous exhibition in Belgium, at the BOZAR, Brussels, presented works on paper created in Molenbeek, where the artist last lived.