A 30 Minute Chat With Jan Hoet About Art
Curated by Michaël Bieriemans & Richy Richter

The great contemporary art director Jan Hoet, who organized multiple major exhibitions in Belgium, was director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent and curated Germany’s Documenta art fair, has died on February 27.

“Mr. Hoet was known for his outspokenness and criticized art snobs and politicians who did not get the point of modern art. In the process, his rasping, down-to-earth style brought contemporary art within the reach of everyone, making him a beloved Belgian cultural icon. His fame spilled beyond the border and he became curator for major exhibitions from Germany to China.”
Associated Press

We interviewed Jan Hoet as an expert for our Art Issue back in 2010. The interview was an informal encounter in the man’s own home in Ghent.

In honour of Jan we decided to edit the entire interview and share it with the world.
Our editor Michaël and partner in sound Richy worked on this over the course of the two days following the passing of Jan Hoet.
We hope you enjoy listening to it.

In memory of Jan Hoet

Once again the great people at the BOZAR museum in Brussels are treating our readers to free tickets to go see the Michael Borremans exhibition.
We’re giving away 10 duo tickets and all you have to do is send us an email with your full name and address. That’s it!

Good luck, and may the fastest typing POSTRfan win!

UPDATE: All tickets are gone! Thanks for entering the competition!

Here’s a video explaining who Michaël Borremans is and a making of video of the ‘As sweet as it gets’ expo.

ON BECOMING THE MISSING LINK – HUMANITY’S GUIDE TO WHAT COMES AFTER

Alright kids, hop in the backseat of the Delorean and let’s take a ride into the future: a somehow strangely predictable place where everything is sort of the same but somehow different. Find out how your grandchildren will struggle in almost the same way you did and how the shadowy tradition of social inequality will hang over the heads of billions for generations to come!

It’s a long way off to the future – a place where individual human consciousness has collectively evolved to a higher plane, thus eliminating the need for primitive institutions like government, police and the tax office to keep tabs on all of us. There is a long way to go – we need only to look at ourselves to see firsthand the souvenirs of our primitive past. Yes, we think of ourselves as quite highly developed, but it only takes a look in some of the less public places to see mankind for what it is: a horny herd of hairy furry beasts, furiously engaged in mass mating behavior while hoarding more natural resources than we can ever hope to need. We are the first prototype to run this upgrade called ‘abstract consciousness’ – we are not the tweaked model, but the first try-out. Nature’s equivalent of man’s first steam engine. Dangerous, volatile and full of destructive energy. Raw and unrefined – after all, our entire operating system still runs on two primal forces – the fear of death and the urge to live, the 0 and 1 of our binary nature.

Yes, it will take a while before we all reach that level of humane development that is a prerequisite to the next step in our evolution. It is a long way up, and you can be sure that we are going to stumble and fall a lot of times before we reach that high peak above the clouds – the one that will give all of us our first glimpse of our next horizon, our next mountain to climb. The universe is undeniably a piece of art that evolves over time – and with us, it has managed to create a new part of itself that has the potential of interpreting the big picture it is itself a part of – maybe even understanding it. Fear not, my fellow countrymen – the future is nigh.

Hello? Is anybody out there?!

Our HQ communication lines have been dormant during the past few months but that doesn’t mean we were. Au contraire my friends! The air was thick with the smell of esoteric questions, and incense. We recall Full Moon Healing sessions and substance induced searches out to the darkest regions of our universe just to find the answer to the one question on our troubled minds this whole time: what will the future be like?

Did we find the answer? Did we travel into time to find out? Did we fuck up the space-time continuum while doing so and are we even here now? Find out in POSTRmagazine #14: The Future Issue – coming to you in a very foreseeable future!

By now you’ve probably seen the great ad for the NEO RAUCH expo at BOZAR on our back cover of The Fear Issue.
(if not, shame on you and be afraid! Be very afraid!)

Well, we’re giving away 20 duo tickets so you can go see his amazing paintings for yourself!
All you have to do is send us an email with your full name and address. That’s it!

What are you waiting for? Go Go Go!