Byline: Phoenix Jay

Crazy Dutch artist Peter Klashorst on mud, black magic & the madness of the human condition

He was a protagonist of the New Wild Ones, the arts movement that swept Europe in the 1980s and was described by the New York Times as ‘A bunch of crazy Dutch guys’; he was accused of witchcraft in Africa and had to flee into a haunted forest, and his giant paintings of S21 prisoners almost caused a riot here in Phnom Penh three years ago. Meet Peter Klashorst, the Dutch self-professed ‘punk artist’ throwing open the doors of his Street 130 & 5 studio this month for a new, post-apocalyptic exhibition.   

First off, a Freudian question: tell me about your childhood. I want to know about your relationship with your mother.

[Laughs] My mother?! What are you, my psychiatrist?!

No, no. Look: no beard! 

My mother was my earliest model, actually. She taught me how to stretch a canvas and she bought me my first easel and paint box. She was just a housewife. My father didn’t like the idea that I was painting; he wanted me to play football. I still have that paint box; I still paint with it when I’m at home. When she taught me to stretch canvas, I was seven or eight – very, very young when I started – and I still do it the same way. It’s actually the best way. I do it better than most professionals. She told me one of my ancestors was a sculptor in a church, so somehow this artistic connection maybe… I don’t know. It’s just a story.

I grew up in a very middle-class, bourgeois area. My father bought and sold houses where the rich people lived. I was actually born in a very good area, but my father gambled on the stock market and lost all his money, so we had to stay in a small, very middle-class urban area. I think he lost, in guilders, about $2 million – an unbelievable amount of money, but he didn’t care about money because it was an abstract thing. I think most gamblers don’t care about money, because if they cared about money they wouldn’t gamble; they wouldn’t risk losing it. Gamblers don’t give a fuck about money, so they’re happy with nothing. My father was a speculator. He always wanted me to be a stockbroker, a gambler! [Laughs]

I look Asian. My father, who has blue eyes and blond hair, always told me I was Chinese. Now I’m here, everyone thinks I look barang! At a very early age, that gave me a good reason not to discriminate against people; to always be open to other cultures and ideas, because I was not ‘Dutch’. I never considered myself Dutch.

So you’ve always occupied a fringe position?

Yes, I was always the outsider; always different. I got a lot of girls, of course, because in Holland everyone was blond with blue eyes. The girls were lining up in front of my house. At that time, I didn’t know what to do with it! It made me very shy, but because I looked different, looked exotic, the girls were very interested. If I could go back in a time machine, I’d fuck them all… [Laughs]

How did you go from being the shy retiring type to a key figure in De Nieuwe Wilden (‘The Wild Ones’), the arts movement that swept Europe in the ‘80s?

I’m interested in discussions; a rebel without a cause. Sometimes you have to try to shock people in order to get them to think about the situation we’re in today. Maybe a lot of my art or the things I say are, to a lot of people, shocking, but I don’t mean it in a bad way. I just try to convince them to think about the situation. Most people, they have two different lives: they have a secret life. A lot of these guys in Isis, they’re not really Muslim at all; they watch pornography, they drink, but to the outside world they try to be very religious. In Holland, we have the same thing: people still have to fuck. I was arrested, for instance, in a Muslim country – Senegal – for allegedly running a brothel and also painting nude women. I was wondering: even if you’re Muslim, sometimes you see a naked lady, so what’s wrong with nudity? But sometimes you can go too far with the authorities and you end up in prison.

How far did you go, exactly?

For my own feeling, it was kind of innocent. I rented a house in an extreme Muslim neighbourhood just outside Dakar. I wasn’t aware of that, but later I found out it was a very strict Muslim area. There were no bars, no nightclubs; all the women wore veils. Then there was me. I bought an open-top jeep. Even when the Muslims were fasting, which happens for two weeks during Ramadan, I had these girls with their miniskirts and the music was loud and they were just being happy, you know? I didn’t see it as prostitution; they weren’t selling themselves or their bodies in that car and the house was not a brothel, but that’s what they accused me of. It was an enclave of people doing whatever they wanted: smoking, using drugs. It was a club in a hardcore Muslim neighbourhood; you could say ‘an Isis neighbourhood’.

And what was your relationship like with those neighbours?

It was actually very good. I’m sure if we were to speak to people from Isis individually, we’d see we’re both human beings and there’s no problem, really. Once, I saw people throwing stones at my car and thought: ‘Why?’ I didn’t realise they were throwing stones because I was an infidel. I invited these people inside my house and then they could see there was nothing to be scared of. Wars and all kinds of trouble start when people get scared of each other. It’s not because they’re strong, it’s because they’re scared. That’s why they band together and start fighting another group. Hitler was scared of Jewish people: he thought they were more intelligent, but in reality, of course, we’re all the same. There’s no difference.

One of the things you’re famous for is painting nude black women, which started after an incident at Amsterdam’s Club Non Stop.

Yes! I met a lady there who had scarification all over her body, like trees and flowers; very organic. It was all over the body: only scarification, done with a razorblade I think, but it was beautiful. She told me she was from Liberia, so I wanted to go there to see where this was coming from. Later on, after I was already in prison and after the whole story, I found out she’s actually from Nigeria, so I was on completely the wrong side of Africa! [Laughs]

What did African artists make of you?

A friend of mine visited Kenya recently and there was an artists’ colony on an island there. They don’t know my name any more, but they said: ‘Yeah, we’re admirers of that artist who was arrested here,’ and so they paint like me, in my style! In East Africa, they copy my work and sell it on the internet. Fascinating. Even while we’re talking, they’re still making them. They sell for about $50 each. The thing is: if it’s a really good Peter Klashorst painting, then you know it’s a fake. [Laughs] Because they really work hard at it; they take the best pieces of my work and make it into a pastiche, a new thing. They have more patience than me. I’m kind of a rough painter; I throw paint, I’m passionate. Their work is very naive but very beautiful. I admire their work. Most of the time, if a collector buys one and asks me if it’s real, I’ll say: ‘Yes, of course it’s real!’ I don’t want to disappoint them. But I feel for these artists: they have a hard life. If they sell two or three paintings a month, they can live from that. Who am I to question?

Take us back to art school and your punk band, Soviet Sex. You played bass, right?

Yes, bass. Soviet Sex started in 1978 or 1979. I cut my hair! I was totally impressed with the whole punk movement in England – and at that time it was only happening in England; it wasn’t anywhere on the continent. I’d just started art school and I was about 17 or 18. Most people in art school still had the hippy style. At the time, punks were seen as a fascist movement; very controversial. Now, it’s fashion. At that time it was the swastikas, the concentration-camp clothing. I had this one outfit: one side was a concentration-camp uniform, the other side was a Nazi uniform, the two stitched together, so I was walking around in that with a huge Jewish star and a swastika. Sometimes people became very aggressive because they didn’t understand what I was trying to say. It was also a way to get people thinking. For me, it was a way to protest against this totalitarian society. I really started my painting when I was in the punk movement; I evolved from that period. I still consider myself a ‘punk artist’ in a way.

Some of the techniques you use – particularly cut-ups – echo those of Europe’s avant-garde Dadaists of the early 20th century, who were a huge influence on the punk movement.

I still do that. In this painting, you can see a kind of collage. In others I literally build layers up. I use photographs, anything I can get my hands on to make my story clear. I don’t care about the technique or how you do it, whether you paint from life or a photograph. I’m interested in telling a story with a political meaning, that’s why I do it, and the whole handling of the paint and the formal problems of painting are also going through my brain. Art history is always in your luggage, but in the end it’s about the story you want to tell. It’s not about art for art’s sake. It’s about the message.

I like it when things go wrong. With oils, you have to fight with the paint. Oil is a very difficult material; it fights back. A lot of accidents happen along the way, beautiful accidents. That’s how I paint: I paint from one mistake to another. Usually I have an idea of the story I want to tell or what the picture is going to say. I’m not like these women who do cross stitch; I don’t go from one end to the other. Everything that goes wrong goes well, you know? When I’m drunk, I also paint…

Do you have different artistic personalities?

Yes, yes, yes. I’m a schizophrenic artist! Most artists have a theme or recipe, which is easier for collectors because they know their ‘brand’, but I paint differently when I’m hungry or when I’m horny. I use all these emotions in the paintings. I even fuck on my paintings! [Laughs] They’re painted with sperm and oil and blood, sometimes. It depends. You become part of the painting; it sucks you in. It’s about energy; I throw energy into it. Whether it becomes abstract or figurative, I don’t care. When you buy a painting, maybe you get some of that energy back. It’s about lust for life, as the great Iggy Pop said. I’m inspired by that era, that energy. The pogo dance! It’s about craziness and madness and the human condition. Of course, it’s also about drugs and sex, but it’s the energy; again, that lust for life.

 During an interview with New York talk-show host Tom Rhodes, you once said: ‘I want to show how beautiful God created this Earth and all of its inhabitants.’ Does that still apply?

Yes, but there are two sides. Sometimes I want to show how terrible things are, but also I paint of lot of ladies. Here, the streets and the bars are full of hookers, but I paint them like princesses, like goddesses, like Venus. Most of the men here don’t come as sex tourists, but they come here to pray for Venus. I think they’re love tourists, not sex tourists.

Now there’s a conveniently nice way of putting it. 

Like the girl you just saw here: for me, it’s not about that. Of course, sometimes you have sexual relations, but it’s not about sex. For me, it’s only about the beauty of her face, plus I’m interested in her. I think there’s a goddess in every one of them, but as a human being it depends on the situation you’re in. I don’t think Cambodia is much different than Holland, where a lawyer gets less pay than a prostitute. It has to do with morals, not money only.

You mention morals. Trendbeheer.com quotes you as saying: ‘Drugs, alcohol, sex: all unnecessary nonsense. Do not do it.’ Do you stand by that?

Yes, I stand by that. I’m not into drugs or alcohol. I only drink when I’m totally bored and also the whole sex thing is overrated. I’m from a family of Mormons, so all these people were very religious and against alcohol, smoking, and even drinking tea or coffee was not allowed. I stand by that, and in that way I can also understand Muslims. All the things you do to destroy your brain. I live in this neighbourhood and many times I see people crying, screaming, acting crazy. I’m just like them when I’m drunk. I also get into fights. My father always told me: ‘Only weak men smoke or use drugs or drink alcohol or fuck ladies. It’s for the weak. If you want to be a real man and be strong, don’t fuck the ladies or drink or do drugs.’ I’m not a hypocrite, but I’m also drinking, fighting, fucking and doing all those things.

And you choose to surround yourself with prostitutes. Why?

I’m also attracted to the dark side of life. I was living a very bourgeois life: playing hockey, riding horses, sailing boats, but I was always attracted to the dark side. I think most of us are. In bourgeois society, it’s very hidden, taboo, but behind closed doors… Many of these ladies, they marry the CEO of some company just because he has money, not because they love him, so what’s the difference between them and the bar girls right here? In Nairobi, supposedly none of the embassy people fuck black women. I have a son there, so I had to go to the embassy to make him Dutch, and I was dressed in a three-piece suit for the occasion. I thought: ‘This is serious. He becomes a member of the Dutch tribe.’ It’s like a ceremony, you know? An official thing. Then the mother of my son came and smiled to all these guys. Later on I asked: ‘How do you know them?’ ‘Yeah, I fucked them,’ she says. ‘They’re my clients.’ [Laughs] In a way it wasn’t something I was waiting to hear, but it is reality.

Once upon a time, in the Netherlands, you started your own political party. 

I thought: ‘I’m always standing on the side lines. Maybe it’s time to get involved.’ The most difficult part in Holland is getting a signature from every province before you can join the national election, but that we did and we also paid the 10,000 Euros. But then they accused us of fraud, they wanted to arrest us.

You said at the outset: ‘I’m a human being and artists are always looking for the truth, and most politicians are talking so much bullshit and lies, it’s an insult to the voters… I had a vision, like Joan of Arc, that I should do it.’

It’s like you have the real world, the political world, the fantasy world, and now, if you read the newspapers, I can’t believe people believe that shit. It’s all lies. Most of us are victims. As an artist, I’m inside but I’m also outside. Nobody’s my boss. These people with ‘normal’ jobs, who pay their taxes, they’re only lying to themselves. ‘Worldwide change!’ as Obama says. I’ve never seen so many wars since he took office.

Should the creatives – artists, musicians, writers – run the world, rather than career politicians?

Ah, but Hitler was an artist, too! Most of these politicians are quite normal on a one-to-one basis, but once they get in power, they get corrupted. There’s so much going on, they don’t have a clear vision any more. They get influenced by other people, other ideas. They lose their original idea of helping people. Sometimes we think they’re liars and cheats, but it’s hard work. They’re doing it 24 hours for I don’t know how many people; they don’t have time for anything else any more. That’s the reality.

What was your running-for-office reality?

I liked it. It gives you some respectability, rather than just being a crazy artist, but being a crazy artist is more fun, so I stopped politics. It wasn’t going that bad: because I was a crazy artist, I got a lot of attention from the media and I could have used that to get a lot of votes at some point, but I ran away; I ran back to Africa. I knew that once I started I’d get sucked in because I like history, I like politics, I like all these things. It’s an interesting occupation and you’re helping people; that’s the idea. It was too successful, in a way. I could feel it was going somewhere and it was going somewhere I didn’t want it to go. Do I really want to do this? No, I want to be a total loser in Africa.

This is the point you moved to Kenya and were accused of witchcraft.

I was living in a villa, a kind of estate with two houses. One I used as a studio, the other I was living in, as usual, with a few ladies. One night they went out and had a few; I think they’d been using drugs or something. So two of them went out and they came back totally naked. It was a beautiful sight; there was a lot of rain. They were covered in mud, but were totally naked; running through the village. They were rolling around in the mud, possessed! Totally possessed! Whatever it was, it must have been strong. What happened next is the other ladies in the house – somehow it was contagious – also started. It was mass hysteria! [Laughs] The head of CID was living next to me, although I didn’t know this, and he’s looking down at all these naked ladies running around and rolling on the floor and shouting, and I say: ‘Hey, can you call an ambulance or something?’ And he says: ‘No, I called the police already. I’m CID.’ I saw these two police cars coming and I was certain these girls were using drugs, but I didn’t know where they were – I didn’t care…

Have you ever been a user?

Yes, I’ve tried everything. I have nothing against it. I think it’s a good way to clear your mind, but if you get addicted, it’s the wrong side of the story. So anyway I saw these police cars coming and Kenyans are known for being good runners – they’re the fastest runners in the world – but my, my, my, could I run! [Laughs] I outran them! There was a forest I knew these people were scared of; there are ruins of old houses, and big holes. I ran straight into the forest and they stopped following me. I was there for one night. I took a small bag with all the important things – my bank book, my passport, all the survival things – and I had to shit on the way because I was scared. I take off the bag and put it next to me then, when I start running again, after half an hour, I think: ‘Where’s my bag?’ There are no lights, total darkness. Then I hear a voice – I don’t believe in God or anything – and I found the bag. There must be more between Heaven and Earth. I slept in the mountains and there was a very big lizard sleeping next to me. It was a great experience. It’s not something you do voluntarily: sleeping outdoors in Africa without a bag, sleeping with the monkeys. That’s the only way to experience Africa.

You once described the world as ‘a global village’ and said all borders should be opened.

Nationalism is a never-ending story. Now you have all this tribal shit, it’s about fear of the ‘other’. People cling together to oppose the things they’re scared of.

Does humanity have the capacity to ever get over that innate fear of the ‘other’?   

When things go down, they can also go up. I’m optimistic about it because I know. In Holland, for example, when I was very young, they were scared of black people. They saw them as some kind of animal. It’s OK to see them naked in a picture: if you show a naked black lady in a traditional environment in nature, there’s nothing against it, but if you show a white lady in the same environment, it’s porn. On the other hand, there are now more and more mixed marriages. In Amsterdam, it’s mixed these days. People travel. I have friends in the Flemish bloc, a very fascist area, and most of them vote for or belong to that party, but they’re married to black women. In Thailand, they talk about Thai ladies as ‘monkeys’. You hear that a lot. Here as well. Still, they’re making children with them because they know they’re human. So does that make their children monkeys? ‘It’s different, because my child is my child.’ Of course it’s not different! The world will be a mixed thing, and if you throw everything in the mix, there’s no reason to discriminate any more. My children are dark-skinned. My grandfather was always warning me against black people or Jewish people, but now that his grandchildren come to visit – and they’re black – that racism has stopped. If people – who are all alike a little bit – were mixed, it’s harder to discriminate.

WHO: Peter Klashorst
WHAT: Art exhibition
WHERE: #29 Streets 130 & 5
WHEN: October 17 & 18
WHY: Witness in action an artist the New York Times called a ‘crazy Dutch guy’