FRANK VAN HERCK

BIO Frank Van HErck

Frank Van Herck was born in 1953 in Merksem, near Antwerp. After his studies at the Technicum, he persued his dreams of becoming an artist and started working as an autodidact. At that time, he was inspired by surrealists, such as Max Ernst and Salvador Dalí.

When he was 19 years old, he worked at the ICC in Antwerp, an international cultural centre, under the wings of formal director Florent Bex. There he was introduced to the conceptual art of James Lee Bayers and Gordon Matta Clark. Frank also met other artists, who still have a significant influence on contemporary art, such as Julian Schnaber and Laurie Anderson.

In 1977 he had his first big solo exhibition at the ICC with a series of conceptual drawings, such as ‘Concept television room’. At that time, he also created a video that was broadcasted on RTBF Liège. This video consisted of three different takes; one of them showed a sitting naked woman, whereon another video was projected of the same woman undressing herself. In 1979 at the Antwerp Gallery he had a solo exhibition of painted neontubes.

As a young boy, Frank was fascinated by the craquelure of old oil paintings of masters, such as Rembrandt. He wanted to artificially recreate this fine pattern of dense cracks in the material and decided to experiment. He was not satisfied with his first attempts and desired to achieve a better effect, he experimented with eggshells. This resulted in a number of exhibitions, where this unique technique is used, such as Black Series I, Lost Icons and Rituals Part I.

Frank currently lives with his wife Maria-Magdalena in Antwerp. 

Overview of Frank's individual and group exhibitions.