Key moments
Mantra
“I painted this text in Sanskrit on my mantelpiece in the Meerstraat in 1996, a result of my years of studying Tibetan Buddhism and is a mantra that invites you to explore yourself in order to find your most hidden talents. Unfortunately, I could not scrape it off the wall when I left.”
The Jewel in the Lotus. 1984
In 1984 vertaald in een sculptuur bestaande uit een briljant van 40cm diameter in heldere polyester waar een gesmede lotusbloem in messing zit ingegoten, een creatieve inversie van de boodschap, en zodus een andere invalshoek.
Butterfly
However attractive their architectural structure, insects and arachnids have never ‘triggered’ me … the only insect that, through my endearment for it, largely balances my aversion to the conspecifics mosquitoes, spiders, corpse flies and their maggots is the butterfly. All three of my daughters have one in forged steel covered with parchment. The ‘Kite’ from 1983, the ‘Bat’ from 2008, both Hymenoptera. Different from the feathered family statues. And my patent “Révérence®” from 2014 undoubles during the upward movement in sunshade position, folds in the downward movement in windshield position, just like a butterfly sitting on a flower.
It goes deeper than that. The butterfly, insect or not, is also the only animal in the world that has virtually no defense system against enemies, for the nitpickers, against real enemies. Fluttering and beautiful colors have a low protection degree. Butterfly is for me a symbol of affection, gentleness, joy.”
Block 'Concrete'. 1985
“The paranoid time of the Gang of Nijvel, the CCC, the German boy who landed on the Red Square with a sports plane as a joke but paid dearly for it … The idea for the block came about at the beginning of July during a meeting with my technical team in Trefpunt. First as a passing joke, but it soon got an increasingly stronger grip on my brain to actually realize it: a Tijl Uilenspiegel project, a gift from Trefpunt to the city. The general atmosphere in Europe was right for it.”
In a borrowed open Cadillac, three comedians, dressed in the three girls’ schools, gray, green, brown, left from the start of the procession and put on a show in front of the stands. With the block wrapped in gold foil and a big beautiful red bow, they join the procession at Sint Jacobs. The team forms a cordon and is trained to execute the maneuver at lightning speed. “The orders are carried out perfectly and a moment later the block is shining in the middle of the street. Fear everywhere, the thunder of the battle with the violence of the dragging down, police in all states chasing the tractor and handcuffing driver Danny, the next groups that can’t go any further, terraces that have to be evacuated. General consternation. In the meantime I approach the mayor, he knows me and my family and is immediately reassured. Thanks to the soothing mayor, the atmosphere changes into a wonderful general hilarity. After the procession everyone drums around the block, I manage to get mayor Monsart to open his present and with a disgusted look on his face he comes across the still wet wallpaper paste.”
Antichambre. 1986
“Somewhere in February 1986 I received a phone call. I had just left a cold, lonely winter in the heart of Auvergne behind me and was temporarily staying with a friend. Another acquaintance at the time, Jan Van Opstal, had managed to find my address and we made an appointment that same evening at the Vooruit. Jan was busy with festivals and light shows and had rented the enormous old factory complex Halsberge-Van Oost, of which one giant hall was still in good condition. Everything else was ruins. His question: organize something with artists on that site. An idea quickly flashed through my head and was immediately approved by that same head after a lightning-fast run through of criteria, Antichambre was born. At that time, Jan Hoet was already making a lot of noise with his international Chambre d’ Amis and the Tolstoï antechamber fitted perfectly as a train carriage behind it. At Tolstoï, the antechamber was regularly used when, for example, the dissolute nephew came to beg for money while a big party was going on in the salons. A perfect match.”
From March onwards everything went fast, after a few meetings there was an organising core group with exhibition leader art historian Piet Van Robaeys. Lucas, the creator, was ill for a while during that period, which was the opportunity for idea robbers to claim the idea, even today. This was also perpetuated because Lucas’ external contribution ultimately seemed limited. He used the collapsed roof of a central building conceptually. He put the various elements and objects in cheerful colours: the colours of the new on the remains of the old. Antichambre became an overwhelming success with almost two hundred participating artists, fourteen thousand visitors.
Dying cow. 1988
The ‘real work’ began in late spring 1988. Lucas was in his parents’ house with a form of depression until his friend Paul Verbraeken came to rouse him from his lethargy with the assignment: “make a sculpture for my exhibition 125 years of Antwerp Slaughterhouse, it has to be finished by December 16. You’ve never made a sculpture before but you can do anything. Period.” Lucas went to the slaughterhouse and photographed cows when they were shot in the head with a pin. “I chose a skinny dairy cow in the poignant moment of movement when all the muscles cramp together due to the nervous shock during the fall. The sculpture was still warm when I dropped it off after 36 hours of non-stop work and immediately sold it to Theo Coertjens, although he initially hesitated ‘because he was a Dutchman’ and could only be persuaded when he knew that Utrecht was only my birthplace.”
Crane. 1989
To this day, the Chinese Crane – Grus japonensis – is still Lucas’ favourite bird. He first translated this age-old symbol of ‘eternal youth and happiness’, on commission, into ‘a statue by the pond’. “A lot of things fit a pond, but not so much in the interaction with myself. Fish, for example, have never been an attractive subject for me; the only possible pedestal is a fish on dry land or on a rod or on a hook, all equally uninspiring. In addition, the symbolic value of the depicted subject is essential to me, just as with insects only the butterfly evokes a kindred spirit. I then quickly arrived at the Chinese Crane, Grus Japonensis, which would remain my faithful friend for the rest of my life.”
In China, the crane has been a symbol of eternal youth and happiness for thousands of years. Like many birds, they choose one partner to whom they remain faithful for years. The youth and happiness of the crane are connected to the famous dance that is started by a few and then followed by the whole troop. The eternal also refers to their long life, they live up to 45 years old.
Lucas has taken up the subject several times: big, small, super small, always different, in steel and bronze, the last, in ’22, in real size in bronze via the cire direct method, unique and without a mold. And with that the tone was set for a long period of animalier sculptures.
Albion. 1990
“The same Theo Coertjens who bought my Dying Cow commissioned me to make the elected champion stallion Brabant Draft Horse of that year. It was 1990 and I started on my third steel sculpture. The year before I had already come into contact with Professor Simoens who ran a beautiful skeleton museum at the veterinary school.”
Lucas was able to take home the skeleton of Black Beauty, a famous racehorse. Those first sculptures, cow, crane, draft horse, were a very serious academic study of the anatomy of the skeleton, the core of all subsequent animal sculptures. The horse’s mentor was Professor Oyaerts, the authority on the Brabant Draft Horse, who accompanied Lucas to inspections. Professor Verschoten, specialist in legs, feet and gait, came to check for exact execution.
“So my Albion even became a little more perfect than he actually was, a little more buttocks and such. The preliminary study is a clay sculpture that I made with him in his pasture, draft horses are among the gentlest animals that exist, the stallion became my friend, a great friend of a thousand kilos.”
It was cast in bronze seven times. One of the bronzes is in Le Conseil Général de Meurthe et Moselle.
Pelican Diamantbank. 1992
In 1992, Lucas stayed above the bronze foundry Ghijssels in the old metallurgy factory of Ottignies. Incidentally, he learned the trade there by working for free. He created the first statue in cire-directe there, his dog as a model. He also made the pelican from the reeds of the wild pond next to the factory. Through connections, Lucas came into contact with the management of the Antwerp Diamond Bank, who saw his pelican as an extremely suitable gift for the celebration of the centenary of the Diamond Club. They also ordered miniatures as business gifts. Today, the statue stands in the courtyard between the tall buildings of the closely guarded diamond complex.
Bison 'Zoo'. 1992
While Lucas’s oeuvre in the 1980s consisted mainly of mega sculptures, he hesitantly sought a path towards pure sculpture. “In doing so, I was still in the mist of the unexplored areas of my own talent, although I was aware of the forum of contemporary art movements. I didn’t pay too much attention to that, by the way, and followed my own heartbeat.”
From the archetypal attraction of the bison and his fascination for the Indian culture and its cruel demise, the symbolic value of this animal is enormous for Lucas. Because he always thinks in three dimensions, he made two sculptures, one in plaster as a preliminary study and the second in directly forged and welded steel. Because the study was so spontaneous and successful, a sponsor – Leendert Laus of Bison Lijmen – was found to donate the bronze sculpture to the Antwerp Zoo. The sculpture was placed in the Zoo in 1992. A second copy still stands today in front of the main entrance of the company and adorns their website. A few years later, Lucas created the steel statue in three-quarter size.
Tiger 'Nouchka'. 2022
“A special place in my family of sculptures is the years of growth of the tiger in my soul. The urge for it started a long time ago.”
In 1991, the director of the Antwerp Zoo gave Daman permission to come behind the scenes to sculpt a portrait of the nineteen-year-old tigress Nouchka. “I was allowed to stroke her through the bars, she was gentle. So I did, a unique experience.” Shortly afterwards, he went to a man who kept predators and snakes. With twigs and plaster, he sculpted a recently declawed young tiger. Although the pose had already been chosen by Lucas, the connection with the animal was essential. The statue was made of polyester. In 1993, the – actually failed – giant tiger followed for Antwerp 93. The years passed and the tiger urge simmered until the creatures came closer again in 2014, in the broad outline of a statue in iron of true Siberian size. It was not until the end of 2022 that the wave that Lucas had been waiting for so long arrived. In a few days, he drew new lines, without the uncertainty that had prevented him all those years from finding the flowing evidence in the construction of my image. “In the meantime, it is mid-November, and I am approaching the final stage. The head is completely finished and the head movement of the forearm is complete. For a few weeks now, he has been determining his own progress and I am following his heartbeat. Actually, I intended him to be fishing calmly. Today I have to conclude that this has completely gone wrong. The mouth is open, the lips slightly pulled up, the claws wide open. But the expression is not at all aggressive, everything radiates massive defense: “my honor, my honor, which I defend with tooth and nail.”
Sofie.
“Sofia: wisdom. The most beautiful fruit of human thought but often so difficult to hold on to! During my years at university my friends recognized my talent for synthesis. This image is a sculptural example of it. A girl’s head in her basic lines, untouched in her senses: eyes, ears, nose, taste and touch in mouth and lips, and sixthly the telepathic ability of animals and children.