Jan Bucquoy

Jan Bucquoy (French: [bykwa]; Harelbeke, 16 November 1945) is a Belgian anarchist who has worked in various media (film, comics writing, painting, sculptures, museums). He gained fame for his controversial anti-establishment works and media stunts, which caused many court cases, including for lèse-majesté, copyright infingement and defamation. Between 2005 and 2010 he staged five attempts to attack the Belgian Royal Palace in Brussels and conquer it.[1] Internationally he is best known as a film director, with La Vie sexuelle des Belges 1950-1978 (1994) and the cult film Camping Cosmos (1996) being his most famous movies. A recurring theme in his work is Belgitude. [2]

Jan Bucquoy
Jan Bucquoy sitting on the right (dressed in black with glasses, on the corner of the table) during a talk with his producer and with Noël Godin in 2003
Born (1945-11-16) 16 November 1945
Harelbeke, Belgium
NationalityBelgium
Occupationanarchist, author, filmmaker

Career

After his studies in Strassburg (theatre) and Brussels (Insas) he started his career as an author of about 50 comics: ((Daniel) Jaunes, Le Bal du Rat Mort (1986), Retour au pays noir, Alain Moreau, etc...). With his producer Francis De Smet he made his much acclaimed series of The Sexual Life of the Belgians (with the famous trilogy) which includes 10 movies and documentaries about the whereabouts of Belgian people from the period after the war until now: the surrealist Camping Cosmos (1996) with Lolo Ferrari and Jan Decleir, and with a parody (detournement) of Tintin [3]and Snowy and of the play Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht; The Closing down of the Renault Factory at Vilvoorde Belgium (1998) as a Belgian version of Roger & Me (1989) by Michael Moore; Les Vacances de Noël with Noël Godin and Yolande Moreau (2005) etc...

He opened the Underwear Museum in Brussels in 2009;[4] in 2016 it moved to its current location in Lessines, Hainaut.[5]

Influences

His movies are a mixture of French avant-garde cinema in the manner of Jean-Luc Godard (La Chinoise (1967), Tout va bien (1972), Italian neo-realism (Roberto Rossellini) and the humanism of Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Satansbraten (1976), The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979); Bucquoy directed some theatrical plays by Fassbinder during his university studies at Strassburg (The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant). Influenced by the Situationist book Society of the Spectacle (1967) by Guy Debord,[6] Bucquoy considers life in the 21st century to be a permanent theatrical performance. His films contain many references to the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan and one of his movies has even taken a title by one of the books of the pupils of Lacan: La jouissance des hystériques by the psychiatrist Lucien Israël. He was also influenced by the artist Marcel Mariën and the writer Raoul Vaneigem (The Book of Pleasures).

Protagonists

His protagonists include celebrities looking for love, having reminiscences of their lost mother. The term "sexual" in his first movie La Vie sexuelle des Belges 1950-1978 means affectionate. His work renders ridiculous the false seriousness of the media and its 'stars' who act as collaborators of this system of massive distraction. This is the reason why he is an accomplice of the entarteur Noël Godin who threw pies at major figures of business as Bill Gates, culture: Bernard-Henri Lévy and politics: Nicolas Sarkozy and that he celebrates his yearly coup d'état of Belgium as an art performance or happening just like his musée du slip. This does not mean that he takes politics seriously: his movie La vie politique des Belges (2002) with Benoit Poelvoorde for instance, makes fun of the two minuscule opposing political parties in the race for votes: Tarte, and Vivant with the Belgian millionaire Roland Duchâtelet.

Films

References
  1. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/bucquoy_jan.htm
  2. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/bucquoy_jan.htm
  3. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/bucquoy_jan.htm
  4. "Panty Poetry: Celebrity Underwear Museum Opens in Brussels". Der Spiegel. 23 July 2009. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  5. Boyle, Robyn (25 September 2016). "Underwear Museum moves from Brussels to Lessines". The Bulletin. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  6. https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/bucquoy_jan.htm
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