Luc Zeebroek (born 5 May 1956), better known as Kamagurka, is a
Belgian
Belgian may refer to:
* Something of, or related to, Belgium
* Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent
* Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German
*Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
cartoonist, playwright, comic strip artist, painter, comedian, comedic singer and television producer, known for the
absurd nature of his work. He created various comic strip characters, but
"Bert" is the most well known. He also writes the scenarios for
Herr Seele's comic strip, ''
Cowboy Henk
''Cowboy Henk'' is a Belgian absurd/surreal humour gag-a-day comic strip series drawn by Herr Seele and written by Kamagurka. It was originally published in the newspaper ''De Morgen'', but later taken over by the magazine ''HUMO'', in which it ...
''.
Early life and education
Luc Zeebroek was born on 5 May 1956 in
Nieuwpoort in
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
.
Kamagurka studied
Art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
in
Bruges
Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the country by population.
The area of the whole city a ...
and later performed studies at the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts in
Ghent
Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...
. However, he quit school before he would graduate.
During a schooltrip in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
Kamagurka decided to visit to the editorial building of the magazine ''
Hara Kiri'' on his own. Only twenty years old, he ended up going there every two weeks to stay there for three days. Kamagurka still believes this to be his true education and the foundation of the rest of his career.
Career
In 1972 he made his debut as cartoonist in ''De Zeewacht''. Three years later he became the regular cartoonist at the weekly magazine ''
HUMO
''HUMO'' is a popular Dutch-language Belgian weekly radio and television supermarket tabloid.
History and profile
''Humoradio'' (meaning a portmanteau of 'humor' and 'radio' in English) was first published in 1936 as a Dutch-language counterpa ...
'', where he introduced cartoons inspired by the absurd and shocking comics and cartoons of
Robert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb (; born August 30, 1943) is an American cartoonist and musician who often signs his work R. Crumb. His work displays a nostalgia for American folk culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and satire of contem ...
,
Roland Topor
Roland Topor (7 January 1938 – 16 April 1997) was a French illustrator, cartoonist, comics artist, painter, novelist, playwright, film and TV writer, filmmaker and actor, who was known for the surreal nature of his work. He was of Polish-Jewis ...
and the controversial French magazine ''
Hara Kiri''. In those first years the magazine received dozens of angry readers' letters from people who didn't understand or enjoy his work, which they deemed "too vulgar". This transformed him into a
cult artist. He remains the house cartoonist of ''Humo'' to this day, despite other cartoonists being published as well.
Since the 1980s he also made a few cartoons with Herr Seele, with whom he also made several radio ("
Studio Kafka", "Kamagurkistan") and televisions shows (like "Lava", "Johnnywood", "Wees blij met wat je hebt" and "Bob en George"). Since 1981 they also make the comic ''
Cowboy Henk
''Cowboy Henk'' is a Belgian absurd/surreal humour gag-a-day comic strip series drawn by Herr Seele and written by Kamagurka. It was originally published in the newspaper ''De Morgen'', but later taken over by the magazine ''HUMO'', in which it ...
'', with Kamagurka writing the jokes and Seele making the drawings.
Kamagurka also paints and performs theater throughout
Flanders
Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...
and
The Netherlands
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, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
.
He has made music since the beginning of the 80s with singles as "Constant Degoutant", "Marjoleintje", "Een klein leger, maar een dik leger" (1981) and one censured by national radio "Weg met Boudewijn. Leve Fabiola" (Translation: "
Boudewijn go home! Long live
Fabiola!"). They called themselves ''Kamagurka en de Vlaamse Primitieven''. In 2000 he released a new album called: "Oh Sabrina, wat heb je met mijn snor gedaan?" with singles like the title song and "Nee, mijn lief: je bent niet te dik." He has also designed album covers for
Raymond van het Groenewoud and his own albums.
In 1985 he received the ''Geuzenprijs'' for his entire oeuvre.
Since from 2002 he made weekly guest contributions to ''De Laatste Show''. In 2005 he also created a theater production with
Jules Deelder
Jules Anton Deelder (24 November 1944 – 19 December 2019) was a Dutch poet, spoken word poet and writer. His poems cover topics such as life in the city of Rotterdam, drug use, and jazz. He was very passionate about the Dutch language and fear ...
: "Kamadeeldra".
Since 2006 he has been making segments for the TV show "Man bijt Hond" with the weekly shorts ''De grens''.
Paintings
During the ''Kamalmanak'' project he started to make short movies for the digital Dutch site
NRC TV. While filming one of these short films he invented a new art movement called
Accidentalism ("Accidentally made"). He created a portrait of an unknown person, as he saw him/her with his own eye. Afterwards he asked people on camera which person this man or woman on the painting resembled, and strange enough each time there was someone who could proof the likeness by showing a photo.
In 2008 Kamagurka did a project called ''Kamalmanak'', in which he painted daily a painting, in total 366, because 2008 was a leap-year. It is also the title of the book in which these paintings are pictured. The project was sponsored by business man
Marc Coucke
Marc Coucke (born 27 January 1965) is a Belgian businessman, multimillionaire and media figure. Founder of former BEL20 pharmaceutical company Omega Pharma, he has spread his business interests across several sectors including art, through his ...
, member of the management of the company
Omega Pharma
Omega Pharma was a Belgian-based pharmaceutical company which was acquired in 2014 by Perrigo Company plc, an Irish/U.S.-based global pharmaceutical public company. The company was founded in 1987 and was based in the Industrial area 'de Prijkels' ...
. Coucke is an art lover and a big fan of Luc Zeebroek. In these paintings Kamagurka tries to look at the world with an amount of
absurd humor
Surreal humour (also called surreal comedy, absurdist humour, or absurdist comedy) is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, thus producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical. Portrayals of surrea ...
. He was inspired by various art movements, such as
cubism and
pop-art. His intention was to make his international breakthrough.
After this he kept painting in the same style, but with the slight difference that he kept doing it every day, but didn't necessarily finish a painting each time. He made a series he called "Veluxart", because the theme he painted was always close to a roof window. He painted a number of comic book characters (such as
Tintin
Tintin or Tin Tin may refer to:
''The Adventures of Tintin''
* ''The Adventures of Tintin'', a comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé
** Tintin (character), a fictional character in the series
** ''The Adventures of Tintin'' (film), 2011, ...
,
The Smurfs
''The Smurfs'' (french: Les Schtroumpfs; nl, De Smurfen) is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small, blue, humanoid creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. ''The Smurfs'' was first created and int ...
,
Batman) and cartoon characters (
Mickey Mouse,
Goofy,
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar.[Fred Flintstone
Fred Flintstone is the main character of the animated sitcom '' The Flintstones'', which aired during prime-time on ABC during the original series' run from 1960 to 1966. Fred is the husband of Wilma Flintstone and father of Pebbles Flintsto ...](_blank)
,
Mijnheer de Uil) in a style he nicknamed ''Neo-cubism''. He tried to imagine how
Picasso,
Georges Braque or
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
would have treated these subjects.
Another series were the "Spiegeleipaintings" (Fried egg paintings: a chicken upon the yolk of a fried egg). He continued with this theme and changed the chicken by i.e.
three crosses on the Golgotha or by drawing another fried egg.
He also made an official portrait of
Queen Beatrix
Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013.
Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husban ...
with a beard stubble. This is, according to the painter, because "a queen changes into a king if you wait long enough." In other paintings, he's strongly influenced by
Piet Mondriaan
Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
or
Peter Paul Rubens
Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradi ...
or he uses the theme of another painter to make an own original work, such as "
Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" by
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bo ...
, which he transformed into "Déjeuner sous l'herbe".
Trivia
* Since 1978 he has won without interruption the annual trophy for "Best Graphic Artist", elected by the readers of the magazine ''Humo''. In 2010 he was beaten for the first time by
Jonas Geirnaert
Jonas Geirnaert (born July 28, 1982) studied animation at the KASK in Ghent. In May 2004 he won the Short Film Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival with his animated short ''Flatlife'' (11 min). Of the copy he sent in for selection only the fir ...
. He ended number 4 in the top-10.
* In the comic strip series ''
The Adventures of Nero
''The Adventures of Nero'' or ''Nero'' was a Belgian comic strip drawn by Marc Sleen and the name of its main character. The original title ranged from ''De Avonturen van Detectief Van Zwam'' in 1947 to ''De Avonturen van Nero en zijn Hoed' ...
'' by
Marc Sleen
Marcel Honoree Nestor ( ridder) Neels (30 December 1922 – 6 November 2016), known as Marc Sleen, was a Belgian cartoonist. He was mostly known for his comic '' The Adventures of Nero and Co.'', but also created gag comics like '' Piet Fluwijn ...
in the album "De Smaragdgroene Pletskop" a colonel appears with the name "Kamagurka" (line 71).
* The group
Osdorp Posse
The Osdorp Posse, founded in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1989, was one of the first groups to make rap music in Dutch. All four members are related to each other. Influenced by gangsta rap
Gangsta rap or gangster rap, initially called reali ...
sampled a part of Kamagurka's Kamiel Kafka performances in their song "Sam Sam" from their album "Tegenstrijd" (2003).
* Since his youth Kamagurka is a fan of the football squad
KV Oostende
Koninklijke Voetbalclub Oostende, also called KV Oostende () or KVO, is a Belgian football club from the city of Ostend, West Flanders in Belgium. The team was founded in 1904 as ''VG Oostende'' and has the matricule No. 31.
History
In 1911, a ...
, in which he's in the board of directors. In 2009 he got a stadium prohibit of three months because he had entered the playing field during the game in March 2009.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kamagurka
1956 births
Living people
20th-century Belgian painters
21st-century Belgian painters
Belgian comics writers
Belgian comics artists
Belgian male comedians
Belgian comedy musicians
Belgian editorial cartoonists
Belgian experimental musicians
Belgian radio presenters
Belgian television presenters
Belgian male singers
Belgian surrealist artists
Flemish television writers
Male television writers
Underground cartoonists
People from Nieuwpoort, Belgium
Album-cover and concert-poster artists
Charlie Hebdo people
Raw (magazine)
Dutch-language singers of Belgium
Winners of the Stripschapsprijs