Stephan Vanfleteren

Stephan Vanfleteren (born 1969) is a Belgian photographer, best known for his portraits in black and white and his depictions of Belgium and abroad.

Biography

Stephan Vanfleteren was born in Kortrijk in 1969,Stephan Vanfleteren
, RTBF. Accessed 17 August 2021. and was brought up in Oostduinkerke.David Van Reybrouck, "B", pp 201–206 within Stephan Vanfleteren, ''Belgicum'' (Tielt: Lannoo, 2007; ). He studied photography at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels from 1988 to 1992.

In 1993, while awaiting military service, he made a trip to New York, where he mostly did street photography. He has described New York as his "entrance ticket" to the profession of photography.Joep Eijkens,
Uit het rijke leven en werk van Stephan Vanfleteren
, PhotoNmagazine.eu, 26 November 2019. Accessed 15 August 2021.

Career

Vanfleteren started out as primarily a photojournalist for the newspaper ''De Morgen''.Stephan Vanfleteren – Nikon Gallery
, . Retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 2 November 2019. In this role, he covered, in black and white, stories of the 1990s such as the death of King Baudouin, the protests over the , the Kosovo War, the Rwandan genocide, and the Dutroux affair.Lucy Dricot,
Évadez-vous dans l’impressionnante rétrospective du photographe Stephan Vanfleteren
, RTBF, 8 November 2019. Accessed 16 August 2021. He also found time for stories far from the headlines, such as the experience of riding boxcars in the American northwest.

He has also contributed to ''The Guardian'',Stephan Vanfleteren
Foto Festival Naarden. Retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 6 May 2019. ''Humo'',Foto-expositie van Stephan Vanfleteren over Utrechtsch Studenten Corps
, Utrecht University, 20 May 2016. Accessed 17 August 2021. '' Independent Magazine,'''' In the Margin: Belgian Documentary Photography'', p. 98. ''Knack,''Stephan Vanfleteren: Angels of the sea
, Het Scheepvaartmuseum. Accessed 20 August 2021. ''Le Monde,'' ''Paris Match,'' ''de Volkskrant,'' and ''Die Zeit.''

Co-founder of the publishing company Uitgeverij Kannibaal/Hannibal, he is also its artistic director. Since 2010, he has been a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent.

''Elvis&Presley''

In May 1999, Vanfleteren travelled around the USA with his friend the Swiss photographer , in the footsteps of their idol Elvis Presley. They photographed each other, "in identical white jumpsuits, mirror shades and high-rise hair",Alfred Hickling,
Elvis and Presley
, ''The Guardian'', 12 December 2001. Accessed 19 August 2021. as "Elvis" (Huber) and "Presley" (Vanfleteren), in humdrum scenes from Times Square to Death Valley. Vanfleteren photographed in black and white, Huber in colour. This led to Vanfleteren's first major book and an exhibition.Elvis&Presley
, Comune di Verona, 2001. Accessed 19 August 2021. Both photographers, said a reviewer of the exhibition at the Open Eye Gallery, showed themselves to "have a fine eye for ironic composition".

From reportage to portraiture

Vanfleteren's portraits have been his best-known and most recognizable work. Always in black and white, he has photographed many people from the art world but also many who are unknown. A review in ''Het Nieuwsblad'' of an exhibition of his portraits commented that Vanfleteren's proximity to the faces and the detail of the photographs together almost create "death masks of the living".Dominique Dierick,
Fotograaf Stephan Vanfleteren exposeert in Wintercircus
, ''Het Nieuwsblad'', 7 September 2009. Accessed 10 September 2021.''dodenmaskers van levenden''

As an international project, Vanfleteren has given faces to numerous people living in poverty and isolation in Antwerp and Brussels. "While I focused on their eyes, I listened to their experiences." In 2009 these portraits, along with others, became the subject of an exhibition at Le Botanique, a cultural centre in Brussels.Jacques Duchateau,
Stephan Vanfleteren: Belgicum
, '' L'Avenir'', 14 June 2009. Accessed 17 August 2021. Most were taken with one of Vanfleteren's four Rolleiflexes, as their waist-level finders allowed him to get close.

In the same year, at , Ghent, Vanfleteren exhibited '' Portret 1989–2009'', around two hundred portraits in black and white of people who had had some media presence during the previous two decades. The exhibition then went on tour.

In 2018, he published '' Surf Tribe'', for which he had made a months-long journey around the world, making portraits of surfers. He went to the most celebrated beaches for surfing, but also little-known places in order to portray the most famous surfers, champions as well as unknown amateurs. He did not photograph them in motion but instead captured their static portraits on the beach.

''Belgicum''

From September 2007 to February 2008, the exhibition '' Belgicum'' was held at Fotomuseum Antwerp (FoMu). A review in ''La Libre'' described this:

Dilapidated buildings, outdated town fairs, unfashionable bars  . . Series of portraits – one could call them mugs – of persons bearing the scars of their hard lives, landscapes engulfed in mist, a document of the repetitive days of an internee at the Guislain Institute in Ghent and finally an un-embellished portrayal of Theofiel, an old farmer broken down amid a pile of objects. This is all "Belgicum"; and obviously, as the ook of the same titlealso shows, this tragic Belgium of the little people between canals and side-roads is in fact that of a true Simenon of photography.''Bâtisses délabrées, kermesses ringardes, bistrots borgnes, des ambiances qui se prolongent dans sept suites d'images installées en grand tout autour du reste de la salle. Séries de portraits – de gueules plus exactement – d'écorchés de la vie dure, paysages tous noyés dans la brume, constat des journées répétitives d'un interné de l'institut Guislain à Gand et enfin description au couteau de Theofiel, un vieux fermier cassé au milieu de son capharnaüm. C'est tout cela "Belgicum" et de toute évidence, comme le laisse voir également le très bel album éponyme, cette Belgique tragique des petites gens entre canal et trajectoires obliques est en fait celle d'un véritable Simenon de la photo.''

Charleroi

Vanfleteren was the fifth (after , Dave Anderson, Jens Olof Lasthein and Claire Chevrier) in a series of photographers to be provided with a residency at the in Charleroi.Paulette Nandrin,
Charleroi, son amour
, ''Moustique'', 24 June 2015. Accessed 10 September 2021. He produced a series of photographs, including many portraits, taken in that city, which had been greatly affected by deindustrialization. These were exhibited in the museum in 2015. The exhibition was described on RTBF as "a tender look at a harsh reality", and as having links to the work of August Sander and Walker Evans yet being the product of a singular vision.''Il livre un reportage à fleur de peau et pose un regard tendre sur une réalité âpre.  . .Le reportage humaniste de Stephan Vanfleteren a la force du style documentaire qui le relie à des auteurs tels August Sander et Walker Evans, mais le regard du photographe est singulier.'' A review in ''Moustique'' said:

Alone, free as a dog, sidling between fog and neon lights, in streets where memories of once flourishing industry disintegrate, or contemplating from the top of a slag heap a landscape where factories once spewed smoke, it is above all all the decay of the world that he encounters.''Seul, libre comme un chien, se faufilant entre brouillard et néons, dans des rues où s’écroulent les souvenirs d’une industrie autrefois florissante, ou contemplant du haut d’un terril un paysage où les usines vomissaient autrefois des nuages de fumée, c’est surtout toute la décrépitude du monde qu’il croise.''

''Façades & Vitrines''

With rare exceptions, Vanfleteren has only photographed in black and white. However, in 2013 he published a series of colour photographs, taken several years earlier, of old wall advertisements, facades destined for demolition or abandoned shop windows; these appeared in a lavishly produced book, '' Façades & Vitrines''.Façades & Vitrines
, Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, 2014. Retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 3 December 2016.

''Stil leven''

In 2016, Vanfleteren made a series of photographs for an exhibition, '' Stil leven'', at the (MOA), in Bunnik. Rejecting the museum's initial request for photographs of the Atlantic Wall, he let himself be influenced by the environment of the museum and the surrounding park to realize a series of nudes, still lifes with dead animals, in both black and white and colour. His photos form a dialogue with the work of the painter Armando, the building, and the surrounding nature.Jeroen Wielaert,
Stil leven: sterke ontmoeting tussen Armando en Vanfleteren
, NOS, 19 March 2016. Accessed 17 August 2021.

''Present''

In 2020, Fotomuseum Antwerp organized a major retrospective, ''Present'', which followed Vanfleteren's thirty years of photography, with personal reflections: from street photography in cities such as New York to the Rwandan genocide, from store facades to the "darkly beautiful" remains of the Atlantic Wall, from still lifes to portraits.

Awards

*World Press Photo awards
**1996 Photo Contest: Sports, Stories, 3rd prize
**1997 Photo Contest: Daily Life, Stories, 1st prize
**1997 Photo Contest: People in the News, Stories, 2nd prize
**2001 Photo Contest: Children's Award, Singles, Individual awards
**2001 Photo Contest: Arts and Entertainment, Stories, 3rd prize
**2013 Photo Contest: Staged Portraits, Stories, 1st prizeStephan Vanfleteren
, Mercy Ships, 20 September 2017. Accessed 17 August 2021
* European Fuji Award, 1998
* 2009
* 2011
*Nationale PortretprijsAlso named "Rabo Photographic Portrait Prize". (Netherlands) 2012; for a portrait of Rem Koolhaas
*Culture Prize of the Province of West Flanders 2013
* Honorary doctorate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in August 2021, together with the photographer Dirk Braeckman

Exhibitions

Solo and pair exhibitions

*''Elvis&Presley.'' Accompanied by a book.
**, Verona, 2001.
**Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, December 2001 – January 2002.
**Photographie am Schiffsbauerdamm (FAS), Berlin, 2002.
* ''Belgicum''. Accompanied by a book.
** FotoMuseum Provincie Antwerpen. September 2007 – January 2008.
**Flanders Center, Osaka. February–March 2008.
**Le Botanique (Centre Culturel de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles), Brussels. June–August 2009.
**Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, Hamburg. November 2011 – March 2012.Stephan Vanfleteren: Belgicum
, Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, 2011. Retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 7 May 2019.
**ImageSingulières, Sète, France. May–June 2012.
**Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, Hamburg. January–April 2015.
* ''Portret 1989–2009''. Accompanied by a book.
**, Ghent, September–December 2009.
**, Maastricht, April–June 2010. Accessed 5 August 2020.
**, Genk, Belgium, December 2010 – February 2011.Stephan Vanfleteren 'Photography #1'
, De Tijd Hervonden, 4 February 2011. Accessed 17 August 2021.
* ''Flandrien.'' (At some venues, with cycling-related poems by Hugo Claus, Herman Gorter, Gerrit Komrij, Tom Lanoye, Dimitri Verhulst and others, curated by Louis De Pelsmaeker.) Accompanied by a book.
**''Flandrien: Hard Men and Heroes.'' Host Gallery (Honduras Street Gallery), London. June–July 2007.
**''Flandrien.'' , Amsterdam. April 2010.
**''WielerSportCultuur.'' Netherlands Photo Museum, Rotterdam. June–August 2010.
**''WielerSportCultuur.'' KU Leuven library. September–October 2010.
**Flanders Center, Osaka. March 2013.Website
(in Japanese) created for this exhibition.
**Flanders Center, Osaka. June 2013.
* ''Flakkelân.'' Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, June–August 2010.
*''Photography #1''. De Tijd Hervonden, Hasselt, Belgium, February–April 2011. Successively: portraits, from ''Belgicum'', and from ''Elvis&Presley''.
*''En avant, marche'', Huis van Alijn, Ghent, November 2012 – September 2013. Accompanied by a book.
*''Façades & Vitrines.'' Accompanied by a book.
** Broel Museum at , Kortrijk. March–June 2013. One of three shows constituting ''Aller Retour'' (the others being by Carl De Keyzer, from ''Moments before the Flood'', and by Bieke Depoorter, from her series of people in their homes).Stephan Vanfleteren – Façades & Vitrines
; eight-minute video, hosted by Vimeo: an interview of Vanfleteren by PhotoQ (in Dutch).For a personal description of the exhibition, see Kelly Steenlandt,
Aller retour
, kellysteenlandt.com, 12 April 2013.Photographs of ''Façades & Vitrines'' – both the book and the show at the Broel Museum – are at
Façades & Vitrines
, The Book Design Blog, 15 January 2014.
**Galerie Hilaneh von Kories, Hamburg. March–June 2014.
*''Stil Leven: Stephan Vanfleteren & Armando'', (MOA), Bunnik, Netherlands, March–September 2016. An exhibition by Vanfleteren and Armando.
*''MMXIV: Les Diables / De Duivels.'' About the "Red Devils", Belgium's soccer team. Accompanied by a book.
**Botanique, Brussels. June–August 2014.
**C-Mine, Genk, Belgium. June–August 2015.
*''Atlantic Wall.'' Photographs of the (German, wartime) "Atlantic Wall". Atlantic Wall Museum, Raversyde, Belgium. June–October 2014. Accompanied by a book.
*''Charleroi.'' Photographs of Charleroi. Musée de la photographie de Charleroi, Belgium. May–December 2015. Accompanied by a book.
*''Engelen van de Zee'' = ''The angels of the sea.'' Portraits of pupils of the maritime school Koninklijk Werk IBIS, Bredene.
** (Nationaal Visserijmuseum), Oostduinkerke, Belgium, July–November 2016.
** Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam, September 2020 – April 2021. (Previously scheduled June–August 2020.)
*Photographs of the (USC) and the student society . Utrecht University, May–July 2016. Accompanied by a book.
*''The People of Mercy.'' Maritiem Park, Antwerp, October–November 2017.
*''Surf Tribe.'' Accompanied by a book.
**, Knokke-Heist, Belgium. March–May 2018. Accompanied by a book.
** Kunsthal, Rotterdam, Netherlands. October 2018 – January 2019.
**Kahmann Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands. January–March 2019.
**Liberté! Bordeaux 2019, L'esprit des Lumières, Cour Mably and Musée d'Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France. July–September 2019.
*''Terre / Mer.'' Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, July–November 2018. Photographs of Walcheren, commissioned by the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and presented as a supplement to an exhibition of paintings of Walcheren by Jan Toorop