Wandering to Remember

Joost Vandebrug knows the adrenaline cycle of fashion photography all too well. The excitement that arises with the first phone call, intensifies during the preparation, and reaches a climax during the shoot. Then everything crashes, and the wait for the next call begins. But not anymore for Vandebrug. Since he has been active as an autonomous artist, he works every day and is happier than ever. He plays with the unpredictability of his pigment transfer technique to imbue his work with the creative power of childlike spontaneity. "It's a matter of failing, starting over, failing again, and starting over again."

Whether it's a real success, Joost Vandebrug only knows at the end. "I only confront my work for the first time in a late stage of the process," he says. "The paper on which I make my pigment transfers is soaking wet with chemicals, and not all pigments stay on when it dries. Previous results are no guarantee. Sometimes the room temperature is just slightly higher or the paper a fraction thicker, and everything can go completely different." Once dried, Vandebrug nails the hundred cards that the image is divided over to the wall with black nails. "First, I used to organize them lying on the table, but I only had a top view, so I couldn't judge the image well. So now I attach them one by one to the wall. Sometimes I replace one card, sometimes a whole section before I finally have my aha moment." The end result is particularly aesthetic: beautifully flowing color gradients in the rhythm of a grid. A nail that is slightly crooked, a frayed irregularity in the print, or other imperfections emphasize the physical character of Vandebrug's work: the almost alchemical printing process, the labor-intensive assembling, the cards made of handmade paper. "I can really fall in love with paper," says Vandebrug. "I get my cards from Japan, where they have been made like this for two thousand years - now only in small quantities. A special transporter visits four fixed suppliers every month to pick up the 1200 cards I use monthly. Relatively few of them end up in my work. Much fails. I have a huge collection of cards that I have used both sides of without the intended result. But I don't throw them away. At some point, I can surely do something with them."

Anything but flawless

Few have been indoctrinated into photography as deeply as Vandebrug. His father was a professional photographer, and from the age of thirteen, they stood together in the darkroom. "First to earn some extra money. My father had developed a technique where he wrote on the foil as if it were an old-fashioned printing press. In the time before cheap offset printing, we printed hundreds of cards for weddings and parties like that. Later, I started experimenting myself. My father gave me all the space for that." The art academy was a logical next step. "But at the Rietveld Academy, they thought: if you're good at something, don't do it. I worked a lot with video but also with other media." Vandebrug's professional breakthrough came with an exhibition at Foam 3h, the top floor of the Amsterdam photo museum reserved for young talent. "My work had a raw edge. I used disposable cameras and Polaroids that I re-photographed or painted. Anything but flawless prints. Someone from Nike saw that and asked me for a job. Suddenly I earned two thousand euros - I had never had so much money before! Other assignments quickly followed, I started doing fashion and editorials, and I got an agent. At one point, I was on set with six assistants. I didn't even have my own camera anymore because the client rented the latest equipment. The last time I held a physical print in my hands, I couldn't remember. Then I started to feel nauseous. Overnight, I stopped and built a darkroom in the basement of my home."

Ten thousand hours in the darkroom

To leave behind the intensity, stress, and political games of high-profile assignment work, Vandebrug went for walks. The Danube River became his guide. He covered dozens, hundreds of kilometers along its banks. That journey took him to Bucharest, where he met the street children who play the leading roles in his documentary "Bruce Lee and the Outlaw." During that walk, he also took the photos that formed the basis of Pillow Book, his first work as an autonomous artist. "I usually use the Hasselblad that my father bought second-hand in the 1970s. It has only been revised once and still works perfectly. Sure, it's slow, and I don't necessarily take the most beautiful photos with it. But it's about the process, that physical aspect. Maybe in the end, I'll use the photo I took as a snapshot with my phone. The real work begins in the studio." Vandebrug developed his pigment transfer technique out of reluctance to return to the darkroom. "I had done the ten thousand hours there that are needed to become a so-called master. I didn't feel like I could discover anything new there. So I delved into historical techniques, first cyanotype, seeing if I could also print that on stone or glass. That's how it went with pigment transfers too. First, I printed in the center, then also on the edges. From a complete image on one sheet, I evolved into an assembly of pieces. That technique allows me to change things like a painter until the very last moment. That way, I create a new landscape. A landscape that better reflects the memory of the emotion at that moment than the original photo of that landscape."

Infidelity with the Rhine

On his walks, Vandebrug always carries a photocopied copy of Guy Debord's "The Theory of the Dérive" (1958) in his coat pocket. "Occasionally, I read a passage," he says. "The text is about the art of getting lost. Sometimes I follow a dog or walk straight through a store. Not from A to B according to the rules and expectations. It's about being and going." Planning doesn't suit Vandebrug. He noticed that when he was asked about his next film after his successful documentary. "That film happened to me, and I had to make it. Coming up with a subject for a sequel felt forced." So he also doesn't know yet what "life after the Danube" will look like. "Not another walk along a river," he's sure of that. "I've built a relationship with the Danube. Walking along the Rhine now would feel like infidelity." But Vandebrug still has time to think about the future. "Since I have three galleries with regular solo exhibitions and fairs, I have decided to delve further into Pillow Book. That has enabled me to invent things I would never have done otherwise. I have more control over the process, increasingly know how to make midnight blue, and have started making seascapes that I now consider the mother image of the series even though they originated later. I can certainly continue with this for another two, three years. Then something else will come naturally. The work finds me."

Joost Vandebrug (1982) studied formerly Audio-Visual (VAV) at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie but did not graduate. He was 'hijacked' prematurely by commercial photography and worked for, among others, Nike and Superdry. He lived in London and was represented by the renowned agency Art + Commerce in New York. After bidding farewell to commissioned work, he visited Romania for six years, where he made the documentary "Bruce Lee and the Outlaw" (2018) with street children. The film has been shown at more than fifty international film festivals and has received various awards. Only in the last few years has Vandebrug fully embraced the title of 'artist'. He is represented by Bildhalle in Amsterdam and Zurich, Kant Gallery in Copenhagen, and Deuss Gallery in Antwerp.

Edo Dijksterhuis
Originally published in Dutch by PF magazine