Jef Cornelis (1941) worked as director and scriptwriter for the VRT, the Dutch-language Belgian public broadcasting corporation, from 1963 until 1998. The publication The Clandestine in the Work of Jef Cornelis comprises two essays about ‘hidden’ messages in the television films Daniel Buren (1971), Sonsbeek BeyondLawn and Order(1971) and Landscape withChurches (1989). Koen Brams considers Cornelius’ explicit strategies to bring to light differences of opinion in the art world in the year 1971. Dirk Pültau analyses the covert elements of the soundtrack of the film Landscape with Churches. What at first hearing seems a classical recording turns out, on further consideration, to contain a ‘demonic’ message. A DVD that holds the three original films with English subtitles accompanies the publication. The Clandestine in the Work of Jef Corneliscalls attention to anasyet unknown aspect of Cornelis’ oeuvre and contains records by Geert Bekaert and Georges Adé, texts a nd an interview that have rarely or never been published.

The Clandestine in the Work of Jef Cornelis
Koen Brams and Dirk Pültau
12x18cm, 96pp, English
Jan Van EyckK Academie, Argos Editions, De Witte Raaf and Marcelum Boxtareos, 2009
ISBN: 978-90-72076-39-7
Price: € 15