encyclopedia

crox 348, residentie van 5 tot 12 januari 2011. Een lineaire houten constructie die van vloer tot plafond reikt. Het doet denken aan crox 285-3, het derde deel van een triptiek van Nel Aerts (2009). Latten, stukjes hout, balkjes en plankjes die op elkaar gestapeld worden zonder gebruik te maken van lijm, nagels, tape of andere hechtingsmiddelen. Wat beide werken nog met elkaar hebben: de houten constructie leunt tegen een muur aan. Er zijn ook wat verschillen. Melissa maakt het werk in een van de grote ruimtes, het plafond zit er 4m20 hoog en het werk reikt van vloer tot plafond. Het werk van Nel, in de kubus, bestaat uit een veelvoud aan oblonge, verticale houtconstructies waarvan er niet één, als ik het me correct herinner, tot het plafond reikt, dat in de kubus op 2m20 hoogte zit.
Een tweede werk is een muurtekening met zwarte tape. Ook Meggy Rustamova, die tijdens dezelfde periode een residentie heeft in de andere zaal, maakt zo'n muurtekening. Op het materiaal na gaat het om twee aparte werken. Voor Melissa is de uitdaging het uitvergroten van het formaat van de kleine collages tot een ruimtevullende ingreep.
Een derde werk is een witte vorm op de betonnen vloer en dan is er ook nog een werk met vormen van zilverpapier.

crox 349-2, residentie van 14 tot 21 januari 2011. een fragment uit de crox-box:

foto boven: In de presentatie van Machteld Rullens nam iemand plaats aan de kleine tafel. Op het tafelblad liggen wat dingen. De jonge vrouw leest luidop in het boekje van Machteld. Omdat ze de woorden wou horen, zegt ze. Ze spreekt de woorden luidop omdat ze wou weten hoe het klinkt.

foto onder: 'Mag ik een foto van je handen nemen?' vroeg ik.
'Ja,' zegt ze.

De tekst beslaat 4 bladzijden en is onderverdeeld in 7 fragmenten die alle
min of meer eenzelfde lengte hebben. Zij en Joel Galler, vertelt
Machteld, hebben het in Berlijn gemaakt toen ze aan het EEA resideerden.
Dat staat niet in het boekje vermeld. Er staat dat het om flarden van
gesprekken gaat, an expansive collection of spoken words, sporadic thoughts and evesdropped sentences, heard within the Beelitz area.
Alleen als je weet dat Beelitz tussen Kreuzberg en Schönefeld is, weet
je dat het in Berlijn gebeurd is. Zelf ben ik ooit wel eens in Kreuzberg
geweest en Alexanderplatz heb ik gezien voor het een bouwput geworden
was. Beelitz is de zuidoostelijke rand. In het EEA hadden ze toen een
dertigtal residenten. Toen is twee zomers geleden, 2009, en aan het eind van die zomer, augustus, september.

Sofie is net aan bladzijde 4 begonnen

from a different window when searchnig I forgot
the colour of the future where we are now with
no certain spiders and a duality of dog and wolf

als ik de ruimte betreed waar Machteld haar presentatie heeft. De docenten
en juryleden zijn ervandoor. Adam Geczy ging achter ze aan. Philip
Aguire y Otegui zei dat hij en Dirk in Kameroen geweest waren, hij
bedoelde Dirk Braeckman, en dat ze daar Martens pils gedronken hadden en
dat hij in de hitte had zitten suffen en denken, waar godverdomme heb
ik dit bier al eens eerder gedronken, en dat hij toen opeens had beseft:
croxhapox godverdomme, daar heb ik dit bier al eens eerder gedronken.

Op Sofie na is er helemaal niemand. Ze zit aan het tafeltje waarop
Machteld wat dingen heeft uitgestald en leest in een boekje. Ik maak een
foto, stap om de tafel heen, maak nog wat foto's.

the title what I remember is a roundabout
of curiosity a slide-in death moving backwards
towards an ambivalent sexual art you never know
your next step technically I never get there in
many ways the question is an anxious train inside
a room inside a rood inside a room inside a room
going nowhere fixed on my abstract self yellow
and looking in 1.7 three million drugs placed in
once upon a time with paper in our eyes and wires
surrounding what will happen next I assume
the answer to be yes listen for me coming in an
already otherwise memory just another grid
recreating a language that I dream in I will try
to be your cushion and sieve through scattered
depths install yourself as we are all isolated
together just remember that this is for both of us.

Het woord rood, inside a rood, bestaat niet. Het is een tikfout, er had inside a room moeten staan. Cambridge vermeldt rood screen:
a decorative wooden or stone wall that in some Christian churches
separates the area near the ALTAR (=a table used for religious
ceremonies) from the other parts of the church
Roo, Australian slang,
stands for Kangaroo. Tikfouten staan voor zo'n massief totaal aan
kennis dat ik er soms duizelig van word.

Searchnig. Zo staat het in de tekst die Joel Galler en Machteld Rullens samenstelden. Als je dat op google intikt kom je op een pagina met foto's van een nerd die met
een verrekijker zoekt waar je gebleven bent en een jerk die het met een
vergrootglas doet. Eén tikfout en niemand die je lastig valt.

2011, 28 May: concert with Jozef van Wissem (NL). A Smeraldina-Rima project. -->Vanishing Twins

text fragment /croxbox-notebook/
In the dark, the lute-player ⁽¹⁾
film projection⁽²⁾
Versailles
Jeanne the images are
Madic dark notes
taken in Versailles⁽³⁾
it seems rain is falling
oh no it's the film projector
anecdote Salzburg⁽⁴⁾

(1) Jozef van Wissem on baroque recorder - with swans' neck.
(2) Work by Jeanne Madic.
(3) The gardens of the versailles palace.
(4) crox-box, 28 May 2011

crox 313. Buffet Gent Dampoort / videofilm. September 2009. Iedereen die hem kende, wist z'n voornaam. Herman. Wat ze ook wisten was dat hij uit Eeklo kwam, daar ooit een huis zou hebben gehad en van adellijke afkomst was, hoewel dat laatste niet gepreciseerd kon worden. Niemand wist er het fijne van. Ook z'n familienaam bleek een goed bewaard geheim, zelfs Freya, die hem gefilmd en geïnterviewd had, moest toegeven dat ze 't niet honderd procent zeker wist. Of 't Aguilera was of wat anders. Zei je Herman, dan wist iedereen over wie je het had. Een spichtig mannetje in lompen. Op een keer had ik hem vlakbij de Kapiteinstraat op een bank zien liggen dutten. Eind jaren tachtig kwam ik hem vaak aan Sint-Jacobs tegen. Het huis dat hij had gehad, was afgebrand. Hij stonk een uur in de wind, ververste zich helemaal nooit. Hoe oud hij precies was, viel moeilijk in te schatten. Er was een tijd geweest dat hij bij Bloch tussen de gepoederde dames aan tafel zat. De oude Bloch had een zwak voor Herman, die er als een verwaaide specht uitzag en naar urine rook. Hij kreeg gratis koek en een kop koffie, zei geen woord. Jaren aan een stuk had ik hem op het plein gezien, vaak bij Jean en Margriet, en omdat ik daar net zo vaak een pak friet ging halen sprak ik hem wel eens aan, maar dat leek hij ongepast te vinden. Toen hij op een keer toch wat zei, begreep ik dat ik zijn goedkeuring gekregen had. Je bent een fijne vent en hou nu maar je mond, meer had hij niet willen zeggen. Freya had hem gefilmd en ook geïnterviewd toen hij, jaren later, steeds vaker in de buurt van Gent Dampoort rondhing en een vaste klant van het stationsbuffet werd. Ze had vooral de andere stamgasten geïnterviewd, uit Herman had ze niet veel los gekregen. En ze had zijn begrafenis gefilmd en de ceremonie op een strooiweide. De dood van Herman ging niet onopgemerkt. In januari 2007 was hij in de buurt van Gent Dampoort uitgegleden over het beijzelde voetpad. Hij was blijven liggen, een ambulance had hem naar een ziekenhuis gebracht en daar was hij gestorven. In een bed. En enkele dagen later hadden ze daar in De Morgen over geschreven. Twee bladzijden en een foto van Herman, een klein, spichtig mannetje helemaal achterin de foto in een kaal en wijd landschap waar op dat spichtige mannetje na eigenlijk helemaal niets te zien was. En daarover gaat die film van Freya Maes. Het is haar eerste film, een kleine film, een meesterwerk.

Project by Cuban-Belgian artist Lazara Rosell Albear.

2008. TAGMOSIS at Croxhapox. crox 286. Two-day festival organised by Mahaworks and Ciclic Records. Friday 19 and Saturday 20 December.

crox-box Friday 19
December 2008 TAGMOSIS 2008 by Ciclic and Mahaworks. Eli and Lazara have
started preperations on Tuesday. It's the last project before our winter break,
a short, itinerant festival with performance, dance, muzic and video. A large
stage appeared in the large space, courtesy of the Dienst Feestelijkheden
[Supporting service of the city of Ghent]. Provisions are dropped in by Roger
from Negocito. A fragrance of soup. Juan, a Spannish dancer living in Brussels,
is practicing in the video space. Jan Van Ryckeghem busies himself with testing
the  video projection. Eli and Lazara
also take care of the video projection, a work by Alda Snopek. Gabriele works
in the movie industry, she is an assistent producer. Antoine Prawerman treads
through the rooms, snugly wrapped against the cold. He's a musician, Polish
roots, lives in Brussels, plays the bass clarinet. Giovanni Barcella attaches a
white cloth in front of the entry to the cube room. A drum kit sits in the
cube. And a slide projector too. One of the amps has a pile of paper on top
(notes? scores?) and on top of that stash of paper an Italian translation of Dylan
Thomas, POESIE, a 1976 edition by Ed. Guanda, traduit par Roberto Sanesi.
Antoine has settled in the office, making calls. Jan is still fiddling with the
slide projector (...) No way to get the lines right. Has take him more than
half an hour by now. Judith and  Bart
drop in, and Younes a bit later, Chris Van der Burght and Alda too. Hurriedly I
count the money in the bar drawer. Meanwhile, Barcella attached a piece of
paper at the entrance of the cube room:

Giovani Barcella
personal solo op
aanvraag
reservatie 3p max

[Giovanni Barcella
personal solo at request
reservations for 3 p
max]

(...) Someone has put
a load of blue fertilizer in one corner of the large room. The blue beads are
arranged like some kind of Halloween mask. A torchlight adds the necessary
atmospherical light. Juan is wearing a black cap and inquires if he can have a
glass of water. Un verre d'eau, in the Ponge version: 'mesure de la capacité
des sobres. Capacité pure, existe à peine.' At the same time a ladies voice is
singing and shouting in the cube room. Monika. Monika stands at the side of a
highway and screams, chants, sings, shouts, vomits. She throws up on the
highway. Later on Eli says in fact he had expected her at crox. She lives in
Berlin. The agreement was for her to do a performance. On the other hand Nan-Ping
is present. She is working with Peter Verhelst these days.

Next to the heap of
fertilizer is an mp3 playing a movie. It is said to be a work by Eli, something
he he made the other day. The evening starts with a solo by Antoine Prawerman
on bass clarinet. Roger is warming the shellfish soup.  Somebody asks if we have tea. Tea… do we have
tea. I discover that we have rosebud tea. Prawerman is astonishing. The
instrument sounds as if it has ten inner sides. He explains, later on, that the
improvisation is based on a system of 12 sounds and 13 colours. Whether he lets
himself be guided by the colours he sees around him during the improvisation he
doesn’t tell. But he does say that certain registers of the bass clarinet have
the timbre of a trumpet.

The second action is
a performance by Lazara against a backdrop of video projections. They are Jan’s
movies, a self-portrait to the left, colour improvistions to the right. There
is quite a crowd. One of the visitors is sitting in lotus position.

Giovani Barcella sits
in the cube. Judith orders another glass of wine, Père Guillot, vin du côte de
Nîmes. An improvised kitchen in the corridor to the brainbox space: two plinths
and a plank, a ladle and a black cooking pot. A shelf with chunks of bread, a
stock of plastic spoons and red chequered napkins.

A sharp, spicey soup.
Almejas and shrimp seasoned with coriander. Marc is back from being elsewhere.
In the cube, Barcella has started his first drum solo. A bit later Juan starts
a dance solo. In the other room (…) Eli of Ciclic has put a guitar amplifier
and some other stuff.

Juan strides around, watches, probes. Macharius church's bells
are ringing loudly. Emilie pops in, right in time to see Juan performing. 'I
just managed to forget to put in my lenses,' she whispers. Juan's body is
entirely a dancer's one, pliable from big toe to left nostril, stiff one
moment, next elastic as if made from rubber, fresh latex leaking from the tree
like molten gold, then again wooden, a drop that slows down and thickens and
during that thickening suddenly falls, disappears, changes into a string that
breaks in halves, exploding in sudden movement - a movement joining all
movements, sudden, abrupt, a sequence of round and square, the trained body in
a jumble of geometric figures. The audience has meanwhile grown to more than
30. More people are arriving. Juan takes a break. He isn't far from the spot
where the picture of Lien, taken in Genova, had been: the photographer lies on
a wall, a wall which turns its back side to the Mediterranean. Juan is close to
the wall. He pants, relaxes, looks, watches, watches the audience, watches the
other dancers, it follows from the essence of his posture, the watching are
transformed into the watched by the act of watching. Slowly, he bends through
his knees. Slowly, slower still, softly like the bending of a century-old
branch. The branch squats, sits down. even slower movements: centuries lean
over one another and end up in the dancer's body. Then, as he lays down, felled
by a blow originating from the paleolithic... a blow from the infamous Urk Piw
from the tribe of boulder-chewing elephant hunters... Urk Piw, the infamous Urk
Piw, inventor of the blow on the mug... Juan gets up, slowly like a reed rising
from old, stiff mud. Then, even more slowly, he sits, explores, remembers how
it is to be growing. There's no hurry. Soil examination takes time. He stares,
watches, a solid, sculpted staring. He gets up half sitting, almost crawling, a
moaning gesture, slow in all divisions and ramifications of that one movement
the body makes, slow in getting up, ultimate bending steeped in a trembling of
hopeless inertia. He threads to the wooden wall, raises the word FINE. Applause
explodes.

The next act is a
duo: Eli on guitar and Nan-Ping dance, percussion, vocals. Michael and Xenia drop
by. Nan at frist crawling, screaming, then rhythmically with wooden blocks on
the floor and at a later stage on sakuhachi, vertically. Eli’s guitar playing
is amazing.

2009. crox 299,
Zennestraat 17, Brussel. Mahaworks, CiclicRecords and TVF art doc cinema each
have their programmes at the ground floor of the building in Zennestraat.

2011. Le Lab nr 3. 7
July. A full evening’s programme with music, video & photography. Marco
Loprieno (IT/EEeb bass tuba, tenor sax, trompet, nagaswaran), Jan Pillaert (EEb
bass tuba), Antoine Prawerman (clarinet, bass clarinet), Audrey Lauro (sax),
Pak Yan Lau (keyboards), Lazara Rosell Albear (drums, pocket trumpet, video).
Projection of photos during the set of Audrey Lauro and Pak Yan Lau. Photos by
Japanese photographers, a.o. Tomoko Imai, Hisashi Murayama and Takeshi Kishi.

what about croxhapox? crox 186, a mail art call. Concept and coordination: Frips and Marc Coene. >mail art call

Copy Art project, first edition - 1991. Sjoerd Paridaen opens the series and introduces German mail artist Jurgen O. Olbrich. The second edition of the Copy Art project (1992) sh o.a. Olbrichows works by a.o., Michael Winkler, Maria Blondeel, Wolfgang Hainke, Peter Krabbe, and Hungarian artists Dardai Szusza, Istvan Tenke and Ervin Szubori.

Guy Bleus and Johan Van Geluwe participate in En Passant (1991). Guy Bleus faxes a number of works for the >KNUTS project in 1992, a project which never materialises because of a dearth of contributions.  

Op 31 december 1996 the mail art correspondence between Sjoerd Paridaen andHans van Heirseele takes off, a collection presented two times in the crox-programme at the end of the nineties, once in 1998 (crox 81, installation window Aannemersstraat 54), next during the 'first 10', the group exhibition which signals the departure from the location of Aannemersstraat: this time, Sjoerd opts for a slide projection of 80 mail art specimen from the collaboration with Hans (work shown previously in The Front in Arnhem, Autumn 1998).

In Februari 2000 van Heirseele shows a mail art project in Cafe con Libros (Màlaga/Esp), a project reviewed by a journalist of the local newspaper El Sur.

Johan De Wilde (crox 98, juni 1999). the solo by Johan De Wilde combines drawings, photos and an indirect correspondence project. The correspondence address is the proper local address of JDW but unknown abroad (e.g. Johan De Wilde, Limburgstraat 32, Helsinki, Finland). The sender (in indirect correspondence this is customarily the addressee) is the address of croxhapox.

crox 132 (February 2005), installation window by Sjoerd Paridaen and Hans van Heirseele. Slide projection of a number of recent mail arts. The collection of the artist duo has grown to approximately 4000 pieces. >www.shcorr.be (operational since November 2006)

2005, a quick visit to croxhapox from the Walloon mail artist Pig Dada .

In 2006 a number of small mail art projects are shown in the media space: Collectie 1 (initiative of Sjoerd, this time also with work from the correspondence with Wouter Feyaerts and South African artist Veronica Gabriëlse), and a project directed by Frips and Marc Coene with works of American mail artist Reid Wood.

Imaginary territory where L. Vervaecke situates his by no means imaginary zoological observations. Vervaecke's utopian produce houses rabbits, finches, partridges, hares, roebuck and crows.

2003, crox 109. IMPRESSIES UIT MANALOPIË [IMPRESSIONS FROM MANALOPIA], an installation window in Schepenhuisstraat at number 25.

2011. MANIFOLD, a theatre project by Sandrine Verstraete. Residence. Kirsten performs during the first part, after the preambulo in the hall where a student of Arab history and culture draws a Hebrew text with water on the floor. The first part is deliberately slow and long, with lots of silences and changes of pace.

Authot of Negotiated Terrain, chapter V of Borders. CarianaCarianne, Borders, crox-book Nr 3 (2006), p.51-75.
The essay opens with two quotes: 'For life and death are one, even as the river ans sea are one. Kahlil Gibran' and 'The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust'.

'I first encountered CarianaCarianne's work in 2003 when the artists were enrolled in the MFA program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was critique week, a time in which most classes are suspended and teams of faculty meet with graduate students to give formal assessment. I joined four other faculty members to review CarianaCarianne's work in a bright studio one afternoon that spring.
During the critique, I remember reading a brief artists' statement and viewing several video projects on portable monitors - multiple works that displayed parallel images of durational activity, parallel images of CarianaCarianne exchanging gestures, activating their shared skin in repeated caress, giving and receiving touch.' (...)

Bladzijde 65-69: 'In the 2004 project 'Borders: What prevents you today?' at Croxhapox, the artists embedded themselves in extended activity within the site over the course of 24 days. CarianaCarianne's intersections with the space redefined the gallery through a meditation on their own relationship not only with the psyhical edifice and the surrounding lands but also with each other. It is, in some sense, a work of geography - the science of earthly surface, continents and countries, the study of world and the diversions of terrain in tectonic flux. They spent time charting, mapping, making illustrative diagrams that define earth and sea, diagrams that waver in their substance. Made of paper, tape, fabric, found news clippings, and spare remnants, the work playfully defies, invites, speaks of process, construction and repair. The tape and paper lines echo the architecture of the building - the corners where walls meet floor, where plaster cracks, where the edge of glass is captured by window frame.⁽¹⁾ These are the intersections, the borders, the points of joining. They resonate with and against both that which pre-exists within the site and that which is applied. Each mark and added element amends not only the previous element but also itself. It is an accumulative but also reductive and speculative action that is displaced across a material surface. The summation of the mark and element displaces/retraces itself, in the refracting equation, to search for the larger and resonate whole. Yet again, each requires the other in order to signify and sustain itself beyond itself.
The resulting environment illustrates autobiographical relationships with the time of the space, with the time spent within and contemplating the space - a rarified moment of encounter, a kind of situational and ephemeral history. The assembled site and the act of assembling imply a process of discovering unpredicted connections between elements. This system of chance connection or juxtaposition allows the viewer/interpreter to create the mental leaps between meaning, to participate as creators within the interpretation, to find substance/significance within that which is suddenly not static, not fixed.' [original in English, note of the translator]

(1) Martin Trevor, who wasn't in croxhapox during 'Borders...', neither later on, he uses for his essay the massive amount of images CarianaCarianne and Marc Coene made of the contextual installation-performance, adding window panes and a window frame. The crox-location in Lucas Munichstraat hasn't any.

see also: Lawrence

2005. crox 145 Basics2.
2006. crox 145 sequel.
2009. crox 321. INVOLVED. Solo project with paintings and sculptures.

crox-box Friday 27 November 2009

Half past eight. Yoshimasa pops in. He has four works with him. One is a
statue of Infant Margarita, she's naked, with a broken arm. First
made it in clay, explains Yoshi, after that made a sillicon, after the
sillicon a plaster mould. The final product is finished in some sort of
acrylic paste. Two, the other statue, is a small male head with both
oriental and Greek features. Three and four are paintings of his youngest son. The images are based on Velazquez
but far from a copy of the original, everything in it - size,
disposition, color - is completely different.

(...) la infanta

She was meant to marry at the age of 14.
At the age of 14 she married a German king.
She was send to Genua, Yoshimasa told so,
travelled across the Alpes to visit her fiancé.
Later she was send to Italy twice
for a haircut. She eventually married the German king,
had four children and died at the age of 27.

[original partly in Dutch, partly in English]

Predemocratic Republic

Archipelago with more than 300 islands in the Gulf of Guinea. Mbalma-Piere is the most northern and western island in the archipelago. The capital is Kolanveli, on the north coast. The island sits on the meridian of Greenwich some 3° north of the Equator. (0°00' E, 3°02' N)

INMIDDELS

[Inmiddels is the title of a short lived crox paper of limited distribution 1995-1996]

TASTELESS, VULGAR AND CHEAP – Fritz Van
Den Heuvel (opening speech crox 27)

SUPPORTING MEMBERS (1995)

THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HEADSTAND (opening speech)

READERS’ LETTERS (author: Guido De Bruyn, 1996)

difficult name Hallo, I am a fan of  CROXHAPOX (and I’m proud of it). In some pubs
people are making fun of me when I try to say the difficult name of Your firm without stuttering. Because, as a holder of a Level 2 college degree (woodworking) I’m not taken seriously. Alex can’t know anything about art, can he! But I can have my own experience, can’t I?! For example: thanks to your company I now know what installation windows are. What a brilliant idea. Go on.
Make many more windows. I love to watch tehm when I’m taking a walk, even though I don’t understand a sausage of it, Gent has become more beautiful thanks to your firm with the difficult name.  Doei, A. Stevens, Gent

Vicious little sentences Dear crox-publisher, Yes I know the musselman![1] I am a teacher of modern languages in a girl’s public school, happily divorced, amateur translator and quite a reasonable snorkeler. But please do apologize for all this. At home a have a genuine Raveel, which I don’t really like, but that isn’t really necessary in
my opinion as far as contemporary art is concerned (the painting colours nicely with the curtains). Just to say that I am honestly concerned with interior decoration of my living room and with art in general. I heard about the activities of CROXHAPOX in the grapevine. Genial, I thought, till that particular evening. / At the end of last February I was a visitor at the opening of Crox 42, an exhibition in Your cellar. I went mad. Furious I was, not as much because of the lamentable quality of the works (I’m not going into that here),
but about the opening act which was obviously intended to be burlesque. In the middle of the public (a sloppy mix of well off marginals, thirty and forty somethings in trendy outfits) a bloke sat at a table eating mussels. An act as appetiser for the show, I thought, even as the way the guy was cramming himself was not very appetising (I’m not going into that here). What matters is what was presented amidst the slurping, burping and gobbling noises. The gent noisely presented a pastiche on Shakespeare’s third sonnet. Garlic in my glass!
he said (a stroke of real genious, admittedly – and from now on no one will be able to translate the line Look in thy glass
and tell the face thou viewest in a more original way) [see > Shakespeare]. I discerned some polite sniggering in the basement, a single frown from a fool who was looking for some relation
with the exhibition and contagious yawning that started at the back and rippled forward to the mussel table. Where of course it stalled because the protagonist of the evening, not hampered by any kind of humility, went on cramming mussels in his face and vicious little sentences in our ears. Stinky sentences, because I detected quite a lot of scatalogical terms, as far as the musselman – not  hindered by a minimum of pronunciation either – could be understood.  Fresh turds were mentioned./ Humor, boys and gals! And guts of course (throw those old monstres sacrés from their pedestal, watch, mummy, what I dare). A booklet of the complete Shakespeare sonnets – which I bought this Summer in  Strattford-upon-Avon (sic) – was burning in my bum pocket. Yes, I gladly confess: I carry His sonnets on my person (exactly like the main character in the movie Sense & Sensibility, but I was first). I almost crammed the sonnets in musselman’s gob but I couldn’t do that to Shakespeare. And moreover: my booklet, gilt-edged, would shut up smutselmans eloquently, but the risk that people would take this as a part of the performance was to great./ Hence this letter. Of course you will refuse to
publish it (or it will be censured), you don’t have that much guts. Or maybe you will publish it, but then only with a few added vicious sentences of the musselman. About my rabidly conservative reflexes or some such thing.  Whatever. It won’t keep me from - silently,
smutselmans – working at my own daring, I may say,  translation of the greatest love poetry ever written:  Shakespeare’s sonnets (my ex says my translation is sublime, but I’m not going into that now).  A final question: where do you buy your mussels? At vishandel Klein’s fish shop? And were they paid with money from the
government? F. Bakkerzeel, Maldegem

Kicked in the balls Dear people of  CROX, yes we know the uosselman/the musselman of
Scheveningen/ I am an unemployed teacher of modern languages (after have taught at a boy’s public school for a quarter of a century!) and happily divorced  of a coleague who thinks he can translate Shakespeare. I don’t need to tell you this is about Fred.  Per chance I read his letter to Your gazette and, outraged, I decided to dot some i’s. Firstly – and I write this sans racune – Fred is impotent. That is not the reason why I asked for a divorce (I will take the true reason with me to the grave), but I inform you about it because in my opinion it explain a lot
about his reaction to the infamous mussel action. I was also present that evening, in the catacombs of Your stately mansion and, admittedly I enjoyed the performance of Raymond Van het Groenewoud most. That Fred takes offence at the playful Shakespeare rranslation is in no way related to his (presumed) quality as a translator. Fred was simply kicked in the balls (c'est le cas de le dire) by the choice of that particular sonnet. You know Shakespeare addresses in the first 126 sonnetten a young gentleman of rare beauty, called  Lord of my love en Master-Mistress of my passion by the bard. In the first seventeen sonnets he tries to convince the young man to procreate. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb/ Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? You got it? Surely, Shakespeare uses a very direct metaphor – The female womb must be ploughed by the man just like a field by the farmer (note: in English husband also means farmer).
So the third sonnet lays bare Freds frustration quite crudely. And taking the piss on Shakespeare taking the piss on Fred as well. Every common-or-garden psychologist can tell you that. About his own daring translation I can be very brief: they are sublimely bad. The only thing which is true is that we are happily divorced (and it is indeed a happy thing to be divorced of a man who can’t get it up). Lots of success with your well appreciated activities and the some times briljant intro’s (I remember a performer of Schubert whom I would like to hear resounding again in Your catacombs). Affectionately,
Tina Vermoes, Herdersem

a better cause to the chairman of VZW Croxhapox,/ Herewith included is the bill for the 4 kilo’s of Zeeland mussels, You bought at our shop on 28 February for a good cause. The amount of 4 x 129 = 516/ vat 21% = 89/ total = 427payable into account number 234-67895435-003./ Kind regards, Bernard Klein, Vishandel – Neither could we have thought of a better cause.

No problem Dear CROX publishers, I am not at all impotent. For this slander and infamy I will yet sue my ex, Bakeljauw Tina. In her letter, which I intercepted (I let her moonlight cleaning my appartment, silly me) she omits a few facts. Tina’s name meanwhile is Tine – but she doesn’t dare to say that openly. I myself paid for her surgery in Casablanca, goddamn,  after which I gladly (= happily) let me be divorced from her. From him, actually. Because Tine is to blame that I couldn’t get ‘it’ up during our marriage. Every common-or-garden psychologist can tell you that. So the secret s/he will take with her to the grave is now known to you, Sorry Tina, pardon, Tine. Do you see now, dear CROX-publishers, why s/he
was fired at the boy’s public school after 25 years of mucking up the boys’ lives (I almost wrote fuck up the boys)? Or do I need to make a drawing? / I apologise for using Your newspaper as a forum for this intimate war which I would rather wage in court. From my previous letter I don’t take back a single word. I have my doubts that you will be publishing this. In any case: my ex will not get to read this letter. I swear.  Bakkerzeel Fred, Maldegem

Imagine: we too Hi there, Croxhapoxers, I have been closely following the art scene for years. The best exhibition I saw last year as the show of children’s drawings in your space. I bet Beuyes would have been blushing in his grave. And Hoet, that failed boxer, should be tipping his hat for your policy (h’s going to open that casino with a retrospective of Raveel, imagine)./
Keep carrying on! Cause whoever goes down the pit can only see a small piece of the sky. (Japanese proverb) Dieter Pas,
Mariakerke

look in thy sonnet Dear people of  CROX,/ A short postscriptum to my previous letter about Fred. For your information: Shakespeare wrote a hundred and five and fifty sonnets all in all, the first 126 of which were addressed to a young gentleman. On the contrary, the last 26 were written for a beautiful dark lady who roused in him a disturbing love-hate emotion.  Was Shakespeare queer? Or a vacillating bi, such as I? I have to confess that I have recently decided to be un-manned again (for a while I was Tine) in Casablanca  - payed under the money back if not satisfied programme. The reason: I coincidently read a pre-publication of the last 26 sonnets, translated by a Bakkerzeel F. Sublime, I must say, straight and square sublime.  And I can know because my master’s
thesis was about the sonnets. (Fred didn’t graduate, but that doesn’t matter). I now am again the beautiful, dark lady I once was. THANKS TO SHAKESPEARE. THANKS TO FRED. AND NOT IN THE LEAST THANKS TO CROXHAPOX./ When we recently celebrated our reunion (I don’t have to make a drawing, do I?) we toasted to the happy end and guess what that good old Freia (she is no longer Fred) called out loudly? Garlic in my glass! Thanks again/ Tina Bakeljauw, Maldegem
[1]
‘Ja ik ken de mosselman’ is a phrase from a very well-known children’s song and game. 

Mei 1990: Hugo De Leener (crox 4). André Posman (crox 5). Hans, Frank en Guido beslissen om van croxhapox een vzw te maken.
Mei 1991: crox 16, 3 zelfportretten. Croxhapox komt op straat terecht en gaat zo goed als meteen met het Copy Art project van start.
Mei 1992: Copy Art project 2. Hoet wringt het Signos-project de nek om.
Mei 1993/1994: niets.
Mei 1995: Hans van Heirseele (crox 27).
Mei 1996: Thomas Broadbent (crox 43, Zipper Room). Concert: Bart Maris & Filip Wauters. Thomas Broadbent (instalraam, crox 44). Harald Kubiczak (instalraam, crox 45). Luc Gobijn (instalraam, crox 46).
Mei 1997: Uli Vonbank-Schedler & Lisi Breuss (instalraam, crox 62). Griet Musschoot (crox 63). Dre Devens (crox 64). Performance: Piece for Typewriter, tin can, flute and voices.
Mei 1998: Frederik Cornelis, Marc De Clercq, Anja Hellebaut (crox 78).
Mei 1999: Philippe Vandenberg & Sylvain Cosijns. Concert: Daniël Volckaerts.
Mei 2000/2001: niets.
Mei 2002: Onderhandelingen met VZW Nucleo.
Mei 2003: Lucas Munichstraat 76/82, voorbereidende werkzaamheden.
Mei 2004: Peter Lagast (instalraam, crox 119). Dirk Peers (hommage, crox 120).

Mei 2005: instalraam Rik Soenen. Projecten van Anja Hellebaut en Samir Boudia. Spetterend optreden van het trio Final Detail. Publicatie van 2 crox-cards met werk van Anja Hellebaut. Recensie in >Foto+ (rubriek Galeriemania). Bevestiging van de erkenning door de Vlaamse Gemeenschap als Beeldend Kunstcentrum. Het mega-project BRAINBOX wordt uitgesteld tot najaar 2006.

Mei 2006: Sequel van BASICS 2 in Abdij Maagdendale (Oudenaarde). Projecten van Johan De Wilde (crox 178), Lucia Penninckx (crox 179) en Alda Snopek (crox 180). Project van Mario De Brabandere in de mediaruimte. Publicatie van croxboek NR 2, PARTICLES, van Johan De Wilde. Publicatie van een nieuwe reeks croxcards. De Algemene Ledenvergadering stelt Johan De Wilde aan als nieuw bestuurslid en keurt de nieuwe statuten goed. Sjoerd Paridaen treedt aan als voorzitter van het crox-bestuur, Joris Van der Borght als penningmeester.

Mei 2007: PRINCIPIUM (crox 210), een project van Merlyn Paridaen in de kubusruimte. Solo projecten van Peter Morrens (crox 211) en Dirk Zoete (crox 212). In Oudenaarde een 3de samenwerking met C.O.R.N.E.L.I.A, voor de tweede keer op rij onder het vaandel van Erfgoeddag. In de mediaruimte is er een project van Grégory Decock (F), Un Style Et Les Gants (crox 213). OBJECT (crox 214), eerst de straatperformance, dan het instalraam, is een project van Ian Kesteleyn. Op 27 mei is er een concert van De Historiaens (Brussel), tijdens de vernissage van het project van de Luikse kunstenaars Antoine Van Impe, Marie Zolamian en Yannick Franck. Yannick laat weten dat hij van plan is om in Gent te komen wonen. We tafelen bij Pasqualina. In de andere ruimte hebben we dan, eind mei, een project van Liesbeth De Fossé, een Belgische fotografe die in Parijs woont. Het is haar eerste solo project. Publicatie van crox-boek nr 7, WAADRUIM : LEGENDA, van Nicolas Leus.

Mei 2008: Finale van The Gentlemen's Gentlemen, een project van Brian Getnick en Noe Kidder (US). Frank Merckx en Robbert Goyvaerts, 1stejaars Multimediale Vormgeving, en de in Brussel wonende Duitse performer en cabaretière Marianne Vogt hebben de hoofdrollen. Er wordt de hele tijd door uitgebreid getafeld. In de Halvemaanstraat, Kidder en Getnick logeren er om de hoek, vinden muzikale soirées plaats. Laatste week van de projecten van Eva De Leener (crox 255), Steven Baelen (crox 256), Johan Gelper (crox 257) en Evelien Geysen (crox 259). Een instalraam van Stijn Van Dorpe met als titel 'een wandeling op de stoep in Gent waarbij ik, daar waar de muur onderaan een beetje naar voor steekt, even op het boordje loop' (crox 260). Op 7 mei een toonmoment van de afdeling Tekenkunst (kask). Projecten van Alda Snopek, Leen Persoons, Lucie Renneboog, Oana Cosug (RO) en Steffie Van Cauter. De pdf van het 10de crox-boek, een project van Peter Morrens, gaat naar de drukker.

Mei 2009: De eerste periode van het Zennestraatproject in Brussel, crox 299: Alda Snopek, Christophe Lezaire, Johan De Wilde, Marc Coene en Steffie Van Cauter. Zennestraat 17 is een samenwerking van o.a. Fortlaan 17, Secondroom, Q-O2, Les Bains Connective, Constant VZW, Croxhapox en nog een rits andere organisaties. In de croxruimte is er een door Stefaan Dheedene samengesteld groepsproject met werk van Niklaus Ruëgg, Frederik Van Simaey, Dries Verstraete, Deborah Delva en Stefaan zelf. In de ruimte waar sinds begin 2009 het TVF Art Archive van Svend Thomsen resideert, is een presentatie van Jan Op De Beeck en in de kubusruimte het derde deel van een project van Nel Aerts. Het TVF art archive zit aan nummer 3, wat voor de verandering in de mediaruimte getoond wordt. Werk van Worst (DK), Hugh Davies (GB), Dustbreeders + Junko, Le Cirque Invisible, Victoria Chaplin & Jean Baptiste Thierree, Sainkho Namtchyak, Joan La Barbara, Judy Donaway en Akio Suzuki. Een gastproductie op 7 mei: Morc Tapes met Boduf Songs en To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie. De tweede editie van Brainbox gaat lekker hard naar de eindmeet toe: presentaties van unit 10 (Vadim Vosters, Marie Zolamian, Lucie Renneboog) en 11 (Adriaan Verwée, Dirk Zoete, Evert Defrancq). De meningen over het impact en het belang van de tweede editie zijn unaniem. In de andere ruimte, de zaal voorin, is er eind mei het begin van drie nieuwe projecten: Sonia Almeida (PT), Karen Vermeren en een samenwerking van Jan Dheedene en Michael Langeder. Op 30 mei tenslotte is er een lezing van Bruno De Wachter over een voettocht van Brussel naar Parijs en enkele interessante en hoogst vermakelijke mathematische verwikkelingen.
In Berlijn is er een samenwerking met Flachland Kunstverein en de Nederlandse editie van Lokaal 01. Stijn Van Dorpe, Anton Cotteleer en Nicolas Leus zijn van de partij (de eerste unit van Brainbox1) en via croxhapox ook nog Sarah Westphal. Aan het Berlijnse project nemen ook Nele Tas, Anouk Kruithof en Ada Van Hoorebeke deel. van en Nan-Ping Chang rijden naar Berlijn. 

Mei 2010: Remember To Forget The Congo, een project van Adam Geczy. Characters Make Stories, een door Stijn Van Dorpe samengesteld project. Publicatie van crox-boek nr 15, SUBITA ORATIO - SONARE MOTUS, een project van Hans Beckers. Het 15de crox-boek is een coproductie Kask-Croxhapox. De Algemene Ledenvergadering keurt jaarrekening 2009 en begroting 2010 goed. Marc Coene stapt op uit het bestuur. Zijn taak als werknemer is niet te combineren met een functie op bestuursniveau. Om zelfde reden stapte de artistiek directeur vier jaar eerder op uit het bestuur. In het bestuur zelf is een wissel, er is een nieuwe voorzitter, Stefaan Van Ryssen.

Mei 2011: Projecten van Mehdi-Georges Lahlou (FR), Daniël Dewaele, Bob Van de Putte en het Kunstkrematorium. Op de instalraamlocatie is een project van Kato Six. Op 28 mei is er een concertavond van Smeraldina-Rima: Jozef Van Wissem (NL) en Jeanne Madic (FR).

1996, crox 40. Duo project with Dirk Peers in the basement of Aannemersstraat 54.
In 1998 or 1999 a short ceremony is staged during one of the opening nights, honouring RM as the most loyal visitor of crox. She hasn't missed a single project since the end of 1994.
2003, crox 110. 200 drawings by a total of 25 artists. RM contributes a study after live model. Linear, pure, unadorned.