Farm Prod: ten years of urban adventures

(© ADN)

You might have imagined yourself in Springfield over the past week. Not Hoop City, the little town in Massachusetts where basketball was invented, but the animated Springfield whose skyline is dominated by a nuclear power plant that is forever on the brink of a meltdown. But here inhabited not by Matt Groening’s original seven yellow main characters, but by the seven-member core of Farm Prod. Fred Lebbe, Guillaume Desmarets, Arnaud Debal, Nelson Dos Reis, Alexis Corrand, Alexandre Alonso, and Piotr Szlachta: perfectly Simpsonised by ADN and, after a night of sticking posters, active in every corner of their beloved city. That heavy artillery was employed to promote “10 Years of Painting”, the exhibition which – that’s right – celebrates ten years of the Brussels-based collective’s explosive use of colour.

And the offensive – fear not, you’re being bombarded by friendly fire in TAG City – is perfectly justified. You’d need to find a highly productive project developer to match the impact of the fourteen busy, playful hands, armed with cans of spray paint and high doses of energy, on Brussels’s public space, shop façades, hotel interiors, and the occasional Chinese artist. At TAG City, these furious farmers have been given the space to exhibit both their personal and collective work. A fine spot has also been reserved for nearly 1,300 photos from Farm Prod’s personal archive and pictures by Ugo Cab and Gautier Houba. It’s a fabulous look into their collective farm management and what Fred Lebbe so aptly described as “a human adventure” during our Wunderkammer visit a few weeks ago: “It’s a tale of friends having fun together. What really counts is sharing, meeting people, forging friendships, tackling different projects, and enjoying the things we do. That is the foundation of our work.”

(© Gautier Houba)

In other words, one big colourful family, which like Homer enjoys the occasional Duff, like Lisa can produce a good groovy beat, like Bart preaches pacifist vandalism, like Marge keeps the peace, and like Maggie can reduce the cynical Montgomery Burns’s of this world to silence with an open, disarming look. Add to that the heart-warming faithfulness of Santa’s Little Helper and the various Snowballs, and the Simpsons analogy fits perfectly. Have a happy one, guys! Here’s to another 10 years.

FARM PROD: 10 YEARS OF PAINTING > 29/12, wo/me/We > za/sa/Sa 12 > 18.00, TAG City, Tunnel Brabanttunnel, passage Charles Rogierdoorgang 23D, Sint-Joost-ten-Node/Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, www.farmprod.com