Danny Devos
Danny Devos (°1959) lives in Antwerp but carries out his artistic endeavours the world over. Since 1979 he has carried out 160 performances in over 40 cities across 12 different countries. For nearly 40 years he has acted as performance, sound and “forensic” artist, purposefully making it his objective to remain a critical voice within and opposed to the art scene.
To Danny Devos’s credit as an artist, he has always gone beyond his own research, maintaining an active interest in studies on the actual position of artists in society, independent of the research inspiring his own work. This interest led to the official recognition of artists’ legal social status in 2003. In addition to his independent work as an artist he partners with artist Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven in the Club Moral noise band, and carries out long-term projects on the artistic legacy of artists such as Gordon Matta-Clark and James Lee Byars.
He begins to combine his bodily performances with industrial noise in the eighties, simultaneously delving into a profound psychological study on the motives and drives of murderers. In 1987 he begins his correspondence with convicted serial killers such as Belgium's Freddy Horion and Michel Bellen along with John Wayne Gacy in the United States. Since embarking on this study he has created objects and installations related to the macabre deeds committed by these killers, photographing himself lying naked at the scene of the crime, or performing - with or without audience - to music both horrid and terrifying. The collection of visual materials and framed letters comprise an artistic whole that always alludes to the sites on which the victims were murdered or the context in which the perpetrators carried out their gruesome deeds.