World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 133 - Mac Hague
On the third floor of the new art building on the Korte Vijverberg 2 in The Hague was an overview of the work of Mac Hague. In the large space, Mac Hague showed various facets of his ability: mirror artworks with hologram effect, batik designs, paintings and comic strips.
Mac Hague is a late bloomer in the arts. He is autodidact, has learned everything himself. Mac Hague: "Three or four years ago, I visited my friend René Jacobs in Delft. He is an artist and has a gallery. He was busy transforming school posters into own art objects. As a joke I made something in his style. That seemed to fit exactly in the exhibition and he hung it on the occasion of the Delft Museum Night in his shop window. "
Escher
The following year it was again Museum Night. Jacob's theme was blue and Mac Hague had mirror works with hologram effect, also in blue. Pure chance. Hague's work came back in the window. “Then Jacobs said, ‘Do not you want to join me once?’ I had some work, lamps, old things, but that was not enough. Then I started to make a lot of things in a period of a year and a half. "
The work of Escher is a great source of inspiration, as well as Moorish tiles as seen in the Alhambra Palace in Granada, for example. "Escher appears to have been there, in Granada as well." You especially see the patterns in Hague's batik applications. Hague has a technical mindset. He already showed that at his first exhibition, one and a half years ago in the Museum Science Center of the Delft University of Technology.
Among other things, there were his light objects to be seen. "One of those light objects I attached to the ceiling. People started to make selfies with the light object in the background. Those selfies they send to Instagram and Facebook. 10 selfies x 10 likes x 10 likes, then you are soon on 1000 likes a day, which is of great commercial value. In that regard, I have claimed the site selfiespot.nl, so that you can order a customized mirror object with a corresponding Selfie Spot sticker for a company or institution. The site is scheduled for early 2018. But first, Mac Hague's webshop in the air. The design of the site is ready, the performance is with the printer."
Mac Hague's webshop comes with exclusive wallpaper, car foils and a fabric line along with the graphic work on aluminum and the mirror objects.
Depth
In Malaysia, Mac Hague followed a batik course in the year 2000 and now he makes fabrics with batik patterns. He coated his old deux chevaux with it, the chimney sheath in his house, a chair, hats. The exhibition shows various applications and if I look down, out of the window, I can see his car, also with a pattern. "These patterns always have a 3D effect. I'm going into the depths, I like to play with depths."
Also his mirror objects have that depth. With small lights, red, blue, yellow, purple, green you can look far away. Some objects have a beautiful edge and one even a kind of gothic roof. Hague: "A wink to the seventies. Then these things hung in nightclubs. I wanted an application in a round shape, rather than a square. I started with a drum, a fanfaredrum." I see it. Here too you seem to look infinitely far away. In addition, he started making special tables, the table where we’re talking is one of them. It is made of steel and has nice little patterns. "There has already been an architect who is interested in putting it in production." For the time being Hague will make another seven additional tables of this type.
ANNA Foundation
Also someone who worked at Museum Boymans had passed by. "He had been to Pulchri first. He was delighted, he found it here much more innovative than at Pulchri." We look at the paintings on the wall to our right, it's work on aluminum. "I had 'The Scream' of Munch in my mind when I made it, also the boat refugees and the people in Groningen who do not get a response to the impact of the earthquakes there. Scandalous!"
He has made two big banners to hang out of the flagsticks so that people are made aware of his exhibition. The building is only recently an exhibition space and has no real indication on the outside. "It is from the ANNA foundation, culture and real estate. They manage the entire building ad hoc and fill it in with cultural projects, a kind of anti-squatting." However, the flagpoles appear to be locked and Hague is still looking for the key.
Technical
Mac Hague has no fixed theme. "When I'm doing something, I sometimes see something different and that keeps me busy. That way, I've developed a barbecue on a gas cooker and 3D Chess. I submitted it to the Patent Council." Mac Hague appears to be an inventor at times. "And there's also a book in me, short stories. And stand-up comedian. It's a matter of focusing."
Technically, he is skillful. "I used to break down a radio and put it back together. I figured out you could connect the TV to your computer. Years later, this idea was actually marketed. If people say, "This is not possible," I think, "Let’s see" and I'll find a solution. "
"Not hindered by any kind of knowledge" as he says.
He taught himself all. What Daan Roosegaarde does, a luminous bike path, a smog tower in China, he finds fantastic. "Is Roosegaarde an artist? Is he a tech? Both, I think. I follow it with great interest. Just like the work of the guy I went to see at the Groninger Museum, who makes chairs, radiators and now a complete bridge in Amsterdam using a 3D printer. Art and technique, I enjoy that combination. Architecture as well, the colors of buildings. I do not understand that some buildings are set as gray / black. You get depressed of that."
Jean Paul Gaultier
"Do you know Turrell’s Hemels Gewelf (Celestial Vault) in Kijkduin? In southern Spain you also have such a thing in an artificial forest near Veja-de-la-Frontera. I live in a house in Bloemenbuurt in The Hague and I am thinking of setting up an extra floor, à la Turrell, that you can see the sky. An architect I recently met, Alvin is his name, can possibly help me with that."
All his life Mac Hague did all kinds of everything. At a house party in Amsterdam, fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier who organized the party, asked him ‘Can I use your shoes in my show?’ Hague wore at that time combat boots he painted in the colors yellow, blue, red and orange. "Of course," was the answer. Later he went through a book with the work of Jean Paul Gaultier and what did he see? The colored combat boots. "If I'm Gaultier's inspiration, I'll have something apart."
Surprised
We walk to the artworks. Near the mirror works, I get a click device to change the colors. It jumps from red to green, to yellow to blue and purple. Mac Hague shows a picture of a number of children sitting in front of the same artwork last week. They are very focused on clicking the same screen and looking at the colors.
Does he have a good philosophical conclusion? Mac Hague: "It's nice to create something that's not yet there. It is also nice if people enjoy it. That someone is in your world, how shortly that may be. That they can enjoy it, young and old. That they are surprised. If they look at a work for a long time, they will see other things. "
