In 1958, K. Schippers (pseudonym of Gerard Stigter, born in Amsterdam in 1936) entered the Dutch literature scene as an editor of an unconventional magazine. Barbarber presented everyday reality with an ironic aplomb that strongly contrasted with the main current at that time: the expressionism of the Vijftigers. This new method has produced numerous dry-comical classics, such as ‘The Car Owner’: “A man gets into a car / performs the necessary actions / for driving / and then / indeed / drives away”.
Modest poems, which is a characteristic feature of Schippers’ body of work. From his debut ‘De waarheid als De koe’ to his latest work ‘Tellen en wegen’ (2011), Schippers’ poems never revolve around the spirit of the poet. He observes and shares with his readers what he finds worthy. And that doesn’t have to be much. In fact, the smaller and more inconspicuous the observation, the better he likes it, even if it’s just the address of the Rijksmuseum, or the fact that everything has a color.
Schippers does not limit himself to traditional poetic forms; if a photograph is a more suitable illustration for the point he wants to make, then it becomes a photograph. If he wants to describe the path of a fly over a magazine, he draws a line through the letters. And if a poem doesn’t need words because it’s titled ‘Vlielandse zandplaten’ and therefore consists of “seawater, sand, and plants,” then the page remains empty.
Schippers enjoys writing about visual artists who have inspired him. He will never present someone else’s discovery as his own. He likes to share – for the essayistic part of his oeuvre, he received the P.C. Hooft Prize. Besides visual art, film is the most beloved medium. He collaborated on several films with Kees Hin, and it was also the subject of his essays and the novel ‘Waar was je nou’ (awarded the Libris Literature Prize).
Most likely, Marcel Duchamp is the most important artist for Schippers, not only because of his discovery of the ‘readymade’ – the ultimate tribute to the beauty of reality – but also because of his humor and sense of relativism. Because those are the other two characteristics that you immediately associate with the work of K. Schippers.
www.ftn-books.com has now the signed and numbered ZILAH publication by K. Schippers available
