'This World's Made By You and Me' (Spruit #2).
Luk Carlens was a Belgian graphic artist, and during the 1970s a member of the Antwerp-based underground art collective ERCOLA.
Early life
Luk Carlens was born in 1941 in Ordingen, a town in the Belgian province of Limburg. He studied at the Sint-Lukas School of Arts in Schaarbeek and at the Royal Institute for Theatre, Cinema and Sound (RITCS) in Brussels.
ERCOLA
In August 1969, Carlens joined the Antwerp-based alternative art collective ERCOLA, short for "Experimental Research Center of Liberal Arts". ERCOLA had been founded in November of the previous year by the artists Jean-Claude Block and Jean-Claude Buytaert, author Dominique Donnet and photographer Piet Verbist, all former students from the Antwerp Fine Arts Academy. The launch of a comic art gallery in the ERCOLA building at the Grote Hondstraat attracted new members like Luk Carlens and the writer/artist George Smits. During the 1970s, more artists joined the collective, including Suzzy Bailleux, Werner Goelen (Griffo) and Wally van Looy. In late 1972, the collective moved into an historical block of buildings in the Wolstraat, where Carlens also lived and worked. In an interview published in Stripgids magazine #15 (June 2009), the artist Griffo remembered that the group virtually had no money, and that Carlens' countryside parents often came by with smoked bacon or a casserole with pea soup that was heated up in the kitchen.
Besides their own underground comix magazine Spruit (1971-1972), the ERCOLA group produced comics and illustrations for a variety of alternative publications during the 1970s, such as Aloha, Impact International and Ding. Psychedelic stories and posters by Carlens appeared in Aloha (the spread 'Och Djizzeke Djiz' in issue #18 of 1969), Gimmick and Spruit. In 1972, the group made the collective book 'De Ont(h)aarde Maagd', together with writer/poet Marcel van Maele. The artwork was provided by Block, Buytaert, Carlens and Goelen. In their collective productions, Buytaert was mostly responsible for the background art, Block for the characters and Carlens for the inking. Carlens also often collaborated with Werner Goelen on gag pages.
It is unknown how long Luk Carlens stayed with the collective. Over the decades, a variety of multidisciplinary artists have frequented the atelier, including actor/director Josse de Pauw, fashion designer Walter Van Beirendonck, fine artist and costume designer Frieda Kuterna, scriptwriter Jacques Bakker, the painter Filip Francis, crime novelist and journalist Piet Teigeler, architect Luc Deleu, fashion designer Ann Salens and the musicians Ferre Grignard and Mike Zinzen. The performer Wannes Van de Velde developed his puppet theaters there and Nicole Van Goethem created her 1987 Oscar-winning animated film 'Een Griekse Tragedie' in the ERCOLA building. Among the more recent members have been graphic artist Dennis Tyfus and painter Vaast Colson. In the later years, most of the group activities had been dropped, and ERCOLA members have been working mostly on their own projects.
Death
Luk Carlens died in the city of Hasselt in 2007, at age 65. After Georges Smits (1944-1997), he was the second member of the original ERCOLA group to pass away.
Photo collage of the ERCOLA members of the 1970s. Luk Carlens is number 6.