Marcel van Maele (Bruges 1931-Antwerp 2009) was a non-conformist and rebellious writer, poet, performer and visual artist. He opposed bourgeois life and the established order, and saw art as a means of changing consciousness. After his military service in Korea in the 1950s, van Maele hitchhiked for several years through nearly thirty countries. During his wanderings he worked as a night watchman, a lumberjack, a cow keeper, a joiner, a grape picker and a docker. In 1956 van Maele made his debut as a poet with the collection Soetja, and started to work on what would become an extensive oeuvre. In the last decades of his life, he became blind, but assisted by others, he continued to write poems and create art objects.

Artists: Marcel van Maele