“Discomfort Is Everything”

Text: Tim Berbers. Photographs: Friso Keuris.

He sold his company and never had to work again. Now Philip van den Hurk is the patron of the controversial art group KIRAC, which is embroiled in a court case with writer Michel Houellebecq. Who is their sponsor? “If it turns into a shitty little piece, I will just happily jump in front of a train.”

“Damn it, yes, Tim. All right, then.” An agreement to an interview does not usually look like this at Quote. But Philip van den Hurk, 59, is not easily persuaded, as becomes clear from the first contact. “Hello, Tim Berbers. I always thought too little was written about me, and now it is too late. I would be willing to talk about KIRAC, on condition that you are the right man to write a piece on this subject.” What follows is a WhatsApp conversation in which Van den Hurk sends articles and videos about KIRAC, your reporter responds, and then more arrive.

Time for the big guns: interview, yes or no? Although the answer becomes “yes”, Van den Hurk keeps things suspenseful: in Austria he gets off his bicycle so awkwardly that he needs surgery and the appointment must be postponed. Later he even cancels the interview—“My conclusion is that I will say ‘no’ to the interview after all, simply because I do not know the outcome”—only to be persuaded by the journalist again. “Well, go on, then. And if it turns into a shitty little piece after all, I will just happily jump in front of a train.”

Uproar

Anyone reading this account of the struggle to get Van den Hurk to talk may ask: why all this effort? Who is this man? The latter question is precisely the explanation. For several years, Van den Hurk has regularly appeared in the films of Keeping It Real Art Critics, KIRAC for short, an initiative of the Amsterdam married couple Stefan Ruitenbeek and Kate Sinha, occasionally assisted by artist Tarik Sadouma. In these films, which fall somewhere between reflections on the state of contemporary art and old-school confrontational PowNews reports, Van den Hurk plays the role of fabulously wealthy patron.

For years, KIRAC remained largely below the mainstream media’s radar. That changed with a three-stage rocket of outrage. First, the collective’s appearance at the Rietveld Academie was cancelled because Kate Sinha allegedly made racist and sexist remarks in a written critique. Then a controversy arose around a film in which right-wing writer Sid Lukkassen had supposedly been “trapped” into having sex on camera with left-wing philosophy student Jini van Rooijen, also known as OnlyFans porn-content creator Jini Jane.

With its latest sensation, however, KIRAC immediately goes international, partially repeating the Sid Lukkassen trick with the world-famous French writer Michel Houellebecq. That film has yet to be released, but Houellebecq is now trying to throw sand into the machinery through court cases. Reason enough, then, to find out who finances this collective. For however outspoken Philip van den Hurk appears in the films, remarkably little seems to have been written about him in the media.

A few days after Van den Hurk’s cancellation was averted at the last moment, Quote rings the bell somewhat nervously at his gated Villa Hurk in Waalre, just south of Eindhoven. Before your reporter is allowed inside, Van den Hurk, wearing neither shoes nor socks, makes him wipe his feet very carefully. In the kitchen, he points to a table and chairs—“Make yourself comfortable”—and starts working on a coffee machine that will remain broken for the rest of the interview. He hands over a prepacked wafer cracker. “Very special. This was in our hotel suite, so we are certainly not serving you just anything.” He then walks away and leans against the kitchen counter. “Do you mind me walking around here, or not? No, do whatever you like. You can stand up too.”

I am happy to stand too, but you said, “Make yourself comfortable.”

“Because you were so nervous. Are you nervous? No, not too bad? You stumbled in here. Stammering. So I thought: just sit down for a moment.”

Insurance

Philip van den Hurk is born to small-business owners in Leende—“Not rich; all the money that came in was immediately spent”—and decides at eighteen to go into insurance. “I heard other guys talking about it at parties, and it appealed to me.” By his own account, he is the only person on the higher professional banking and insurance course who is there because he really wants to be. “The rest were bored; they just needed a job.”

To be honest, it does not strike me as the most exciting work.

“It is very exciting! Do you know what is so nice? You give someone advice and those people adore you. It is fantastic to give relief to someone who comes to you with a huge question mark. And then you get to present a hefty bill as well. That is very nice.”

After working in that world of covering risks, Van den Hurk senses an opportunity in the early 1990s, as he sees more and more people wanting to buy a house without having much money. “Those people no longer wanted to be humiliated at the Rabobank counter. People felt they had a future. And I had devised a plan: give those people the treatment they would receive at a private bank if they were welcome there.”

So you drew them away from that counter?

“Exactly. That was in 1993. And it became a great success. At least, a great success by my standards.”

Yes, but you cannot have been the only one doing this.

He laughs and spreads his arms. “There were 10,000 competitors. There were 10,000 intermediaries.”

And were you that good?

“I sometimes say I rose to the top because everyone else simply fails to see things.”

Such as what?

“Just simple things, like keeping your promises. Or suppose I go to buy a car and meet a car salesman who knows more about that car than I do: I find that remarkable. Or someone says, ‘I will call you back shortly’, and actually calls me back. You remember things like that.”

Van den Hurk’s approach works. His firm, always styled “buro philip van den hurk”, becomes a success, and in addition to his Eindhoven base he opens fourteen branches across the Netherlands. Money pours in, allowing him to buy a plot in Waalre, demolish the existing house and replace it with the imposing villa where this interview is taking place.

Were you already involved in art then, or did that come later?

“My interest in art coincided with the moment I had money. Suddenly I thought: now I can buy a painting.”

First art purchase

The first time Van den Hurk decides to buy art is more or less by chance, when he walks past a gallery in Knokke with Rolls-Royces and Bentleys parked outside. “That gallery sold works by famous artists such as Andy Warhol. Inside, they gave you champagne. I bought a Karel Appel there.”

Why an Appel?

“Well, because it was a genuine painting by Karel Appel. He was the only artist I knew. Yes, so I thought: I must have that.”

The interview is interrupted when Quote’s photographer arrives. He is convinced he has photographed Van den Hurk before, but the latter firmly denies it. Moreover, he does not want to be photographed with a painting.

Why not?

“I do not like it. These days you cannot open a magazine without seeing someone standing next to a painting. As though they want the work to compensate for what they themselves cannot offer.”

Back to your first art purchase. You bought an Appel. Why?

“Look, everyone knows Appel. They pushed the thing on me on the basis of paint thickness and sold it by the square centimetre. Along the lines of: look, this is a really good deal.”

Did you think it was beautiful?

“I was impressed that it was oil on canvas. At that time, I thought anything that was a painting was beautiful. Only later did I realise that I had no affinity whatsoever with the CoBrA movement. But you develop your taste. It is like wine. The first time, you know nothing about it; later you realise you prefer chardonnay, for example.”

But with wine, of course, you can immediately think: this tastes good.

“No, I do not remember that with wine either. When I was growing up, we ate spaghetti once a week, and we were allowed a glass of wine with it. You did not think much about it. Later I do remember liking Caveau. Then I would see a special offer: three guilders twenty, buy one, get one free. So I immediately bought fifty. Yes, yes! Then I had fifty bottles of Caveau. And after three bottles I discovered that I did not actually like Caveau that much after all.”

That buying the Karel Appel from 1986 was not such a wonderful deal becomes clear to Van den Hurk when he triumphantly tells his friend Paul van Esch over the telephone. Van Esch runs a small gallery next to Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum and immediately understands that Van den Hurk has made a very poor purchase.

Did you regret that bad business deal?

“No, because Paul never advised me on business matters, only artistically. I have never bought art with the idea of reselling it later for more. That is not how I am made.”

Why do you buy it, then?

Van den Hurk thinks for a moment. “I think because you expect something from a work like that. That at some point the world will see you were right when you recognised that the artist was worthwhile. Look, when you read a book, at some point you identify with the character. But I cannot read books; I do not have the concentration. So this is a way for me to enter a particular world of thought too.”

Almost bankrupt

Around 2000, Van den Hurk’s bookkeeper tells him it is high time to sell some art. The Brabant businessman is facing bankruptcy.

In the end, you did not go bankrupt.

“No. I remember lying here in my swimming pool and thinking: will I still be lying here next week? And then you look around and see all those paintings hanging there and think: perhaps I should... But at the time, I thought my paintings were more important than my company. Then the bank said: listen, you must sell something now.”

What went wrong at the time?

“I had set up an internet company that, in short, could connect my 20,000 clients’ data in an online system. That would remove the problem of constantly having to lug all kinds of documents around. But an internet company costs a fortune and brings in nothing.”

Was the system not good enough?

“No, no, the system was very good, but the clients did not want to use it. Most people still had dial-up connections; they had no idea what I was trying to offer.”

How did you recover?

“Bit by bit. You cut back a little here, grow a little there, and then the balance shifts in your favour. It was also a disadvantage that I never properly learnt the difference between cash flow and profit on my business course.”

In the years after the near-collapse, things gradually improve for Van den Hurk. In 2007 he disposes of his company by breaking it up and selling it to the various branch owners across the Netherlands. He had not needed to do anything for money for some time, but from that moment his diary is genuinely empty.

How much did you sell it for?

“Two billion euros.”

Then you would have been in the Quote 500, so seriously: how much?

“But I never wanted to be in Quote. All right, it was not two billion. What is the lower threshold for the Quote 500?”

Something like 130 million now. Are you anywhere near that?

Van den Hurk thinks for a moment. “Let me put it this way: I can do what I want. Buy new trousers, travel, buy art. A Boeing private jet is beyond me. Does that answer your question?”

During his retirement, Van den Hurk becomes increasingly active in the art world. He is, for instance, a valued sponsor of Eindhoven’s Van Abbemuseum. It is also at that art institution that he first appears on camera in a KIRAC film, King Philip and the Pied Flycatcher, from 2019. The film shows Stefan Ruitenbeek, Kate Sinha and Tarik Sadouma mingling with the “millionaire plebs”, in Ruitenbeek’s words, whom Van den Hurk has assembled for a debate between the KIRAC team and Van Abbe director Charles Esche, a “Bolshevik” in Sadouma’s words. The confrontation is awkward: another artists’ collective cancels a performance because KIRAC is coming, and the “millionaire plebs” present complain on camera about Ruitenbeek, Sinha and Sadouma’s ambush tactics.

What did you think of that film?

“Very bad. I told Stefan: ‘This is no good at all.’ But he asked me to watch it again. I did, and I saw an entirely different film.”

What did you see?

“It is difficult to see myself like that, but the film is not about me. It is about art institutions where people with money decide what the artist should make. Nowadays, for example, they think an artist must assume social responsibility. But I do not think that is right; artists must decide for themselves. This film, I thought then, is an attack.”

Van den Hurk meets KIRAC not long before this, through his old art-world friend Paul van Esch. His first impression, during Ruitenbeek and Sinha’s visit to his Brabant villa, offers little reason for optimism. “Strange people—that is what I thought. I was not really impressed either. Besides, I did not entirely understand what they were making. They operate in a world where you are not supposed to tread on one another’s toes by saying what you really think. But I am not part of that world in that way, so I am used to talking like that.”

What persuaded you to work with them anyway?

“Paul [van Esch] said to me: ‘Philip, this is the new wave in art; something very special is happening here.’ I went along with that a little.”

In the films, you are presented as KIRAC’s patron. What exactly do you pay for?

He thinks again. “Look, Stefan has certain expenses: living costs and the equipment he needs to make the films.”

And you pay those?

“Yes.”

But is that a kind of salary, then?

He laughs. “A salary? No, it is not very generous, but it is enough for Stefan to live on and do those things.” He waves his hand dismissively. “I do not ask Stefan exactly what he does with the money. I have to trust him.”

Demonstrators

KIRAC, founded in 2016, does not release films with great regularity. Some productions are available free on YouTube; others disappear behind the paywall of a Patreon account. The latest films had proper premieres, sometimes self-organised and otherwise at Amsterdam’s debate centre De Balie, where demonstrators gathered outside when the film about Sid Lukkassen was released.

Van den Hurk’s role in KIRAC’s films is remarkable: although presented as a patron, he also seems to be actively mocked by Ruitenbeek and company. It is even claimed that KIRAC began blackmailing him after an argument. Film number 17, ominously titled Blackmail, shows Ruitenbeek and Van den Hurk in the swimming pool of the Brabant villa, discussing how all their arguments have fractured their friendship. Nevertheless, Van den Hurk keeps his wallet ready.

At the time of writing, KIRAC is involved in proceedings with the aforementioned French writer Michel Houellebecq. In May, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ruled that, although Houellebecq, who signed a contract for the sex scenes, cannot stop publication of the film, he has the right to view the finished result beforehand. There are fears that he will use that period to launch a new case.

How long will you continue paying for KIRAC?

“We have not agreed on an endpoint. Naturally, I hope Stefan will no longer need me at some point. Look, when that Houellebecq film comes out, the millions will of course come flooding in, ha ha.”

Your relationship with KIRAC is unique, is it not? I do not know anyone who does this in this way.

“No, neither do I. It is like the old days. In tsarist Russia, there were rich landowners. They had all the money in the world, which naturally attracted all kinds of people, such as craftsmen, but also artists. Those landowners essentially surrounded themselves with their own entertainment, their own variety show. Art can flourish in that.”

So in that sense you get something in return?

“Certainly. I could sponsor museums too, but I find that much less exciting. Look, when you sell your company, suddenly you are completely alone, because the people who used to work for you suddenly have nothing to do with you. Then, in the art world, you can enter a space where you are surrounded by kindred spirits.”

Van den Hurk suddenly pauses and points to the reporter’s telephone on the table. “Have you been secretly recording all this?”

Yes, right? You said it was all on the record, did you not?

“Yes, that is true. After all, I would not want you to misquote me.”

It would be quite impressive if I could remember those three hours off the top of my head.

“It is not yet time to pat yourself on the back, you know. That comes later, when people read it and think: wow, who is this great man! By the way, has our photographer fallen asleep?”

Blows

After a short interlude, during which Quote’s photographer photographs Van den Hurk on the stairs and Van den Hurk’s wife briefly comes to say she does not want the photographer recording the entire house, he returns to the kitchen table.

I heard you went to Lesbos with KIRAC and things really got out of hand. What happened?

“No film of that has been released yet. Stefan wanted a holiday and I wanted to get away too, so I paid for a trip to Lesbos. There are many refugees on that island, more or less camping in the street. Stefan and Tarik wanted to film those people while talking to them. I noticed that I found that uncomfortable.”

And how did it get out of hand?

“My irritation with Stefan mounted considerably that day. In the evening I roughly shoved his camera aside, stood up and wanted to walk away. Then he got up and hit me a few times.”

And then? Was that not a reason to end your financial support?

“No, I found those blows quite instructive.”

What do you learn from that?

“It is a little like parachuting. You can talk about it or you can do it. I belong to the second group. That is why I never understand bucket lists either. You can simply go and do all those things now.”

Is it a way of combating boredom?

“No, I find boredom a very strange word. Hobby, there is another one. Life is wonderful, but you must always look for something extra. It is good enough, because I am having a perfectly good time. But it is really the difference between... Look, I am perfectly happy, but I am always dissatisfied. And the same applies in business. The moment complacency and contentment arrive, you enter a downward spiral. When you are successful, you have to become even more dissatisfied and feel even more uncomfortable. That is the only way to hold on to that success.”

So you seek discomfort with KIRAC?

“Everything is discomfort. It is not as if I deserve hero status. This is what I get out of it.” He leans back and grins at the reporter. “Seeking out discomfort: you should try it sometime too!”