People
Tim de Vries: all secrets on the table
At an afterparty, Tim de Vries had an inspiration: he saw a table with pills, coke and butts and decided to cast that scene in epoxy. He has now sold a few hundred and can call himself a successful artist. The next step is to release a series of NFTs. “Thanks to the new technology, we become a bit of Google ourselves.”
What was your childhood like?
“I was born in the Achterhoek in 1980 and, after many moves, ended up in Hummelo, the cradle of the rock band Normal, where I lived until I was eleven. When my mother had a new boyfriend, we ended up in Warnsveld, near Zutphen.”
You escaped your environment by seeking out nightlife. Your website states that you have had your 'fair share of sex, drugs and house music'. Tell.
“I was a house fan from an early age. My first Turn Up the BassI bought tapes when I was eight. I sat at home listening with my headphones on. So cool! When I entered a club for the first time, I knew: this is it! That was in the Pacha in Ibiza. My father took me there when I was fourteen. Ibiza was our second homeland, we were there every summer. But in Warnsveld my friends and I were completely bored. So we went – go! – the car and to Amsterdam. We mainly went to the Hemkade, a real beech tent where many trance and techno parties were organized.”
Didn't all that going out have an impact on your school performance?
“Learning came easily to me until the third grade. Until I discovered partying; then it no longer happened automatically. I started doing too much crazy and not learning enough. School really became a chore. I had a lot of fun, but I hated learning. And I also felt that I learned nothing. Stamping out rows from a book: what good is that? I didn't think school suited me. Why don't I do something I like? I finished high school with difficulty. That put me under a lot of stress, because my parents thought that I would easily pass pre-university education and then go to college.”
But you studied at the Amsterdam Business School, right?
“I started that study because the way to go used to be. Still that pressure. But the whole time I thought: why am I doing this? I didn't finish it and went to Ibiza to work in real estate. I could earn a commission on selling houses. I have worked in the catering industry in Amsterdam, had a number of companies… But it was never that I thought 'this is what I want'.”
How did you become an artist?
“I have always had a thing for art and had been messing around with epoxy for a long time as a hobby. At an afterparty at someone's house I saw a table full of 'party items'. Suddenly I had the inspiration: I should cast that scene in epoxy. That's what I did: a table full of pills, lines of coke, bills, weed bags... I thought it was very cool myself, but I didn't know what others would think of it. Maybe they thought I was a junkie or someone with strange ideas. I had this one Wasted Table, as I call it, at home and all my friends thought it was a super cool thing. At one point someone asked if I wanted to sell it too. Yes, why not? I mentioned an amount and he immediately said 'that's a good deal'. So I should have charged more for it. I then cast five of them to take with me to Ibiza and showed them to the owner of a very cool shop. He said: 'Make five more right away, because I'll sell the first batch to my regular customers anyway.' And so it was: within a week he had sold them. That man made me great there. I visited the most beautiful villas with the most extravagant people, including a billionaire who wanted to put one of my tables in each of his eight bathrooms. This man had very wealthy friends in London, to whom he introduced me. Then I was picked up by a driver and everyone wanted a table like that. It was unstoppable.”
What do you want to communicate with this art?
“I want to discuss taboos with it and try to break them. Take that table with drugs. What is its illegality? What is allowed and what is secret? I see it as conversation pieces. Two older people bought such a table to discuss these kinds of things with their grandchildren. The more people talk about drugs, the more the tension is removed, the less they are used. I think. In my youth I was only told 'it's not allowed' and 'it's not good for you', so I actually did it. I really applaud the fact that Femke Halsema wants to legalize cocaine.”
Speaking of cocaine: how do you manage to pour the powder in such a way that it doesn't become a paste?
“I studied that for a long time and experimented a lot with it until I finally succeeded. But that is the blacksmith's secret. I also tried pouring beer and that didn't work. It takes a lot of fiddling around before something works.”
Will you be able to get your tables with illegal objects across the border?
“Well, I wouldn't risk taking such a table with drugs, weapons, money and passports to, for example, the Middle East. To be clear, what's inside isn't real, it's all fake. But before it is shipped, I often have to prove this first. I also cast other items in epoxy, often on commission. For example, I have a poker table and a Wolf of Wall Streettable cast, and it also happens that someone comes to me with a drawer full of old memories. There must always be a story, for example by making a piece of life visible. I am now working on a triptych for Alvin Leung, the chef of three-star restaurant Bo Innovation** in Hong Kong. His nickname is The Devil Chef and he calls his cooking style X-Treme Chinese, with one of his high-profile dishes being Sex on the Beach: an edible condom on a beach made from mushrooms. A colorful figure, who was also a jury member Master Chef Canada. The suitcases will be hung in his restaurant, which is also known as the 'elBullí of the East'. In the 1960s, Alvin went to Canada with nothing, which is what the first suitcase is about. The second focuses on the start of his successful career in Hong Kong, where he started earning big money. Finally, the third suitcase is very charged: it is about Hong Kong's oncoming subjugation to the Chinese dictatorship. Alvin sent me all kinds of objects, including a sticker with 'Free Hong Kong'. I am very anti-censorship, I make transparent in my art what is kept silent. But I have to cover the word 'liberated' on that sticker, otherwise he risks being thrown in jail.”
How many Wasted Tables have you made so far?
“A few hundred, in the standard size 28x50x60 centimeters. It is all manual work and the production process takes about three or four months. But I can make several at the same time. Epoxy is very expensive. So a lot of money and time goes into a table. And very often things go wrong: a dent, a scratch and sometimes a fly suddenly finds itself in the epoxy. That is why it is quite expensive art: a table costs six to seven thousand euros.”
How did you get through the corona time?
“I thought: that won't work at all. But during that time I exploded on social media. That was because the whole party scene was at a standstill – there was no content. I had a video of mine Hangover table which was first shared by radio deejay Bram Krikke and then by a major techno site. That video has been viewed millions of times. For weeks I was bombarded with five hundred messages a day, and every day I gained thousands of followers. Really crazy.”
It didn't stop at tables, you also started making suitcases.
“Also made of epoxy, but in combination with aluminum and bronze. In The Case contains objects that are normally in closed suitcases. Just like the tables, the suitcases reveal secrets from our lives. For example, one is full of bitcoins and another with passports, a gun, dollar bills, credit cards... Reminiscent of James Bond films. I like to be inspired by old films and series, by what I used to think was cool. So I made a golden gun, Tim Blaster Bronze, which combines my love for James Bond and the Nintendo game Duck Hunt. The Globe Award in turn is a combination between a Golden Globe, an Emmy, the statue The World is Yours from the movie Scarface and the FIFA World Cup. That's kind of my own Oscar. Funny how an object brings status and happiness. While it's all a bit nonsense to us too – it was created. And I'm a big Star Wars fan, which explains why I made my own lightsaber, Tim Saber. This is how I tinker with ideas from my youth, that is the main source from which I draw.”
What do you think of the development of NFTs?
"Awesome. The great thing about the underlying technology is that you can own property online. Now only companies like Google have that. Thanks to the new technology, we become a bit of Google ourselves, everyone gets a piece of the pie. Everything I put on Instagram is no longer mine. That is very wrong and this will put it right.”
When will you release your first NFT?
“The idea is already there: I am going to make an NFT from one of my suitcases. But I'll hold off because NFT trading is down 99 percent. This is mainly because the volume of money circulating in that market has decreased due to the decline of crypto. NFTs offer me enormous possibilities. I can cast everything digitally, because then I don't work with epoxy but with bits and bytes. We are now mainly fine-tuning the story, a cinematic story. I am thinking of issuing three thousand NFTs for a price of three hundred euros as a first series, all unique digital suitcases with slightly different contents. With an NFT you not only own such a digital suitcase, you buy into my community at the same time. Then you can, among other things, help decide on my future art projects, because the NFT holders can provide input along the lines of 'we want you to make a rocket.' I also want to involve my physical art, for example by raffling off a number of suitcases among the NFT owners. For many people, such a suitcase is too expensive – it has a price tag of 18.500 euros – and with an NFT you still have a chance to acquire such a work of art. It is also possible that a work of art of mine is hidden in your digital suitcase, for example The Brick Phone. In that case you will also receive it as a physical gift. And we will do many more things: throw parties in Ibiza, organize fun things, you name it.”
MASTERS MAGAZINE
Curious about the rest of the interview? The winter issue of MASTERS was created in collaboration with Jordi van den Bussche. Many will know him as YouTuber Kwebbelkop, but he has been working hard as an entrepreneur for some time, as he explains in the Great Interview. What is new is that his company JVDB Studios offers to do social media marketing and short format content marketing for other companies. “They can also figure it out themselves, but we cracked the code.” Jordi gives a platform to like-minded entrepreneurs such as Jay-Jay Boske, Demy de Zeeuw, Chahid Charrak and Marcella de Bie, and discusses developments surrounding games, crypto and NFT: “Just as bitcoin turned the financial system upside down, will that also happen with gaming.” This extra thick winter issue also focuses on Lengers' first own ship, an interview with Corendon CEO Atilay Uslu, specials about the new BMW 7 Series and Samsung foldables, and - exclusively for MASTERS! – an interview with Max Verstappen.
