Capturing the Life of Arno Hintjens: A Photographer’s Perspective

2023-12-25 08:14:00

“I photographed a life,” explains Danny Willems, moved. I took my first photo of Arno in 1972 in a café in Blankenberge for the cover of a record by his group Freckleface, he was already showing off. Fifty years later, on April 23, 2022, the day of his death, I was with his family in his apartment on rue Dansaert. I took one last look from the balcony as the funeral directors took his body away and turned on my camera. My way of saying goodbye…”

Born to parents who ran a Photo Hall not far from the Blankenberge dike, Danny Willems was Arno Hintjens’ traveling companion for half a century. He was in his shadow during his first blues concerts in West Flanders, created most of the covers for TC Matic’s records, accompanied the group on a chaotic European tour as the opening act for Simple Minds in 1986, followed by the rise of the Ostend singer solo, worked on his parallel projects (Charles et les Lulus, Charles And The White Trash European Blues Connection) and stayed by his side when illness ate away at him. “You might tell he was suffering, but he never complained. When the doctor told him that pancreatic cancer had taken its toll on his body and that he had three months to live, his ambition was to make music until the end. He held on. Arno finished his album Opex in March 2022. Four weeks later, he died. It’s beautiful, sad and courageous all at the same time.”

Danny Willems has sorted his photos, the majority of which are previously unpublished, to offer a deliberately non-chronological selection in a book and an exhibition which is being held until May 21, 2024 (Arno’s birthday) at the Venetian Galleries in Ostend, in a few dozen meters from where the ashes of “Lonesome Zorro” were scattered in the North Sea. Like Arno, Danny has never cheated. No artificial lights, Photoshop retouching or scripted staging in his work. Only authentic, taken from life, instinctively. We see Arno laughing and crying. Arno the rocker, Arno with a big heart. Arno who has been drinking, Arno naked. The performer who brings people together on stage, the nocturnal loner in a Paris bar. Arno standing, Arno sitting and losing weight during his final tour. Living that her name was…

ARNO-THE SHOW OF LIFE exhibition, until 5/21. Venetian galleries, Ostend.Visitoostend.be

Arno Photographs 1972-2022, Danny Willems Hannibal Books, 368 pp., 64,5 €.

Roskilde Festival, Danemark, 1983. ©Danny Willems – NO USE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER
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Arno contemplates the crowd at the Roskilde Festival, in Denmark, during TC Matic’s tour in 1983. They were then the first Belgian rock group to export to Scandinavia.

The beginnings of TC Matic

Ostende, 1978. ©Danny Willems – NO USE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER
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Arno on guitar under the watchful eye of Marilyn, in his rehearsal room in Ostend in 1978. He was regarding to leave his group Tjens Couter to form TC Matic.

Bruxelles, 2022. ©Danny Willems – NO USE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER
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April 23, 2022. Arno lost his fight once morest cancer. He died at his home on rue Dansaert, in Brussels. While the funeral directors remove the body, Danny Willems is on the balcony with the relatives. He switches his device on one last time. “My way of saying goodbye.”

Paris, 1987. ©Danny Willems – NO USE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER
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Arno alone at the bar-tabac Atlantique, in Montmartre, Paris, in 1987, at the time of the solo album Charlatan. A glass of wine, a cigarette, misty eyes… A late evening like so many others for Lonesome Zorro. Arno appreciated these moments of solitude. He often found inspiration for songs there

New York, 1985. ©Danny Willems – NO USE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER
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Arno in a putty-colored raincoat on the wet cobblestones of Canal Street, in New York, in 1985. TC Matic has just participated in the New Music Seminar to promote the album Yéyé. In his head, Arno knows, however, that TC Matic is slowly reaching the end of his adventure. He is already thinking regarding a solo album.

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