Concealing the image while exposing its presence, and in the same gesture dismantling a deceitful iconography stripped of any original purity. Thierry De Cordier—artist and philosopher—searches, through his seemingly monochrome paintings, for what he calls the “grandeur of nothingness.” Raised under a retinal overexposure to religious symbolism, he submits to the dominance of black: a colour that asserts itself, evoking a sacred dimension built upon the ungraspable matter of what emptiness is made of.

    I think the best way to begin this interview is by highlighting a few key points of your artistic philosophy. What does the word sacred mean to you?

    I suspect it means nothing. In my opinion, le sacré, as the French say, is the name given to which escapes us. It is what we invent when we can’t stand the fact that there’s nothing there. When I built the CHAPEL OF NOTHINGNESS*, people expected spirituality, incense, a mystical experience, perhaps silence with a scent of God. What they found was emptiness. Absence. A gaping hole in the roof. Rain. Cold stone. No altar, no offering. Just nothing. Nada! And yet… they saw something. That is sacredness. The capacity to see something great in nothing.

    At Fondazione Prada, during the NADA exhibition, the quasi dominance of blacked-out canvases didn’t pass unnoticed. How would you describe your attraction to this colour, so omnipresent in your artistic production?

    Black is not a preference. I don’t choose it, it forces itself on me. It is what my painting becomes when I no longer believe in image. You could also see it as a refusal.

    What role do paintings that tap into the Romantic concept of the sublime play in today’s world?

    A role on the margin, I suppose. A friend, philosopher and writer, recently pointed out that this, thus my kind of art, is unfortunately “inappropriate” today.

    “That is sacredness. The capacity to see something great in nothing.”

    Thierry De Cordier CHRIST ON THE CROSS (abolished), 2011-2025 oil and bitumen on canvas 300 x 200 x 2.5 cm 118 1/8 x 78 3/4 x 1 in. Photo-credit: Thomas Merle & HV-studio Courtesy of the Artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

    With such a vast presence of black in your work it’s inevitable to think about Malevich’s square. In an era of overcrowding of images, is the black-out abstraction the true element of disruption?

    Disruption is not noise, not shock, not provocation. It is silence. The refusal to add another image. A black canvas does not cry out. It stands. It endures. It absorbs. And in doing so, it resists the very economy of attention that governs the spectacle of our time. But whether it is disruptive today, I’m not quite sure–it may also be a retreat, or, like I already said, a kind of refusal. In a world that constantly asks for more, painting less might be its own kind of gesture. But whether it disturbs or simply withdraws -I leave that to others.

    In Little Nada (1652–2023), you painted over a historical artwork. What led you to intervene on that specific painting? Was it the artwork itself that compelled you, or an inner voice?

    When I painted over this Christ on the Cross, my sole intention then was to symbolically destroy an image based on a terrible lie.

    In the Fondazione Prada there is another painted-over canvas: in Grey Nada (…–2023), the image of the underlying crucifixion is partly visible, as though it were a shadow within the darkness you’ve layered on top. Would you say your painting is more about concealment or revelation?

    Both, because by concealing this specific image, I reveal something else. Although, the Crucified one remains, yes, but only as residue–as a memory. What interests me is not the dialectic of hiding and showing. It is the ambiguous space where images begin to lose their names. Where they are no longer functional, but residual. This specific work is not only about Christ as a mistake. It’s about the slow, visible disintegration of what once meant something.

    “Disruption is not noise, not shock, not provocation. It is silence.”

    In an excerpt from NADA: Painter’s Notes (2025), regarding your first black painting ever, you state that you wanted to “symbolically annihilate a deeply rooted Christian image.” Where does this desire for destruction originate?

    It came from something personal, I must say–though even that’s complicated. I grew up with an overexposure to such images: crucifixions, saints, the weight of belief. At some point, I felt the need to purge myself of it. Painting over was one way of doing that. Wanting to return to a place before doctrine.

    Words feature prominently across your body of work. What is your relationship to writing? Do you consider it a ritualistic practice, or a complementary element within your artistic research?

    I distrust words, but I need them. Maybe I write for the same reason I paint–not to express something, but to find out whether there’s anything to express at all. Yes, something like that.

    The garden is a powerful metaphor in your practice: it’s the space you chose to spiritually and physically enrich with your art. You took the idea of unlimited freedom and placed it within a confined dimension. How do you relate to the concept of limitation?

    One day, I decided not to leave my garden anymore and limit the further course of my life to the distance between the entrance gate and the end of the backyard. An area about 100 meters long and 23 meters wide. Strangely, I never experienced it as a constraint. On the contrary, I found in that limitation a kind of infinity.

    Your youth was intrinsically nomadic. What made you realise it was time to put an end to that wandering? Had you found what you were searching for?

    At some time, you settle–not because it’s over, but because continuing in the same way no longer means anything. Standstill, too, can be a kind of search. Whether I found what I sought, or whether I simply ceased seeking, I cannot say. Perhaps I became the object of my own pursuit.

    And now, what is it that you’re looking at through your art?

    Nothingness. The grandeur of nothingness.

    Thierry De Cordier ULTRA DEEP FIELD (Noche oscura), 2024 oil on canvas 316.5 x 201.5 x 3 cm 124 5/8 x 79 3/8 x 1 1/8 in. Photo-credit: Thomas Merle & HV-studio Courtesy of the Artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

    The Grandeur of Nothingness / Thierry De Cordier

    Credits:

    Artist: Thierry De Cordier / #ThierryDeCordier
    Exhibition at: Fondazione Prada / @fondazioneprada
    Representing gallery: Xavier Hufkens / @xavierhufkens
    Words: Giulia Piceni / @giuliaapiceni
    Editor: Maria Abramenko  / @mariabramenko
    Junior Editor: Annalisa Fabbrucci / @annalisa_fabbrucci

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