Haas & Gaai

The hare is one of the most frequently recurring creatures in Ward Zwart’s oeuvre. Not only does it play a role in various stories and illustrations, a tattoo of this totem animal also adorned the artist's arm. The rodent lent its name to a few side projects as well. Ward was one of the founders of Huis Haas (53), which later became Grafixx (41), for which he was house illustrator and co-curator from 2012 to 2018.

Ward formed an artist duo with Ignace Cami under the name ‘Haas & Gaai’. These two untamed creators went wild during residencies at galleries, and caused cheerful chaos wherever they went. Their projects always consisted of art installations, supplemented with comics. They put on two exhibitions (see: Treehouse), always paired with the publication of an issue of 'Het komen en gaan van Haas en Gaai' (‘The Comings and Goings of Hare and Jay’) (54)-(55). At the end of their second venture, Haas & Gaai were asked to report on the set-up and course of the entire group exhibition. They were given a free hand in the format and decided to make a satirical magazine. 'Het Frank Blad' (‘The Impolite Newspaper’) (56) presents interviews with the participating artists, a short comic, a word puzzle and a horoscope page.

A few years later, with the help of Lokaal 01 (57), Haas & Gaai had the chance to spend a few weeks in residence at the Frans Masereel Centrum (58). They designed a fake cover for the Dutch-language cultural magazine 'De Witte Raaf' (59), as promotional material for their feature-length hand-puppet film by the same name. This ambitious project never came to fruition. A few years later, two rat puppets— Boris & Kitchenknife—appeared for the first time as new characters in the script of 'Haas & Gaai: De Witte Raaf' (see: Boris & Kitchenknife).

FUN FACT: At a rare lecture, Ward described the duo of Haas & Gaai as ‘the bastard child of Fischli & Weiss (60) and Beavis and Butt-Head (61)’.

• (41) Grafixx — international graphical arts festival. De Studio: Antwerp, 2012-present.
• (53) Huis Haas ('House of Hare')— small-scale platform for illustrative arts. Kornél: Antwerp, 2012-2016.
• (54) Het komen en gaan van Haas en Gaai (‘The Comings and Goings of Hare and Jay’) — Ward Zwart and Ignace Cami. Self-published: Antwerp, 2013, 40 copies, technique: photocopy, DVD.
• (55) Het komen en gaan van Haas en Gaai 2 (‘The Comings and Goings of Hare and Jay 2’) — Ward Zwart and Ignace Cami. Self-published: Antwerp, 2013, 20 copies, technique: photocopy, photo with paperclip.
• (56) Het Frank Blad (‘The Impolite Newspaper’) — Ward Zwart and Ignace Cami. Magazine compiled after a group exhibition Graphic A.N.D: A Framed Utopia (see: ‘Treehouse’) in which the participating artists posed several bold questions. Electron: Breda, 2014.
• (57) Lokaal 01 ('Space 01') was a fascinating and flourishing artists’ initiative in Antwerp which closed its doors in 2016.
• (58) Frans Masereel Centrum: a center for contemporary art in Kasterlee, supported by the government of Flanders, where Haas & Gaai held a residency in 2014.
• (59) De Witte Raaf ('The White Raven') is a magazine about recent and contemporary art, disseminated free of charge in the Dutch-speaking region.
• (60) Peter Fischli and David Weiss formed a Swiss artist duo.
• (61) Beavis and Butt-head — Mike Judge. MTV: 1993-2011. American cartoon series, often obscene.