The Dream Vehicle in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Freddy Langer

At the end of September, during our exhibition at cultuurcentrum Hasselt (BE), we were interviewed for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung by experienced travel journalist, photographer, curator and writer Freddy Langer.

WELL-DEVELOPED OBSERVATIONS

Freddy, who has spent much of his life and career writing, traveling, and exploring the planet in various ways, is no stranger to the road trip, having extensively driven up and down America’s famous Route 66 before eventually publishing his groundbreaking book ‘Route 66’ in 2016. His dive into the genre and the entire concept of travel led him to write some well-developed observations on The Dream Vehicle, such as:

“The difference (with the conventions of the classic road trip, where the protagonists die at the end) is much more fundamental, however, that on their journey through the provinces of the Benelux countries in their green Volvo they constantly ponder and struggle, assess and weigh things up, and do not indulge in excessive joie de vivre – with the wonderful effect that they survive in the end.”

BLIND DATE WITH FREDDY

After we took a tour through the exhibition and talked about The Dream Vehicle book (Lecturis 2023) and its meaning towards the genre, Freddy invited us to pose for his long term project called ‘Blind Date With Freddy’ in which he portrays his often legendary subjects wearing a sleeping mask. Among them, icons like Andy Warhol, Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe.

PUBLICATION DETAILS

The interview from our meeting, along with photos from the project is published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of Thursday 10 October 2024. The article is concluded with the writing that ‘the road as life and life as a challenge has not been expressed more magnificently in a travel book for a long time.’

Our sincere thanks to you Freddy Langer.

The Dream Vehicle is on show until November 17 2024. Come and see it at cultuurcentrum Hasselt, Kunstlaan 5. More information