Thierry De Cordier on Painting Nothing: NADA at Fondazione Prada

Thierry De Cordier, born in Oudenaarde in 1954, presents his NADA series at the Cisterna of Fondazione Prada in Milan. In an interview with Artribune, the artist explains that his first black painting, now destroyed, aimed to abolish the image of Christ on the cross symbolically. He describes his goal as annihilating Christian iconography, inspired by a passage from the biography of Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross about the search for NADA (nothingness). De Cordier, who identifies as atheist rather than agnostic, uses the crucifixion as a starting point for the symbolic dismantling of God, citing theologian Hans Küng's idea that without Jesus, God could not exist. The artist states that he works on paintings that represent nothing and that he has not arrived anywhere. He sees no difference between God and nothingness, calling the question poetic and unanswerable. The works evoke an absent presence, leading viewers into a dimension of universal, secular spirituality, though De Cordier avoids the term 'spirituality' as overused. He acknowledges that most people see nothing in these paintings. The interview was conducted by Angela Madesani, an art historian and independent curator.