About Willem Post, the artist as navigator of the sublime
Some lives seem to be drawn with brushstrokes of fate: fierce, unpredictable and compelling. Willem Post, a versatile creator at the crossroads of art, adventure and technology, embodies such a life in which reality and imagination merge like the paint on a classic Ferrari.
At a young age, Post found his rhythm in music. As a young talent he played with prominent Dutch bands, a prelude to his later creative eruptions. His first education at the Art Academy in The Hague nourished his aesthetic awareness, but the sudden death of his father sent him to the world’s oceans. As a Maritime Officer, he found the strict discipline of the ship to be a counterbalance to his inner storms – a life on the intersection between order and surrender.
His admiration for visionary figures such as Aristotle Onassis and Enzo Ferrari was more than idolatry: it became a compass of life. It is no coincidence that he became Chief Boat Swain Officer aboard an Onassis yacht – a sailing work of art and power metaphor. This was followed by seventeen intense years in the shadow of history, with the secret service – a period marked by silence, observation and moral complexity, which eventually culminated in a physical break: PTSD.
But as with so many artists, power lies in transformation. After a miraculous survival of a heavy accedent as a cameraman for ANP and RTL, a four-year rehabilitation brought him back to the core: art. Not as a distraction, but as a necessity. An inner renaissance.
Post not only restored his body, but also the mythical yacht Azulon, once owned by Onassis himself – an act of restoration that also became self-healing. With the same entrepreneurial spirit, he developed exclusive yacht hotels, in which luxury and aesthetics went hand in hand.
But it is in The Ferrari Art Collection that his visionary abilities really run at full speed. In this series of 175 works of art, he transforms Ferrari from a luxury object to a bearer of culture. Not the bodywork, but the charisma. Not the emblem, but the ethos. Post captures the soul of the makers – mechanics, dream thinkers, engineers – in images that are as fiery as a racing motorcycle adrift. One of his beloved vehicles? A rare Ferrari from the collection of Jon Shirley, former CEO of Microsoft – symbol of technological and artistic convergence.
Willem Post positions himself in an intriguing way within the contemporary art scene, where the boundaries between disciplines are blurred and the dialogue between object and idea is central. His work resonates with the aesthetic principles of the post-medium era in which artists reinterpret the material by recoding cultural iconography. In this sense, his Ferrari Art Collection is in line with the tradition of appropriation art, in which objects with symbolic value – such as the Ferrari – are stripped of their original context and recreated as carriers of desire, memory and identity. Post’s work recalls the conceptual élan of artists such as Richard Prince or Sylvie Fleury, who also reinterpret the luxury world within a critical visual grammar.
His choice of the handbag as a sculptural medium within the Guillaume label also brings in a performative element: a reflection on fashion as a contemporary wearable visual language. In doing so, Post updates the legacy of the Bauhaus – where form, function and aesthetics coincided – and links it to the dynamics of contemporary design thinking. Within the context of international art fairs, fashion weeks and museum shops, his practice presents itself as a frontier oeuvre that does not abandon classical visual art, but imbues it with a contemporary spirit. His work is therefore not only topical, but necessary: it depicts the hybrid identity of the artist as maker, thinker and entrepreneur – a figure who is as much at home in the studio as in the world.
Today, Willem Post is working on The Diary of an Artist – a photographic and narrative art book that not only registers, but enchants. It is a work in the making that opens the artist’s mind: vulnerable, personal, full of guts and imagination.
His motto is not a cliché, but a lifeline:
“Always pursue your dreams and be happy in your existence.”
A sentence that – like his oeuvre – not only inspires, but calls for action: creation, exploration, transformation.
Antwerp, 29 June 2025
Prof. Em. Dr. Johan Swinnen, art critic (AICA)
Ouevre: artist Willem Post, Guillaume 19-05-1957
The speed of desire: Willem Post and the Ferrari as a mythical motif
There are symbols that transcend the imagination, signs that do not merely function within the limits of their use value but grow into cultural archetypes. The Ferrari is such a symbol. Not just a car brand, but a carrier of a collective dream: speed, power, control and the sublime of form and function. In the work of Willem Post, this icon takes on a new artistic charge. What Post creates is not a design object, not a commercial reproduction, but a visual language in which Ferrari functions as a lexicon for desire.
Willem Post approaches the Ferrari as an artist, not as a collector or chronicler. His interpretation is visually intense, but at the same time steeped in intellectual distillation. In his work we recognize echoes of Pop Art (Warhol’s repetition, Lichtenstein’s detachment), but also the deep concentration of arte povera thinking, in which objects lose their everyday context and are charged with new layers of meaning.
Post’s Ferraris are not an ode to consumption or speed in itself. They are momentary moments, in which the dynamics of the car are transformed into images: concentrated, layered, purified. The body becomes canvas; the chassis becomes structure; The brand becomes myth. Post’s imagination is not a literal representation, but a hermetic exploration of what Ferrari as an icon brings about in the collective consciousness.
Crucially, Post does not work on behalf of or according to the rules of marketing logic. His autonomy is fundamental. The Ferrari is not aestheticized for its glamor, but transformed into a medium of reflection. Post asks questions about identity, about masculinity, about speed as a symptom of time. His work resonates with the visual strategies of the 21st century, but at the same time is rooted in a classic image structure and a sense of detail.
What Willem Post creates with his Ferrari works is nothing less than a new form of contemporary iconography. It is work that deserves international recognition, precisely because it succeeds in connecting the personal and the universal, transcending the commercial and capturing today’s visual culture in an aesthetically sharp, artistically lived oeuvre.
1. Art Review
Willem Post: The Ferrari as a metaphor for desire and movement
Introduction: When Speed and Desire IntersectAt a time when the distinction between high and low culture is becoming increasingly blurred, and when objects from popular culture are increasingly the starting point for profound artistic reflection, the work of Dutch artist Willem Post is a rare convincing example of artistic coherence. His oeuvre does not only move around Ferrari’s iconographic universe, but formulates a profound, visually powerful and poetically charged visual language with it. Post elevates the automobile desire to an art form, depicting the Ferrari not as an object of status, but as a vehicle of cultural and existential resonance.
A practice anchored in visual culture and autonomyWhat Willem Post achieves goes far beyond the realm of illustration or thematic design. His work is rooted in a contemporary visual culture that feeds on design, engineering, mythology and an extremely personal poetry. Post functions as a homo faber and as a homo poeticus: he works with the intensity of a craftsman, but thinks and feels like an autonomous artist. In this hybrid position, he manages to generate visual metaphors that are both immediately appealing and possess intellectual layering.
His choice of materials – often mixed with glossy layers of lacquer, collage elements, relief prints and objects – reflects his fascination with speed, brilliance and machinery. But that fascination is never gratuitous. It is embedded in a visual discourse that shows strength and fragility, beauty and menace, luxury and melancholy at the same time.
Example: the violin with Ferrari – a contemporary memento amorisAnexemplary work within Post’s oeuvre is his assemblage of a classical violin, meticulously embedded in a body fragment of a Ferrari, with deep red paint and a screen-printed digital speedometer. The dialogue between the fragile wooden body of the violin and the cool, curved steel of the Ferrari component forms a visual analogy for the tension between man and machine, between lyricism and mechanics. The violin, traditionally a symbol of sensuality and melancholy, becomes in this context an echo of the human soul in the midst of technological supremacy. Post proposes here not only a clash, but also a reconciliation: the unity of craft and technique, of musicality and engine roar, of renaissance and fantasy of the future.
The composition exudes a sacred tranquillity, but the colours and the cutting contours of the metal interrupt that silence with a subtle threat. The work exemplifies Post’s ability to bring together contrasts – both material and thematic – in an aesthetically convincing synthesis.
Philosophical undercurrents: movement as a condition of existenceFroma philosophical point of view, Willem Post touches on an age-old question: the dialectic between static form and dynamic content. Just as Paul Virilio once described speed as the ultimate value of modern times, Post seems to ask the question with his Ferrari works: what is left for us when movement stands still? His works are mementos of acceleration, but at the same time they evoke the fragility of desire and the temporary character of success. Just as an engine at full speed is vulnerable to overheating, the human drive for possession and admiration is fragile and finite.
By withdrawing Ferrari – the icon of male dream and economic strength – from its traditional context of circuit and showcase, and placing it in the space of art, Post withdraws it from its utilitarian function. The object is reinterpreted: as a cultural artefact, as a visual poem, as a reflection on contemporary desires.
In this context, Willem Post deserves an international positioning, comparable to artists who stretch the boundaries between visual art, design and popular culture: think of Richard Prince with his use of Marlboro iconography, or Jeff Koons with his reflections on fetishism and commerce. But where the latter often operate within an ironic framework, Post’s work bears witness to a genuine, authentic fascination and a craft commitment that is deeply rooted in the European art tradition. He is closer to the artists of the Bauhaus tradition or the Italian arte povera, where material knowledge and idea merge into a holistic work of art.
Final remarks: art as the heartbeat of timeWillem Post’s work is more than an ode to Ferrari. It is a search for the heartbeat of our time, beaten in rhythms of speed, desire and form. His images are loaded with meaning, offering an aesthetic experience that challenges both sensory and intellectual.
In a world that often erases the boundary between art and commerce, Post revalues craft and imagination. His work is a necessary reminder that true art does not reproduce, but transfigures. And that’s exactly what he does: he transforms a symbol of speed into a timeless, tangible moment of beauty.
His creations with the powerful imagery around Ferrari are particularly strong. His work is at the fascinating intersection of visual culture, design, craft and autonomy. What he creates is not an illustration, but a fully-fledged artistic practice that deserves to be firmly substantiated and positioned internationally.
Antwerp, 29 June 2025
Prof. Em. Dr. Johan Swinnen, art critic (AICA)
Ouevre: artist Willem Post, Guillaume 19-05-1957
Guillaume bags: From carrier to dream image
In the contemporary field of tension between design, fashion, art and identity, Tassen Guillaume’s oeuvre appears as a surprisingly autonomous force. What initially seems to take the form of a utensil – the bag – grows under the hands of artist Willem Post into an animated art object, an expressive sculpture, a visual poem. Guillaume’s creations do not enter the realm of fashion accessories, but that of visual art in its most tactile, evocative form.
Every Guillaume bag functions as a loaded carrier – literally and figuratively. On the one hand, it contains the traces of craftsmanship, carefully selected materials and meticulous handiwork. On the other hand, it carries meanings: about identity, about beauty, about the desire for uniqueness in a world of mass production. Guillaume restores the bag to its primal form as an object of meaning, as a fetish, as a metaphor.
These works are situated at the fascinating intersection of visual culture, design, artisanal craftsmanship and artistic autonomy. They dialogue with the heritage of haute couture, but also with the tradition of artists’ objects (such as Meret Oppenheim’s fur-covered cup, Duchamp’s ready-mades or Louise Bourgeois’ fetish objects). Guillaume succeeds in developing his own visual grammar, elevating the banal to the allegorical, the personal to the universal.
What makes this practice special is that it refuses to think in boxes. Guillaume is not a designer in the service of trends, but an artist who reinvents the language of the bag. In a world flooded with branding and uniformity, his work asks questions about uniqueness, materiality and the desire for meaningful objects. His bags are sculptures to carry – and to contemplate.
This oeuvre therefore deserves a solid institutional and international positioning. Not as a lifestyle product, but as a fully-fledged artistic discourse that can be read within the larger reflection on gender, representation, intimacy and the place of the object in today’s art. Bags Guillaume is not a brand. It is a manifesto.
1. Art Review
Guillaume – From bodywork to couture: the stylization of speed
The most significant shifts are taking place in the border area between visual art, luxury design, performative fashion and visual culture. Guillaume, the artistic alter ego of Willem Post, is such a groundbreaking project: a hybrid practice in which speed is tamed into form, and strength into elegance. The handbag – long underestimated as a carrier of culture and identity – is becoming an autonomous art object at Post. He recreates the world of Ferrari, not in steel and rubber, but in leather, texture, and symbolism.
Willem Post is not an outsider in the art world. His sculptures, paintings and installations already evoked images of desire, rhythm and refinement. With Guillaume, he does not opt for a commercial sideline, but for an artistic reversal: from bodywork to couture, from speed to silence, from the mechanical to the sensory.
From symbol to sculpture: Guillaume’s philosophy
In the 20th century, the handbag has become an icon of female autonomy, status symbol and fetish. In Post’s hands, this utensil transforms into a sculptural entity that invites the construction of meaning. Just as Walter Benjamin once defended the aura of the work of art against mass reproduction, Post revalues the uniqueness and inspiration of the object in an age of digital volatility and modular fashion. Each bag is an artistic ‘device’ – not in the technological sense of the word, but as a medium that channels desires, contains memories and activates stories.
The philosophy behind Guillaume is steeped in what Roland Barthes described as the “mythical object” – an everyday object that, through form and context, transforms into a cultural bearer of meaning. Post thus gives shape to a semiotics of desire, in which the bag is not just an accessory, but a charged symbol of movement, style and identity.
Between studio and catwalk: craft as aesthetic resistance
In an era where fashion is dominated by digital renderings, fast fashion, and algorithmic aesthetics, Guillaume’s work is an act of slowness and dedication. Each bag is handcrafted in a specialized Dutch workshop, using recycled leather derived from sports cars, fine metal closures and structures stitched with surgical precision. This is not a luxury product, but a contemporary form of Wabi-Sabi: imperfection as perfection, craftsmanship as a counterweight to industrial excess.
The shapes recall both Italian design tradition and the architectural objectivity of Bauhaus. The Modena Rouge, for example, with its crimson sheen and subtle carbon texture, refers to the aerodynamic profile of the Ferrari 250 GTO, but also to the clean lines of Eileen Gray or Charlotte Perriand.
Fashion as a medium, bag as a metaphor
One of the most fascinating models in the series is the Violin Bag. Styled as a violin body, lacquered in Ferrari red with mahogany-like details, the bag becomes a sculpture in which music, speed and memory merge. The locking system, inspired by a tuning peg, evokes the world of luthiers and sound boxes. This bag does not ‘carry’ things, but a story – about sound and form, rhythm and resonance.
Post links the tradition of wearable art to the contemporary discourse on identity and representation. He joins a line of artists such as Rebecca Horn, Martin Margiela or even the recent metamodernist fashion collaborations of Virgil Abloh, but does so with a philosophical depth and formal integrity that has become rare in today’s luxury industry.
Presentation as a performance: between altar and display case
The way in which the bags are presented – in automatically opening display cases, designed as stage constructions – underlines the performative dimension of Post’s work. Each bag is ceremonially revealed, as a ritual object that marks the transition between private and public, between desire and possession. The packaging becomes an art installation in itself. Here it is no longer a question of ‘retail’, but of reveal – a choreography of reveal.
Concluding reflection: Guillaume as a manifesto of the new aesthetics
With Guillaume, Willem Post positions himself not only in the tradition of the great artist-designers, but also at the heart of an urgent contemporary debate: how can we give meaning to the tangible again in a world of abundance, speed and virtual representation? How do we rethink the role of the object as a carrier of identity, memory, beauty?
Post does not answer these questions with manifestos, but with form. His bags are not status symbols, but images. They belong in galleries and museums, but also in the hands of those who give meaning to what they wear. Guillaume is not a brand, but a thought exercise. A contemporary Gesamtkunstwerk, in which memory, desire and beauty merge into something rare: an art practice that is supported.
Antwerp, 29 June 2025
Prof. Em. Dr. Johan Swinnen, art critic (AICA)
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