Matthijs de Ridder studied Dutch literature at the universities of Groningen and Antwerp. He obtained his doctorate in 2009 with the dissertation S'taatsgevaarlik! The Activist Counter-Tradition in Flemish Literature' (University of Antwerp). He has published books on Willem Elsschot, Louis Paul Boon, Gaston Burssens, Kurt Köhler, among others, and in recent years devoted himself to the life and work of Paul van Ostaijen, resulting in the books 'Boem Paukeslag' (2021), 'Paul van Ostaijen, the poet who set out to change the world' (2023) and the German-language study 'Kataklump' (2024). He also wrote the swinging cultural history 'Rebelse ritmes' (Rebel Rhythms, 2012) and the cinematic cultural history 'De eeuw van Charlie Chaplin' (The Age of Charlie Chaplin, 2017). He was involved as dramaturg in the music theater performance 'Singhet ende weset vro' (Sing and Be Joyful, KVS, 2006), staged the performances 'Rebelse ritmes' (2012) and 'Bezeten stad' (Obsessed City, 2013) together with Tom Van Bauwel and Ben Sluijs, and he was co-author and actor in the music theater performance 'Singers Nähmaschine ist die Beste' (MuTh, Vienna, 2021). From 2020-2022, De Ridder curated the multidisciplinary art project 'Besmette Stad' (Infected City, Flemish-Dutch House deBuren/Paul van Ostaijen Society), in which contemporary artists formulated an artistic response to Van Ostaijen's 'Bezette stad' (Occupied City, 1921). From 2015 to 2020, De Ridder taught Dutch Literature in the Word Arts program at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp.
As president of the Paul van Ostaijen Society, he is one of the driving forces behind the art project ‘Dynamism! Paul van Ostaijen and the Breakthrough of Flemish Modernism’. The goal of this project is to organize a series of exhibitions in museums at home and abroad during the period 2024-2028. The apotheosis of this trajectory is the commemorative year 2028, in which an exhibition at the KMSKA and a performance at Opera Ballet Flanders will be the core of a city festival.
foto: (c) Wouter le Duc