Home » Entertainment » Peter Klashorst about Paul Blanca (62): “A mystery that he didn’t die before”

Peter Klashorst about Paul Blanca (62): “A mystery that he didn’t die before”

Last Friday, photographer Paul Blanca was found dead in his home in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid. Died ‘from the consequences of an eventful life, his body was finished’, his girlfriend said on Sunday. Artist Peter Klashorst says ‘crying inside’ over the death of his friend. “It’s very sudden. But on the other hand, it’s also a mystery that he didn’t die sooner.”

Paul Blanca, who was actually called Paul Vlaswinkel, led a rough life full of alcohol and drugs. In recent years he would no longer use drugs. A tea light is burning in front of his house in Oud-Zuid. The windows are sealed with foil. A neighbor across the street has never heard of “Paul Blanca”. “I’ve lived across the street for twenty years so I should have seen him. I sometimes see someone with a dog, who then stumbled past with a sip.”

And that could well have been Paul Blanca, because according to Peter Klashorst he also had a dog. “A very sweet little dog.” Klashorst is currently in The Gambia, we speak to him via video connection. “Paul always went to the extreme. I think he went further than other artists. Life isn’t just fun, it’s pain. And he showed that pain. He was of course also in a lot of pain, which he tried too to solve with drugs.”

Together with Blanca, Klashhorst was part of the Amsterdam artist scene in the 1980s, together with Joost Zwagerman, Koos Dalstra and Rob Scholte, among others.

When Scholte lost both legs in an attack in 1994, he blamed his friend Paul. That was never proven, but according to Klashorst, Blanca never got over that accusation and it has only gone downhill since. “It became an obsession for Paul. Paul might have gone too far in that victim role. He should have just shut it down.”

Also look at this one reportage who made AT5 in 1999 with Paul Blanca.

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