Saturday 11 April 2015

Stijn Peeters / James Ensor



James Ensor
Alimentation doctrinaire
1889
etching enhanced with wash and colored chalk on Japanese paper, plate I, second state
18 x 23,8 cm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles


The neo-liberal ‘flat’ world of international money and their local lackeys is pressing hard on the everyday life of citizens, everything is sellable and what does not sell isn’t worth anything and can be discarded. It’s a deeply cynical belief. The real threats that face our planet and future generations are not addressed, the people we choose to represent us, act like clowns and players in a theatre. Reacting primarily to the last tweets, facebook posts and internet-scandals, they are under constant pressure from the media to perform.
Ensor made fun of power, cynical, hard and unforgiving. How would the present day version of his 'Alimentation doctrinaire' look? Church, army, king and court? It would look very simple, ordinary guys in power suits, white mostly, apparatchiks and managers, people rewarded for being able to take harsh decisions, lacking the powers of fantasy to even begin imagining the effects of their actions on other people. This is a challenge and I’ve decided to make ‘necessary‘ works, work that needs to be made, thoroughly democratic in spirit, hopefully uplifting and stimulating.
Stijn Peeters, 2015
 




Stijn Peeters (NL)
Sorgeloos
2014
acrylic and oil on linen
250 x 200 cm



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