Francisco de Goya
El tres de mayo de
1808 en Madrid
1814
268
x 347 cm
oil
on canvas
Museo
del Prado, Madrid
EXCESSES XXL
Recently I read the book
'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari. He describes the 70,000-year-old, disturbing
development of the human animal 'sapiens', which he calls an ecological serial
killer. The history of mankind shows an unstoppable series of colonizations and
annexations. In all parts of the world. Nowadays, the consequences are still
extremely current and are at the root of major world problems. An endless
accumulation of glorious victories and miserable submission, coupled with deep
trauma, individually and collectively.
Besides that, of course we
also see the enormous constructive power of man: he knows love, builds
societies and cities, flies to the moon, conducts sciences, creates and honours
art, literature and music.
Dostoevsky states that overcoming
the polarity building up versus devastating exceeds the human.
In my own work I have developed
a visual language that, from imagination, has a direct entrance to that
polarity. Images of destruction and the will to build, that eternal cycle, with
its own tragedy and dynamism: break and build in one. The necessity in my work, as regards content,
is colored by a great involvement in excesses in human history, such as the
Holocaust, Gulag, Apartheid, colonization and slavery.
The architectural
installations and photo series that I realize in the series 'Verwoest
Huis/Destroyed House', now 7 in total, show this quest. From the Netherlands,
to Russia, to South Africa, to Israel and Gaza, to the US.
The working periods in Gaza
(I realized 'Destroyed House Gaza' there), as well as my stay in South Africa
('Archives Johannesburg'), Russia ('Ruined House Krasnoyarsk') and now in the
US, gave me meaningful insights into the psychological and socio-political
power structures that are at the root of war.
The art, literature and
music history gives many impressive examples of imaginations of violence. The
aestheticization and far-reaching sublimation, can also cover up the impact of
the extreme character. There are artists who know how to capture the essence of
violence. Like Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) in the painting 'The Third May of
1808'. He is one of the first artists to choose the horrors around him as a
subject: ruthless, cruel and obscure. The painting 'The Third May of 1808'
shows the execution of Spanish rebels fighting Napoleon's French occupation. It
shows evil from the perspective of the perpetrator and at the same time of the
victim. Goya makes you a direct witness. The composition, as well as the use of
light and dark tones, increases the drama.
His series of etchings 'Los
Desastres de la Guerra' (The horrors of the war), made between 1810 and 1820,
depict executions, torture, rape, soldiers and civilians attacking each other
with swords, skewers and knives. Goya shows every gruesome detail. He breaks
with the bombastic rhetoric of classical 'war art'. The glorious heroes have
given way to ordinary people suffering horribly.
Also Matthias Grünewald
(1470-1528), in his 'Isenheimer Altar' (1511 and 1517), ruthlessly zooms in on
violence, inflicted by one man to the other. The body of Christ is in a miserable
condition. Grünewald has rendered the distressing scene shockingly realistic.
Never before has it been painted in such an expressive and passionate way.
Grünewald achieves this through a combination of expressive postures and
gestures, and through the use of strong and sometimes strange color contrasts.
It was not until the 20th century that artists were influenced by this forceful
painting, like the German expressionists, including Otto Dix.
What we sometimes forget in
religious paintings, like Grünewald's, is that a human being is pictured here,
a man who dies by crucifixion, ordered by an emissary of the Roman emperor,
during the Roman domination of Jerusalem. The human dimension of what violence
means is mercilessly shown here. Shakespeare is also an artist who ruthlessly
confronts us with the drama of war and violence. I recently saw his 'Greek
Tragedies', performed by Toneelgroep Amsterdam. And I would also like to
mention the 'War Requiem' by Benjamin Britten.
All of them unparalleled imaginations of the subject that also drives me in my art: the insurmountable conflict between building up and destroying.
All of them unparalleled imaginations of the subject that also drives me in my art: the insurmountable conflict between building up and destroying.
Marjan
Teeuwen, July 2018
Marjan Teeuwen (NL)
Destroyed House op
Noord 5 / Verwoest Huis Op Noord 5
2014
110
x 149,5 cm
inktjetprint/
framed
