|
PRODIGAL PRODIGY Mathilde Ter Heyne Curated by Theo Tegelaers 6 September – 13 October 2001 Thank God the past is over! —Paul Thek The claim of the right to individual freedom that is one of the achievements of the ideological movements of the 60s has resulted in a materialism that has penetrated every area of modern society. Such individualism has caused a breakup of social and familial bonds and led to a decline of the previously existing value system. The result is a society built on a libertine materialism, where everything serves the satisfaction of individual demands driven by an unstoppable need for pleasure. The ontological question of our existence assures a continued negation of the accompanying sense of emptiness through a permanent stream of stimuli striving to constitute a life sufficient unto itself. What we nd all around us now is materialized emptiness. Space experienced as emptiness is an ineluctable source of sadness, isolation and estrangement. The question that arises is how to put this degeneration and isolation behind us. How can we deem space as human space, where there is no underlying reality that needs explanation. Can we devise another form of collectivity? Shouldn’t it be possible to leave the body behind, to be bigger than oneself ? “Prodigal Prodigy” includes the work of eleven artists in which the individual is related to the universal. Through the work of these artists a reality outside space and time becomes apparent. The dissident energy active in the works of these artists is not creation, but the will to de-create, by using subject matter that violates our sensibilities in order to detach from it, by using subjectivity to break down reality to bring about a transformation of the mind from public consciousness to the emotionally innite. Inter-subjectivity occurs where fixed identities start to break down, when a collective consciousness can be established. Self-affliction, total adhesion, renunciation and deprivation of the future are efforts to attain an alien state that enables the desired unification between experience and the natural felicity of the soul, to be larger than oneself and live in an unchanging and serene world. Doing good is bounding; doing evil is dissolving. The artists in the show all develop strategies and practices for creating a mental space where it is possible to make new connections, to create a space that is humanized, human experiences through human experiments. This exhibition is as much about loss and disappointment as it is about hope. Realizing that we are already past the end of a road that has not freed us from isolation, has not bridged the gap or filled the emptiness, we must rewrite our own recent history and unfurl the time in between not-yet, no-longer, and now. It is a question of imagination, to create new possibilities for which we nd the basis in a world experienced and is felt. The show is heavily inspired by the work of Paul Thek. In the 60s Thek made his art against the background of social and sexual revolution, ‘the spaced-out, head-tripping Age of Aquarius.’ These movements had a strong apocalyptic element about them. They aimed at the destruction of the existing patriarchal order by claiming the kind of freedom that gave way to direct satisfaction of desires and instincts, resulting in one big orgiastic cluster fuck. The artistic activities in the circles Thek was surrounded by were inspired by something like the effect a rock concerts has on a mass. It was a collective activity with constant exchange and interaction between individuals. Its hallucinatory and mass-hypnotic character and mass hypnoses were an escape from puritanism, until this movement found its flip side and showed its violent face, at Altamont, in the Vietnam war, the Chicago 7 trials and at Kent State. Paul Thek had turned his back on America and decided to go to Europe a couple of years earlier. However, the idea of collectivity and inter-subjectivity remained important in his work. Thek was, together with Beuys, one of the first artists whose work revolved around the idea of process. It was not the object, the result of production, that was important, but the connection between different elements, ideas and symbols. Thek purposely used materials that were transitory. The Technological Reliquaries already contained the idea of temporariness within them. But in the large-scale installations he realized in Europe, everything was part of a greater whole, connected by time and space. For Thek, space must not be a endless continuum. In such a space people become isolated, and it becomes a source of estrangement, filled with sadness. Space for Thek was a mental creation in which everything was in entanglement with everything else. The exhibition includes the work of young artists inspired by similar lines of thoughts. These are artists who practice a way of working that is appeals to the imagination, who are trying to break down existing principles of order, to break through the linear passage of time in order to create forms that arise from entwinement and interconnections through space and time. - Theo Tegelaers Artists: Mathilde Ter Heyne L.A. Raeven William Speakman Keiko Sato John Williams Juana Valdes Eva Rothschild Tariq Alvi Paul Thek Candice Breitz Rita Ackermann Consultants: Literature:
| BACK | White Box is a 501 (c) (3) and all donations are tax deductible to the full extent of the law. Consult your accountant and financial advisor for applicable Federal and NY State Charitable Deduction rules.
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |