Reflecties 2020 - an exhibition

This exhibition (from 14/06/2020 to 09/08/2020) in the "Stedelijke Musea - Salons" in Sint-Niklaas (Belgium) unfolded my view of the 21st century: our time, fragmented of course.

Video of the guided tour (in Dutch)?

Interested in the catalogue (in Dutch) of this exhibition in .pdf? Send an e-mail to [email protected]

I have a huge arsenal of works about that time, which did not change or improve after Goya. I cannot rid myself of the notion that the good times are no longer on the rise, but there is a decline, morally, financially, but also humanly. (The disruption is exacerbated by an unusual virus. Is the earth slowly freeing itself of its inhabitants who have become too powerful?)

My exhibition also had to contend with this shortcoming: a limited number of visitors allowed, no groups, no gathering.

But none of this detracts from the fact that it was an exceptional exhibition. The enthusiasm of the attentive visitors confirmed this. The museum, too, is exceptional; a beautiful 19th-century house that merged with this contemporary work. The works shone in harmony with the special furnishings of this past.

The many rooms allowed for a varied display.?Alongside highly emotional paintings of victims of violence and young people resisting, the installation did very well in room 3: opposites in cultures and the evolution from one to the other - provided the necessary information was provided to the viewers, who responded enthusiastically to the unusual execution (industrial corrugated cardboard and the symbolically charged expressiveness of the images). And as the curator noted: the figures have a presence. They seem to be living creatures with a charge that incites to sadness when they are gone. There is an emptiness. It is strange to see this in objects. Is it like antique objects that evoke memories of ancestors, emotions and emotion?

The videos and intro film also contributed greatly to clarifying the circumstances in which I work: studio, background, Scheldt environment, nature reserve. This as a conclusion to the exhibition, where nature took over. Fragments of nature worked out according to the principle of synthesis, to such an extent that they lead to abstractions and later evolve into writing with its own character, unreadable, only readable when you follow the path; all this belonging to the poetry of the wilderness. Where colour contrasts, selection, fragmentation of nature often determine the choice.

No more flower arrangements today, everything in the museum was in this perspective this year, but I wanted a meaningful ending: BACK TO NATURE.

The carved design in the old new worlds, in halls 1 and 2, is a technique all its own and reflects the dislocations of our time. The many figures, victims of violence, chased away, shot, in the midst of firefights, totally abandoned in a destroyed environment, protecting their children after blitz attacks. But in every image there is an attempt to bring out the human aspect and a society that often no longer uses or questions this.

What is the point of advancing science if the result is such images? Humanity questioned! Everything remains the same forever, man caught between light and dark as if in a storm. Nothing changes, it is his nature.

I too found it a wonderful exhibition, meaningful, a view of our world that aroused the enthusiasm of the visitors.

Gabri?lla Cleuren 12/08/2020