#492 Container
84x64 cm | Filler, oak panel, paper cloth
About
The top edge of the panel has a hole for a paper cloth. See a video of the production here.
Art is a container. Reality is the content.
To experience the world around us, we must understand it to a certain degree. We need to fit what we see into categories. A kind of linguistic container. Seeing and experiencing is a linguistic process. But language does not exist in itself. It exists only in the structure organising our sensations, or the form we give reality when speaking, writing or making images. Neither structure nor language exists without something physical and material. It is in this paradox that we find ourselves. Inside the container of language - which consists of nothing but its content.
Sometimes, the physical components of a linguistic statement are more powerful and prominent. A violent act may convey a message rather than cause harm or coerce the recipient into submission. Thus, despite the physical violence, it is highly symbolic.
Violence from a position of power is often described as maintaining law and order. It is thus given meaning, but it can also be perceived as mute or non-symbolic, i.e. it does not convey a message but is purely an exercise of power. In contrast, violence from a position of subordination is often referred to as terrorism or sheer madness. It is described as meaningless but is, on the contrary, more symbolic, as this type of violence usually has a message, e.g., a protest against the existing order, an expression of despair, or the preservation of dignity in a hopeless situation.Real Thing
The series features works with an appendix placed on top of the work or close to it. This object is exterior to the image plane, the illusionary "window" in the picture, but is still an intrinsic part of the whole. It connects or makes visible the two dimensions of an artwork - its inner logic and its relation to its surrounding.
The title references the famous Coca-Cola campaign and Immanuel Kant's notion of the thing in itself. It means that subjects can only experience the phenomena as they present themselves through perception. It is always fundamentally different from what the things are outside language boundaries - in themselves.Res Ipsa
Res Ipsa is a compilation of works made by an act shaping the filler once it is prepared inside the frame. The works thus function as a recording device and give a statement of the event taking place while the filler was still wet.
Res Ipsa is Latin for "the thing itself" and is part of the juridical term "Res ipsa loquitur" (the thing speaks for itself), used when an injury or accident in itself clearly shows who is responsible, such as an instrument left inside a body after surgery.
