Under the title 'Wirklich', Art Gallery O-68 in Velp will be showing paintings by Johan Clarysse (Bruges, BE) from 9 April to 7 May, photos of androids by Wanda Tuerlinckx (Amsterdam) and videos by Thijs Linssen (Arnhem).
Johan Clarysse shows portraits of writers, thinkers and artists who fascinate him and who explore the boundaries of the human mind. Portraits of Freud, Jung, Lou Andreas-Salomé, Nietzsche, George Sand, Baudelaire, Van Ostaijen, Courbet, Camus... By painting their portraits, he places them on a pedestal – in line with an age-old tradition – but at the same time he problematizes them through interventions or additions to that portrait, which are at odds with the organic nature of the painted portrait. Although the choices for these motifs are not arbitrary, the painter leaves all associations or connections to the imagination of the viewer. Clarysse has received several awards and his work is included in several museums.
Wanda Tuerlinckx photographs androids. Natsume Sōseki, a 19th century Japanese poet, lived at the beginning of a time when technology captured people's fascination and imagination. After 140 Years, Sōseki incarnates as an android who, in his original attire and with his own voice, is able to hold conversations and give lectures. Most androids trade on the edge of the uncanny valley. There is a relationship between the degree to which an object resembles a human being and the emotional response to the object. Humanoid objects can evoke feelings of uneasiness and disgust in observers, real people, 'uncanny' or strangely familiar. Last year Tuerlinckx exhibited her robots next to old 19th century portraits in the 'Dutch National Portrait Gallery' in Amsterdam: surprising similarities! Her work has been included in Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, among others.
For the first time, Thijs Linssen will publicly show 'The Tuesday evenings', a work about a group of men who have been playing hall soccer together for more than 20 years. Always the same time, in the same room and with the same people, with the same rules. Here time stands still and the outside world does not exist: more than 20 years captured in a fraction of a second by means of 600 cameras. The men are no longer boys. As the work progresses, we see that time does not leave them untouched. ‘Like statues that are rusting.’ His work is included in various collections, including those of Delta Lloyd, the Province of Gelderland, the De Groen Collection, the Kröller-Müller Museum and Rijnstate Arnhem.