Brave new, old worlds

'We feel inadequate against the power of so much colour and masterful technicity'(*)

(*B. Vandenabeele, author of the essay : Brave new, old worlds (2009), professor of aesthetics and philosophy of art, Ghent University. Artist monography : GABRIELLA CLEUREN BRAVE NEW, OLD WORLDS, 2010)

 

These works are collected images, garnered from a very recent present, that of the 21st century.

They are highly current, and at the same time very old. For what concerns their content, they belong with Goya, going back 200 years. A comparison is inescapable, and frightening. What exactly is it that man has learned from the past ? How far has his evolution carried him forward ? What measures his advancement ? Is he turning into a state of ‘being human’ perforce, as Nietzsche calls it ? Or does he invariably revert to the animal state when conditions are ripe for it. These images are witnesses to the fact.

We may well ask ourselves the question if, maybe, it is only via the scientific technical route that man can truly achieve the state of being human ! The technique is a free form and meant to explain time as well as express man’s disfigurement... G.C.

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