Always attracted to dark work, I immediately was floored by the Dutch artist, Folkert de Jong's, work. I have only seen it online, unfortunately, but look forward to seeing some of it, at least, this weekend at James Cohen.
Jong's signature is pastel colored styrofoam mixed with a lot of death and violence and some paint globs and some fine, fine face rendering - esp with styrofoam.
I grabbed these images from the internet and found this great article online about Folkert de Jong that I will piece through here. Mainly, I'm just writing a lot of her quotes down because I am so into everything she is saying and I want to write it down to implant it in mind.
Here are some words from Lilly Wei in 'Art in America':
'More philosophic than social-agenda-driven, de Jong is not a political artist as such. Rather, he casts a cool, appraising eye on human folly and destructiveness. For example, his challenge to the crude nationalism of conventional military sculpture takes the form of perversely humorous war monuments. Some observers have characterized these works as retrograde figuration, amounting to no more than kitsch or empty spectacle. But that judgement ignores the originality, power and seriousness with which he surveys the human comedy...De Jong in fact deftly contrasts the lightness of his medium and its seeming lack of esthetic gravitas with the hectoring grimness of his content.'
I agree with her assertion that his balancing the dark, heavy subject matter with the lighter color and chosen movement is where the power lies in his work - in the humor and macabre combo.
Later in her article, Wei points out that de Jong is criticized for using Styrofoam because it is toxic and an environmental pollutant....but that he uses it because it is integral to our lives as packing material for mass produced items and that the material's makers and environmental reputation is what interests de Jong in the first place. He also uses oil barrels, wooden pallets which speak to industry, money, trade as well.
More from the article:
"De Jong conflates past and present conflicts - the Napoleonic, Franco-Prussian and recent Easter European wars as well as those in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur and other countries - to arrive at a ubiquitous human phenomenon: our passion for killing each other. His dramatis personae are not obviously good or evil, and moral imperatives are displaced by an interrogative mode, by satire and black humor. 'History needs to be questioned," de Jong says.
Nice. I like that they all bleed together --- this keeps it philosophical and not political. It isn't about who is right and who is wrong in this moment - its about the fact that it never really ends...we always act the same generation after generation.
Aside from war and death, his work also seems to have elements of fantasy, the theatrical and narrative/action structure that provides multiplicity of character and critique.
Article:
There is "Cyan-Kali which is named after the Hindu goddess of time and transformation, death and annihilation....she is both seductress and slayer, ferocious but sometimes benevolent, the deity is an ideal de Jong subject in her multiple and opposing attributes, her ghastly, strange beauty."
One last thing from this article -- ( I really am into this piece)
Pertaining to de Jong's grandfather...
"He remembers being riveted, as a child, by the enchanting stories -as well as the elaborately tattooed arms and chest- of his grandfather, his last forebear to go to sea. (He comes from a long line of fisherman). In retrospect, de Jong realizes that those tales and body markings helped to reshape a meager workman's existence into something bearable, even heroic. Ultimately, the old man was intent on deluding himself more than others. Truth, the artist learned, has many facets, and life is seldom truly glorious- observations that undergird all his work."
I have multiple feelings on this quote. First of all, I love the very correct observation about life and glory. That is beautiful. Second, I'm a little turned off about how the grandfather is talked about.... I mean even if its the truth - it is as if 'the old man' is stripped naked by his grandson.
