Installation Series:
This work oscillates between PAST AND PRESENT | VISUAL AND CONCEPTUAL.
By juxtaposing past and present the artists aim to point at the bloody red thread that runs through the history of man.
The artists believe that art can function as an alternative to media as conveyer of information, and can ultimately enable different ways in which ‘reality’ and ‘truth’ are perceived. They are against media predominantly telling stories from a single point of view, used for propaganda purposes. Therefore the artists want the work not only to act as passive transmitter of information, but also as facilitator of self-reflection and (self) critical thinking.
Painting: Re[Interpreted]
Gaining knowledge of the past to better understand the present, and the future.
Appropriating Nicolas Poussin’s ‘Apollo and the Muses’ (1630) places past and present in close proximity to one another in order to illuminate the unremitting and relentless identity of war, thereby not allowing it to be rekindled in the future of ‘now’. An alternative representation of reality, based on emotional and emphatic communication, designed to decode.
The juxtaposition of binary oppositions are indispensible to this installation:
PAST | PRESENT ; CLASSIC | CONTEMPORARY ; POVERTY | WEALTH ; GOOD | EVIL.
The original subjects of Poussin’s painting have been morphed into contemporary subjects placed a war context. Inspired by the relationship between traditional art and alternative possibilities offered by new technologies, the artist amalgamates them in order to create new meaning(s).
Through its subjects, the art piece and installation aspires to showcase the impossibility to limit conflict and violence to a single geographical area or historical period, but to rather portray it as an illness that has infected mankind. To quote the artist, Saskia Lubnow:
“Only by stimulating the sensitivity of man is it possible to fight this guilty emotional status quo and promote a renewed awareness that allows a real empathic understanding of man.”
All images, video-projections and set design were collaborations between Saskia and Fantasmagoria Studio. All garments are original creations by Saskia.