Trixie presently shows three interesting installations by Jesus Canuto Iglesias (1992), Martin Gabriel (1991) and Beng Yuenyong (1987).
All three artists use modern technology to make their works.
In daily life contemporary technology is embedded in modern consumer society, which makes it addictive and, to some, even suspect.
On the other hand, using it artistically circumvents the consumerist addictive aspect, and, in a way, subverts modern day technology’s cause and reason of existence.
The three artists succeeded in finding a kind of harmony in the exhibition, although their installations are very different in idea and concept.
You might reason that Gabriel’s installation is a bit too heavy in its details and ideas, compared to the two other works.
Nevertheless, Yuenyong’s installation, which is more spacious and minimalistic than Gabriel’s in its concept, may have just as much impact on the viewer, while Canuto’s installation partly reflects both other works.
Gabriel’s surely is the most theatrical of the three works on show.
The work itself is a stage, flanked by pools as parts of a present-day Garden of Earthly Delights.
The stage itself is inhabited by 3D-printed figures, seemingly run from a computer game, with its blurring of classical and quasi-classical mythology, mythologized history, and its plagiarism of the human subconscious.
The player of the game can identify with its protagonists in a world which is full of excitement, violence, wonder, hollow meanings and senseless heroism, next to the completely misshapen presentation of ‘real life’ in modern media.
Yuenyong, in his installation, literally gives space to reflection.
Southeast Asian decoration and temple-like structures are rethought digitally and by the artist.
They are 3D-printed and they are minimised to mere shapes of thoughts, presented at eye-level.
Yuenyong even created a pond with a lotus-like structure in it, while under one of the mini-temples are offerings of flowers and cans of soft drinks.
In between the idea of death and resurrection floats.
The work by Canuto reflects both other installations and comments them with philosophical quotations, blurred by the acoustics of the recordings and the exhibition space itself.
It may contain all the wisdom one might hope for, but it refrains from giving any answer or true comment.
The visitor, with al his/her questions, only sees a reflection of him/herself and the worlds of the two other artists in an opaque and changing mirror.
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Contents of all photographs courtesy to the artists and Trixie, Den Haag
Bertus Pieters
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