It is his principled duty as an artist to question power structures, says Jeroen Jongeleen (1967). With his new work at the Tschumi Pavilion, he aims to rekindle Groningen’s revolutionary spirit, while at the same time admitting that he, too, has no ready-made answers to today’s crises.
“With graffiti-like expressions in a polished environment, a scratch across neatness, I transform the Tschumi Pavilion into a dissonant element in the urban landscape. In doing so, I hope to pry open a small mental door in residents and passers-by. An opening through which dormant frustration can flow outward and express itself as rebellion, resistance, and at the very least a collective alertness.
The texts I wrote on the façade of the Tschumi Pavilion were created with the help of AI and deal with revolution, freedom, and the possibility of changing things without causing irreparable damage. But even the technology cannot find a way out. They remain fallacies.”
“I hope to pry open a small mental door in residents and passers-by.” eroen Jongeleen
“Inside the pavilion I built a cardboard village, the polder version of a spaghetti-western film set. The archetypal buildings — detached house with a gabled roof, windmill, church, school building — are a schematic reflection of the Netherlands. This is what military training villages on the Veluwe, in Brabant, or just outside Groningen look like.
On monitors in that film-set village, I show images of training grounds. Here, the uniformed representatives of power train for urban warfare. Because of the increasing pressure on democracy, from foreign or domestic threats, they are taking on an ever more prominent role. The new government has also once again allocated more money to defence. But the danger exists that the protectors of democracy may ultimately destroy democracy themselves.
I want to draw attention to the almost unnoticed militarisation of our society, which many see as necessary to keep things standing, and also to the role of art as commentator. I have no ready-made answers. I know what I am against, but what I am for is not always possible. But I see it as my duty as an independent artist to put the system under strain, so that we become more aware of the precarious situation we are in.”
The installation And so on and so on can be seen until 12 June at the Tschumi Pavilion.
Kunstpunt’s new project Hellend Vlak invites artists to respond to current social developments. And so on and so on is the first installation within this framework. The Tschumipaviljoen, itself an inclined plane, serves here as the tilted stage.
Text: Edo Dijksterhuis