Sunday, December 6, 2009

I put light in my paintings that does not exist in my country #22

Bruxelles, petit Sablon.

Belgium is mainly a two-languages country: one speaks French and one speaks Flemish.

«Brol» is a common word used in both idioms; it designates the sweat chaos you may meet or create in Brussels. It does not refer to a threat (‘brol’ is is not an overwhelming chaos) but to a fate (it is everywhere: in your room, in the pavement’s alignment and, overall, in the daily administration of Belgium). It is a state of (Belgian) things.

Because of that state of (Belgian) things, Brussels cannot bear the usual postmodern critics made to capitals of postmodern Occident in London, Paris, Pragues, etc, regarding the commodity fetichism, the reification of the living, the sovereignty of perpetual present and the fact that the Real is not only what can be reproduced but that which is always already reproduced.

Brussels cannot shoulder them as it cannot aspire to become London, Paris or Pragues: the ‘brol’ sooner or later erupts. It then brings impurity to any holistic approach of urban life (anxiety for cleaning, aligning, golding & for town museification).

Besides, there is a strong habit in Brussels for sticking on one’s -professional or private- window some posters, poems or slogans. Nevertheless, regarding the hereabove picture, to display so bluntly death in the windows of the town is unique. Death is part of the 'brol'.

Nobody knows to whom this skull belongs but it reigns in liberty among buterflies in Brussels’ appearances.

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