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Folkert DE JONG, <Business As Usual: "The Tower">, Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, pearls, 200x104x149cm, 2008 ⓒ James Cohan Gallery New York, Fons Welters Gallery Amsterdam, Studio Folkert de Jong Amsterdam
Folkert DE JONG, <Business As Usual: Double Happiness>, Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, 300x100x100cm, 2008 ⓒ James Cohan Gallery New York, Fons Welters Gallery Amsterdam, Studio Folkert de Jong Amsterdam
Folkert DE JONG, <Early Years>, Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, Dimension variable, 2008 ⓒ James Cohan Gallery New York, Fons Welters Gallery Amsterdam, Studio Folkert de Jong Amsterdam
Folkert DE JONG, <Operation Harmony>, Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, pearls, 340x700x230cm, 2008 ⓒ James Cohan Gallery New York, Fons Welters Gallery Amsterdam, Studio Folkert de Jong Amsterdam
Folkert DE JONG Business As Usual: "The Tower"
Folkert de Jong is best known for his expressive sculptures and installations arising from a strong fascination with the psychological and the bodily human condition. De Jong is interested in reexamining cultural symbols and historical figures, and the potential for sculpture to transform existing narratives. In particular, De Jong’s signature style is formed by his idiosyncratic use of insulation materials such as candy-colored polyurethane and Styrofoam - a choice that was not simply an anti-hierarchical gesture. These materials are pollutant, and their effects on the environment radically detrimental. The works that are shown at Busan Biennale 2016 are based around the idea of Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man (published in 1870) and The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. The remarkable <Operation Harmony>(2008) evokes conflict in its graphic depiction of charred and dismembered bodies - seated, standing, kneeling, hanging upside down and stretched horizontally across space, like the living dead.The symbolic cycle suggested in the circle of apes in the installation <Early Years>(2008) depicts not evolution from ape to man, but simply movement. The pink framework in <Operation Harmony>(2008) could be a fragment taken from a chain of historical events, and the ape tower an absurd attempt for morality: ‘Speak no evil, Hear no evil, See no evil.’ The only piece that stands out from the idea that mankind is deluded of his own originality and uniqueness is the work <Double Happiness>(2008) The two white monkeys -borrowing from their symbolic meaning in Zodiac astrology-represent the underestimation of nature by men. The monkeys mirror our own absurdness in how we are programmed to believe that we can escape and control the natural cycles of planet Earth, when instead we should learn to be part of it, and accept the fact that we are fragile and mortal beings. |
