Ecce Homo, or artists on the state of mankind today
“Our lives, and our bodies too, are fragile and vulnerable, and require attention, to facilitate self-expression and provide space for development.” Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui 1
Eric Rinckhout The words Ecce Homo — Latin for ‘behold the man’ — are two thousand years old. They are recorded in the Bible and synonymous with the suffering of Jesus Christ. This biblical narrative of how Pontius Pilate showed the debased Jesus to the people has been a subject in Western art since the Renaissance. But this exhibition, Ecce Homo. Behold the Man, seeks to expand the scope of the subject and open it up to readings that go far beyond its conventional religious significance. A century ago, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and the artists James Ensor and George Grosz, appropriated the theme and used it to produce deeply personal statements about themselves, the world and their contemporaries: three individual investigations into ‘human shortcomings’. Ecce Homo. Behold the Man aims to continue this lineage.
8
How do contemporary artists understand the world of today and the spirit of our age? How do they depict physical vulnerability? How crucial are such inflammatory and controversial issues as migration, war, religious fundamentalism and the erosion of freedom? But equally: how do they express their joy, existential angst or religious uncertainty? Do they worry about the future of mankind and the environment? And how prevalent are themes such as life, love and death in contemporary art? Judging by the overwhelming response to Ecce Homo. Behold the Man, it appears that a great many contemporary artists are engaged with these questions and issues. As a result, what began life as a relatively modest exhibition proposal soon expanded into an ambitious project featuring the work of sixty-three artists. It is an exceptionally rare occurrence to find so many Belgian artists — or those who live and work in this country — exhibiting together around a single, universal theme: mankind. Their works are displayed in nine different loca tions in central Antwerp, the result of a farreaching collaboration between the initiating
galleries and two museums, several private partners and the City of Antwerp. Our intention from the very outset was to show as wide a range of artists as possible (male and female, multicultural, established and emerging) and to include all disciplines: from painting and works on paper to video, photography, sculpture and installation. While some artists have created new artworks, others are exhibiting existing work that relates to the theme. The only criterion is that the artists must either have been born in Belgium or be currently living and working in the country. With one exception: the late Philippe Vandenberg (1952-2009). His unflinching drawings, with their (auto-) destructive tendencies and sexual excesses, frequently contain explicit references to biblical motifs and religious themes, for example the crown of thorns, the cross and martyrdom. He is, so to speak, the godfather of this exhibition.
The roots of Ecce Homo Martyrdom and the crown of thorns are direct allusions to the Ecce Homo narrative found in the New Testament, the ‘primal scene’ of this exhibition. The words “Ecce homo” were uttered by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate when he showed Jesus Christ to the people of Jerusalem. The event is recorded in the Book of John (19: 5), which describes Jesus as holding a reed sceptre and wearing a twisted crown of thorns. A purple cloak was draped around his shoulders, thereby turning him into a caricature of a king. Interrogated by a high priest on the preceding day, Jesus had been accused of disregarding the law of Moses and offending God by claiming to be the Messiah and ‘King of the Jews’. Afterwards, he was flogged and forced to wear the trappings of a ridiculous king. Finally, Pontius Pilate presented Jesus to the assembled crowd. The Roman governor — whose role remains controversial to this day — announced that he had found no evidence of
Jesus’s guilt and queried the truthfulness of the witnesses. At that moment, a clamour broke out among the priests, judges and assembled masses. “Let him be crucified! Let him be crucified,” they yelled. Out of fear, or in an act of self-preservation, Pilate acquiesced to their demands. In parenthesis: the story is a textbook example of how quickly a situation can change. Barely a week earlier, Jesus had ridden triumphantly into Jerusalem before the very same crowd.
9
Several hundred years would elapse before the Ecce Homo theme occupied a position in Western art. Hieronymus Bosch and Antonello da Messina were among the first European artists to portray the subject, although their approaches were very different. In Bosch’s Ecce Homo of 1475-80 (Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main), Jesus stands on the balcony of Pontius Pilate’s palace: bloodied and half-naked, he is wearing a loincloth, cloak and a crown of thorns. With its urban setting, hostile crowd, Pilate and the priests, this composition exerted an enormous influence on successive generations of artists. Quinten Matsys, for example, who painted two powerful versions of the same theme, adopted these elements and developed them further, while also adding something new of his own. In the first of these paintings, Christ Presented to the People, 1518-20 (Prado, Madrid), he used an unusual oblique perspective to create the impression that the viewer stands among the bystanders, staring upwards at Jesus and Pontius Pilate on the balcony. This indicates that the viewer is expected to adopt a position — a humanistic perspective. Matsys leaves little room for doubt as to the right decision: he paints Christ’s executioners as grotesque caricatures, as people who might not look out of place in a comic strip. Ecce Homo (c. 1520), his second treatment of the same theme, hangs in the Doge’s Palace in Venice. In this work, Matsys has reduced the number of figures and focused almost entirely upon the two protagonists. Their gazes speak volumes: while Jesus’s eyes are cast downwards in resignation, Pilate turns away (a cowardly gesture?). Standing beside them, his eyes flashing with rage, is the executioner. The origin of this type of depiction — a direct confrontation with Christ’s suffering — lies in a work painted fifty years earlier by Antonello da Messina. In his Christ Crowned
Quinten Matsys Ecce Homo c. 1520
with Thorns of 1470 (Metropolitan Museum, New York), the artist is only concerned with Jesus’s face, his bare shoulders and the crown of thorns. Christ, whose features appear to have been based on those of a typical Sicilian workman, and whose eyes convey the utmost pain, elicits our immediate pity. This type of small, modest portrait (42.5 x 30.5 cm) would have been intended for private contemplation and devotion.
‘God is dead’ In the centuries that followed, artists generally opted for one or the other of these two types of depiction: Van Dyck and Delacroix preferred to portray the introspective Christ, while Rembrandt and Daumier gravitated towards the dramatic scene with Pilate and the people. Only towards the end of the nineteenth century did artists branch out in new directions and resolutely steer the Ecce Homo theme in the direction of worldly, secular art. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then. The eighteenth-century Enlightenment precipitated an ever-deepening climate of secularisation that led to a steep decline in commissions for religious artworks. Criticism of the Church and the attendant atmosphere of religious uncertainty enabled artists to adopt a freer and more individual approach to biblical subjects. Ground-breaking scientific discov eries and theories, stretching in a long line
22
23
48
49
Peter De Meyer the curve 2017 Leather and metal 118 × 104 cm Courtesy of the artist and Geukens & De Vil, Antwerp, Knokke
68
Michel François Golden Border 2015 Steel, gold leaf and rags 100 × 199.5 × 29.7 cm Courtesy of the artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels
80
Fabrice Samyn A Bottle in the Ocean 2014 Sand, glass, wood 140 × 40 × 40 cm
‘Time stands still. The hourglass is full. Sand from Lampedusa, sand from Tangier.’ ‘De tijd staat stil. De zandloper zit vol. Zand van Lampedusa, zand van Tanger.’ — Eric Rinckhout
98
Joris Van de Moortel
12 X (spreuken, proverbs, SprĂźche, Proverbs after Pieter Brueghel) 2017 Pencil and collage on chalk paper, ink on transparent film, neon, plexiglass Variable dimensions Courtesy of Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Brussels, Paris
106
107
Sven ’t Jolle Make Ends Meet 2014 Plaster, pigment 116 × 75 × 38 cm Courtesy of Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris
130
131
Elizabeth Geerts
‘The opposite of forgetting.’
Polaroid Collection You Look Familiar 2015-ongoing
‘Het tegenovergestelde van vergeten.’
10.7 × 8.8 cm (each Polaroid)
— Maarten Inghels
Courtesy of the artist
142
Philip Aguirre Y Otegui Kolom 2017 420 × 60 cm Composite material Courtesy of the artist and Geukens & De Vil, Antwerp, Knokke
150
151
In memoriam: Yasmine Geukens dedicates this book to Magda Geukens. A beautiful person. Yasmine Geukens draagt dit boek op aan Magda Geukens. Een mooi mens.