LIQUID ART
Jura Shust & Matthias Yzebaert
From November 14th to December 19th 2015
EXHIBITION CONCEPT by Yuna Mathieu-Chovet
Liquid Modernity is a concept developed by the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman to describe the weakness of human links in our post-modern society which is all about pleasure, consumption and individual freedom. “Liquid” society is contrasting with an older age, the modern “solid” society, where rules, roles and structures weren’t that easy to break. With its current exhibition, Plagiarama is shifting the debate to the artistic playground : did Art become “liquid” too or does it just reflect the “liquid” culture ?
Matthias Yzebaert believes that there isn’t any distinct hierarchy between objects in the material world ; It’s only the context that shapes elements of reality. For the “Liquid art” exhibition, he focuses on one of the strongest taboos in contemporary art : the idea of decoration. He presents commodity goods (as he says), as a pure decorative and non conceptual work of art, produced with as little involvement as possible, industrially printed, reproducible, fashionable, temporary.
Jura Shust explores the duality of an entertainment culture looking for moral safety. He is pointing to the permanent contradiction of a society searching for secure relationships while avoiding long term engagements to provide individual freedom. His works presented in Plagiarama are questioning this paradox, staging different ways to escape moral and social limits whilst still being part of the social framework.
In their own way, Matthias Yzebaert and Jura Shust are responding to Bauman’s analysis about the need for consumption and entertainment turnover driven by a fashionable and short-lived – therefore transitory – social identity.
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