Tanya Leighton

Van Hanos

Awake At The Funeral

28 Apr - 01 Jul 2017

Van Hanos
'Awake at the Funeral'
Installation view, Tanya Leighton, Berlin, 2017
VAN HANOS
Awake At The Funeral
28 April - 1 July 2017

Eirōneia

Every now and then I would love for a comet to crash into this bleached, sideways, psychedelic sugar-pop civilization. For a titan's hand to one day emerge from the murky Atlantic cesspool and reclaim this insulted earth. Civilization is a curse we inflict on ourselves; as the world turns (upside down perhaps), we can imagine our ancestors in their funeral mounts, literally rolling over in their graves.

We used to love looking out into space for answers to our mundane problems. Today however, we would rather have the moon grow cartoonish human arms, and smite us (the earth) with a giant steel mallet gift to it by the cosmos, than fix the problems of this planet. Humanity has fun and perverse ways of abating its guilt and desires. Sometimes with religion, sometimes through painting and other times both do the trick.

In medieval painting, for example Jesus Christ was painted as a homunculus, a child born “fully formed and unchanged.” He is the archetypal man-child; the world is both his playground and his dominion. This is aspirational. If not historically, then at least today this “little man,” could symbolize both a messianic complex and feminine sexual-dominance. You can have your cake and eat it too; you can give your livestock a seat at the dinner table while you do. Why not?

Give the people what they want.

-Max Guy
 

Tags: Van Hanos