WELLNESS SKULL
(click the picture for bigger image - 1,8 MB)
Temporary installation in Vienna...
Joep van Lieshout
Joep van Lieshout’s “Wellness Skull” is an oversized skeleton head made from synthetic material, which accommodates wellness facilities such as a sauna and a bathtub. With his ironic monument to transitoriness, van Lieshout alludes to the fitness mania of present-day society that provides a surrogate for a spiritual experience beyond all bodily and material affairs. Metaphorically, the artist regards the skull as man’s mental shell. It is the interplay between supernatural, divine powers and the secular power that Joep van Lieshout thematizes in his “Wellness Skull.” The functionalization of such a symbol, which is characteristic of the artist’s work, lends an ironical tone to it: when the sauna is turned on, white smoke rises from the skull’s openings.
“Wellness Skull” may be categorized among the artist’s works
investigating repressive and restrictive systems. Based on an
examination of the vanity symbol so prominent in the art of the
Netherlandish old masters, Joep van Lieshout articulates his ideas
about today’s society. Joep van Lieshout (*1963), lives and works in
Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Tour of the skull’s wellness facilities:
every first Saturday of the month at 2 p.m. or by appointment: please
call 01/52189-1257. Location: KÖR at Kunsthalle Wien public space
karlsplatz, Treitlstraße 2, 1040 Vienna.
