www.haagsekunstenaars.nl - Stroom Den Haag

Omschrijving werk

Birgit Verwer: YOU WIN! Every Saturdaynight during the 1980s I sat in front of the television in my pyjamas; a little girl watching a game show in a kind of placebo-glitter & glamour-décor (not just yet falling into pieces due to its deficient condition). My favourite was De Sterrenshow, with my game show host hero Willem Ruis running like a idiot from left to right the whole night, totally winding himself up as if he was a participant himself going to lose the game. During the show Willem Ruis always shouted “stop the time!”. And to put it philosophically: Don’t we all want that? To stop the time? I have a roman catholic upbringing. The show elements and the spectacle of the rituals, the altars and the annunciation of the Word of God in the gothic church we went to – to me this was all wonderful! It was in fact exactly like on television with all its showbusiness and game programs. What if life itself turned out to be a fairground attraction or even better, a television game show? What would we be we winning? A prize? Some time-out? The assurance or comfort of an inevitable death? Is it an all-or-nothing game? Let’s play the game without limits, leaving all our fears behind and stop wasting any more of our precious time! In today's society our education and upbringing are mainly focused on developing our brains and our intelligence. In life however, the most important things, like our souls, creativity, love and pleasure, go far beyond the executive functions of the brain. And after everything we know we still don't have any answers or clues to all of our significant questions of life. We live in fear of what the afterlife might bring. We spend our valuable time in life in a consumer society which is attracted to power, money, television, and religion, while at the same time countries are at war and people are dying of starvation. Yet, we possess an irrepressible "Disney-hunger", a desire to live a great and successful life. This fear of the afterlife and the influence it has on our everyday life is what fascinates me. The dark side of life and its ending, which will present itself one time or another; with compliments of the chef!