1/Demons
Pictures of Liverpool artist David Jacques
9 October to 24 October 2014
Opening: Thursday, October 9, 2014, 19 clock
Exhibition open: Fri, Tue, Wed 17-20 clock
Galerie Display
Höninger path 218b, 50969 Cologne ruler
Photograph by Tony Knox
(The)
demons among us. And there are actually not one, but many. Was there
may once only one devil, who brought evil into the world or prevented
it disappeared from her, he has long since created many demons that
wreak havoc everywhere and constantly. You can not be safe from them.
They come not only from the outside, they even slip into man. People
are afraid of the demons and they carry the demons themselves. This
is a tricky business. The Spanish painter Francesco Goya has brought
in his famous etching "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"
expression. A demon, however, is more than a monster, because it adheres
to not only the monstrous, violent, and unpredictable Ravenous nature,
but also evil.
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In
the Middle Ages, people still had no problem to call evil evil - even
if everything was not evil, what they called evil. But they had no
doubt about the existence of evil, which was directed against all
the things keeping people at Ideal for desirable and beneficial. In
the 21st century, that's different. In the age of "anything goes"
and everyone's greed unleashed not only everything is possible simply
lacking everywhere in serious ideals and the courage to name things
as they are. Except for the pope of the Roman Catholic Church no longer
speaks on a large scale by the demon as stubborn invisible enemy,
while making the money manager of the Church's assets at the same
time, however, blatantly business with him. Otherwise, the terms demon
and devil in postmodern Western European media company like entering
of prohibited grounds be avoided. Especially in Germany, where evil
with National Socialism, a principle with Hitler received a name.
As one can alone prevent the avoidance of words already that it returns.
But the demons are among us, embodied by people who do not rarely
very relaxed and friendly smile while they go at the same ruthlessness
and cruelty easily through the thoughts and in their actions by the
hand. You just have to call these demons - or so it sees the Liverpool
artist David Jacques.
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It
is not enough to stay with abstract evocations. David Jacques has
these demons looked at it closely and he has painted their faces.
On small formats to focusing their attention more on the content than
on the visual effect. Just as a small photograph forcing a viewer
to look more accurate. There are the mighty of this world, Jacques
shows in the picture who have wealth and decision making. Most of
them are men. They are the ones who make decisions and relentlessly
pursue their interests and also carry out actions that make other
people to material in a ruthless economic system in which a richer
and the others are getting poorer. These demons are greedy, they are
greedy, they are cynical and they are ruthless. You make other people
about the object of their interests, they often call interests of
the system.
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What is more, this system in which capitalist profit maximization,
relentless competition and the happiness of the mostly silent majority
people are indissolubly chained together. Even in cold blood, let
the demons, if need be in her eyes, even the warm blood flowing on
the other. They are the rich, the powerful, and some of them familiar,
and other one knows not even because they operate silently and unseen.
Many of them hold power as offspring of their family of origin for
centuries in their hands. The Enlightenment, the class struggle and
social movements have basic structures of ownership and influence
never repealed, and thus these demons never repealed. These demons
who want to frequently distracted by themselves by slip on the smiling
stealth of good. Show David Jacques images: They need to take the
mask off your face and show that the demonic has ordinary faces.
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David Jacques does not hesitate to certain people to call demons,
connected to their responsibility in what we call the abstract social
relations. He says that a truly social person not at the same time
could earn millions of dollars, UK pounds, or Euros, while other people
suffered under it every day, do not come with their money to make
ends meet. He says that a truly social person not - depending on the
advantage and function - could alternately love and despise the people.
David Jacques know that there is such an anachronism in Human-too-human,
just as there is love and hate in the spiritual life. But knowing
that there is that does not help, and especially not legitimize it.
David Jacques believes that Kant's categorical imperative alone can
not regulate the interaction between people appropriately: "Act
as if the maxim of your will may at any time apply at the same time
as a universal law." Expressed close to the people: "You
do not want to have them do to yourself, do not do to others."
We want these demons are actually pressed and eaten by another demon
to the ground? No, they just fear the free fight against each and
all against all, in whose name they also obscure the relationship
between evolution and social behavior.
David Jacques insists on the Er note that the demons are not only
not extinct in our post-modern democracy, but more because each have
dominion over the course of events and the world. There are the owners
of large fortune, the managers of huge corporations and the shareholder
large blocks of shares that shape their decisions and their products,
the living conditions of the most significant human influence and
thus even control.
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In his demons pictures of masterful realistic painter David Jacques,
both the art of expressive and surreal escalation knows best, combines
the medieval paintings of Hieronymus Bosch with the modern artistic
collage of John Heartfield. The psychological drama of the late medieval
painting and the concrete social dimension of political art of the
Weimar Republic intertwine in his series and are of very recent explosive.
Accompanied by informative and enlightening texts to the persons shown
wants to show relationships between individual people, their behavior,
their economic status, their financial interests and the developments
in the world Jacques.
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He insists in his art for many years on the moral and enlightened
dimension of art. By linking his art with elements of traditional
art unique pictorial works, he shows not only the relevance of traditional
art forms, but also the constant timeliness of theming quite certain
aspects of Human-too-human. Violence, power, greed, and that people
make other people into victims are those aspects. Fear and the immaturity
of the people are in the interest of the demons, painting David Jacques,
they are their agents. He feels anger against the demons, and he laughs
at the same time about it. Humor and horror come together in his demons
images.
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There are small paintings, very small for such a huge topic. David
Jacques has the format chosen deliberately: You have to look carefully
to see the demons of our day, because too often they look like you
and me. They hide, they slip in clever disguises, distract with nice
stories that present themselves as everyone, or angels. But they are
there, such as social injustice are also an inescapable fact. You
have to make the demons identify how bad pathogens and find means
to keep them at bay. And pictures alone are not enough, David Jacques
knows that.