M2M - Monument to Mankind
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The Biggest International Arts Project in History With the assistance of arts & heritage councils and agencies - a selected artist from each of the 192 world nations will be sponsored to attend the month long project camp. Single stone blocks measuring 1 cubic yard will be supplied to the selected artists of each participating country. The artists will sculpt on the block facias depictions of their national and tribal myths, legends & cultural heritage. The 192 granite blocks will be assembled and erected along the lines of a stepped pyramid. As a living anthology of anthropological representation it will stand out as a true wonder of the world paying a lasting tribute to the first ever gathering of each human nation and tribe on earth.
The Italian sculptor Luciano Fabro claims that every exposition, individual or in group, big or small, important or of less importance, above all is a feast, a celebration. Or at least, it should be a celebration in honour of art. An exposition is the presentation of an artwork to the public. A celebration, so he says, that we celebrate together, every time art is to be revealed and embodied. The rite of thanking and reconciling for a new dawning. “A Monument for Humanity”, created by artists of different nationalities, has the ability to become a unique celebration in the name of art. Once realized, a celebration that meets the eye and the spirit, a celebration of thinking and feeling across all bounderies. Dared by the unique intention, Gilbert Degryse wants to take part in ‘the celebration of the Monument for Humanity’. The possibility to realize a link in a long chain and hereby visualize a piece of his native culture motivated Gilbert to bring out a very specific artistic translation of the assignment given. Gilbert chooses, as a consequent move within the totality of his plastic oeuvre, to work with the principal of the ‘objet trouvé’ or ‘ready made’. The ‘found’ names of five artists represent the thing that made our country earlier on really impressive; across the boarders, the art history of Flanders was considered and approved. Pre-eminently, art had always been an export product of Flanders, something that was appreciated long before the time Flanders actually got a name of its own. The fact that Gilbert opted for the word, here in the form of names, fits the tradition of the Flemish art history perfectly. The direct relation between word and image in the linguistic paintings of René Magritte (1898-1967), the CoBrA-artists (2) and the work of the Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) are only a few examples. Many double-talented artists, like for example Hugo Claus (°1929), give shape to the confrontation between word and image. Gilbert Degryse joins this tradition completely with his creation for “A Monument for Humanity”. Both, word and image, are components of our universal cultural education and thus expand our life and mind. One single image often can express just what otherwise takes a whole sentence. It can be used by people not speaking each other’s language and the rate of perception is a lot faster. Language, on the contrary, keeps place and space at a distance and evokes a whole amount of thoughts. Gilbert Degryse’s choice to figure the word with all its possible meanings, as a form and as a substance, makes it a tight-fitting whole. An entire range of interpretations becomes possible. Using the names of five of our greatest artists constitutes more than five centuries of Flemish art history. Jan van Eyck (1390-1441) is one of the most famous persons in the Flemish art history. He wasn’t just a magnificent painter, but even so he was a very clever diplomat. Because of his technical mastery he was named “King of Painters”. By improving the technique of oil-painting, he achieved an extraordinary naturalistic way of painting details. Together with the other Flemish Primitives his work was at the origin of an important change in the history of art, which characterizes the transition from the medieval pictorial tradition to the Renaissance (re-birth of man and his philosophy of life). The pictorial world of Pieter Bruegel (ca. 1525-1569) is extremely original. He visualizes the ‘other (hidden) side’ of the world and its inhabitants. This is very extraordinary in a time when the Western European art history shows mostly the story of Christianity and the upper class nobility. Bruegel chooses to present the pictorial universe of the common people, man as an insignificant creature in an overwhelming cosmic nature. We no longer see the ideal man in a classical pose of rest, but common people characterized by common activities. The high-lighting of this ‘comédie humaine’ is very much alike Erasmus and thus Bruegel can be seen as a representative of the Nordic Humanism. Pietro Pauolo Rubens (1577-1640) is the most famous Flemish representative of the 17th century baroque and one the most productive artists ever. He is the most requested painter of Europe and leads a florishing workshop. Rubens not only makes altarpieces, portraits, mythological and historical tableaus, but he also makes drafts for carpets, bookillustrations and sculptures. As an eminent intellectual, Rubens abides in humanistic quarters and socially and politically he knows how to manifest himself in an impressive way. Regularly he was entrusted with diplomatical missions, which made him represent his region internationally in an artistic , socio-cultural and political way. James Ensor (1860-1949) makes his debut in Impressionism and Symbolism and smoothens the way for Modern Art in the 20th century. His work shows in a complex way the tragical situation of the lonesome modern man in a egocentrical and chaotic environment. The strong expressive colours he uses often symbolize an existential cry and the lines he draws can be seen as the sensitive lines of a nerve. The paintings of Ensor are layered and often withhold unexpected meanings. Through his expressive, rich fantasy and his pure subjective view at things, Ensor has influenced a great number of the 20th century artists. The oeuvre of the Belgian surrealist René Magritte (1898-1967) can be interpreted from many different points of view, for example: philosophy, poetry; but also from its value for the contemporary Belgian art scene. Central in his work is the idea: ‘Painting should be poetry, and poetry should evoke mystery’. Painting –for Magritte- is a way of expressing his thoughts, but it doesn’t have a goal on its own. His contribution to the art history is by no means formal but it is substantial. As a ‘poète visible’, he reduces the visible world to some kind of abstract idea. His work doesn’t just picture but it also represents something, it is very imaginative. Magritte combines very realistic figures in an extremely unexpected and uncommon way and doing so he undermines the commonly accepted signification of words and things. In his linguistic paintings in specific the word is literally present. By choosing these artists, Gilbert Dergyse places himself amongst these ‘poètes visibles’. His work joins the conceptual tradition (the idea – ‘objet trouvé’) through a well-considered and conscient choice of names. Its content refers to the enormous rich pictorial world of our artistic and cultural tradition. The manual stone-carving of the names completes this idea. Concept, content and signification coincide completely. Avoiding the limitation of for instance opting for a typical gastronomy or a folkloristic item, Gilbert Degryse chooses to show in his design for ‘A Monument for Humanity’ precisely the thing that made our country famous through the years and the centuries and he shows it in an appropriate, well-thought and artistic way. Els Vermeersch - Art historian
