A while ago I took portraits of a young man in a beautiful white villa. That day the light was gorgeous and we had a good time taking the pictures in the several rooms of the historical building. As always after making the choice for the best pictures I was looking for text to go along with the images. I believe that this combination gives the best feed to the head of the viewer: the aesthetic image plus the endless stream of thoughts provoked by the words. Finding the right combination can be a long process, but all of a sudden the cognition is there. In retrospect this always seems rather mysterious to me.

All my life I have a big interest in philosophy, for me the thoughts and perspectives add depth to everyday life. I am fond of their merciless honesty and their contradictive inconsistencies. Also as a literary scholar I cherish a big love for poetry.

So what I did with the portraits of Emils was to combine them with quotes of Friedrich Nietzsche’s. I broke those quotes of the famous German philosopher down into pieces of poetry. For the whole album go here. Earlier I combined portraits of Abel with quotes of Andy Warhol. Let me know whether it resonates with you.

Inspired by a poem by the Dutch poet Jan Glas I made a series of seven male portraits. Every man stands for a decennium of the human age. The portraits were part of a group exhibition of my art group Wakker.

This is the poem:

Een Europese geschiedenis

 

Ik kende alleen de zee, het dorp en de landerijen,

de meisjes die met bloemen in hun haar het voorjaar vierden,

volmaakt ondergeschikt aan onze beschaving.

 

Toen ik eenentwintig was ging ik naar de stad

en ben daar gebleven. De meeuwen

keren elke dag  terug naar de zee.

In de stad wordt het voorjaar niet gevierd.

 

Ik werd een typische anonieme Noord-Europese man.

Ik sliep op een goed matras,

iedere dag was ik online.

Ik dronk te veel, dat is waar,

maar dat doet een man die gedoemd is te mislukken.