Jaun van Wyk | The Aesthetics of Violence:
8 January (18:30) – 17 January
at Gallery on Leviseur, Bloemfontein
Through this installation, I aim to manifest this violence and express the violent realities of contemporary South Africa in a tamed form– ultimately aimed at a new pleasure of violence. Oscar Wilde (Svendsen, L. 2008: 76) writes, “Because art does not hurt us. The tears that we shed at a play are a type of the exquisite sterile emotions that it is the function of art to awaken. We weep, but we are not wounded. We grieve, but our grief is not bitter…It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art, and through art only, that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence”. Ultimately this installation becomes a privileged space where we can experience all the emotions that life can offer us, without having to pay the price that these emotions are often linked to in real life.
