Alex Verhaest, Cho Moon Ki: The Absence of Paterfamilias

The exhibition, The Absence of Paterfamilias, from 1st June to 6th August 2017 offers the possibility to compare the two artists’ dissimilar methodologies as they approach family portraits that may reflect reality though appear nonetheless strange. Respectively using painting and interactive film in the distant and quite dissimilar cultural spheres of South Korea and Belgium, these two artists are nevertheless very similar in questioning the myth of the family and in borrowing the symbolism of religious paintings to illustrate it.

Both artists communicate in expressing contemporary anxiety, that stems from contradictions in the social system, with the family, the smallest unit of society, as the main topic. Through this, the uncontrollable violence and severed communications in the closest human relationships manifest themselves as negative emotions and in situations such as conflict, anger, derision, and bewilderment.

Just as the rigid iconography of model religious paintings is revived in contemporary artists’ works and continues the connection in The Absence of the Paterfamilias, the exhibition implies that the desire to be united with others through communication and the desire to remain an independent subject constitute a conflict that goes on beyond time.