Caz
Egelie

1994 , NLD
HKU, Utrecht

Caz Egelie

Egelie shows us that his heart beats for art, and what is more, that art is a natural part of life. He conceived his installation as a blender, within which to mix the entire history of 20th century art. Out of this mixture he distills drops with which he fills the shelves of his installation, which could just as well serve as a sketch of a museum shop. Viewers expecting a critical assessment of various –isms will be disappointed. The installation as a whole is much like an ode to the eruption of creativity associated mainly with the inter-war avant-garde movements. Egelie’s play with canonic artists oscillates between the state-of-the-art perfection of 3D animation and DIY sloppiness. However, Egelie is not seeking a mere imitation of the past, as his deluge of representations in a variety of media is framed by the theme of appropriation and reproduction. This is summarized in concentrated form in his cinematic animation of a sterile studio setting, where a miniature of Brancusi’s Endless Column is reproduced ad infinitum. Where is the line between democratic art for everyone and a souvenir?