Starting point for this project was my curiosity in the entanglement of morality and aesthetics in art. I am fascinated by how this relation has developed over time in different locations, but also very much in what it can tell us about our current times. To what extent, for example, is our current preoccupation with personal morality in art for instance motivated by a context of neoliberal individualism? And to what extent do these individual motivations prevent us from expressing social criticism in the political arena?
In order to shine a light on the process of my own moral judgment, I decided to declare morals the main materials of a small body of my own work. This resulted in the artist book 85 moral shortcomings (in the work of Tim Enthoven)..
In the first, eponymous, exhibition coming out of this project I wanted to share this experience with viewers by declaring the gallery a conceptual space where their (un)conscious moral judgements constitute the principal material of the works on view. In a strange, poetic mix of humor and earnestness, viewers are asked to observe themselves observing, as they become co-authors of an idiosyncratic body of drawings and paintings that deal with family and nutrition.
installation view
85 moral shortcomings (in the work of Tim Enthoven), 2024
Benefits of Cultured Meat, 2021, felt-tip on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm.
you are more important than your mother because she sacrificed her life for you, 2023, acrylic and collage on cotton, 168 x 240 cm.
An Allergen I Need To Inform You About, 2023, watercolor, felt-tip and pencil on paper in an 80-page sketchbook, 25 x 21 cm.
In making this series I was thinking about what an ideology of allergy might look like. I reference my own experience with allergies, as I have always been very much aware of the extent to which they shape one's experience of the world; the foods one cann not eat, the seasons one avoids; the places and people that one therefore avoids or seeks out; the conversations one therefore has, and the way personal relations become very existential rapidly.
All of this stands in shrill contrast with the continued prevalence of the type of mind-body dualism that deems a connection between ones nutrition and ones (political, personal) ideology or moral outlook impossible. And when used only as a matter of disqualification of the other persons motives. One can say for example that these works are a type of oversharing, because this personal information has no apparent relevance for any visitor of an exhibition of my works. Or that they are merely disclaimers, the way stating ones identity functions as a disclaimer, pointing out my lack of responsibility for anything that might be a consequence of my allergies.
The cube diagrams I use are specifically well suited for showing what makes up a psyche (like in the rendition of the Freudian division of mind below) and I filled them with the type of images of food one finds on tea towels, to juxtapose ideology and nutrition.
12 Allergies I Need To Inform You About, 2022, watercolor, felt-tip and pencil on paper in an 80-page sketchbook, 25 x 21 cm.
untitled, 2023, watercolor, felt-tip pen and pencil on paper in an 80-page sketch-book, 25,6 x 21 x 1 cm.
installation view
6 Allergies I Need To Inform You About (Your Sourness), 2023, watercolor, pen and pencil on paper, 24,9 x 29,7 cm.
An Allergy I Need To Inform You About, 2023, watercolor, pen, pencil and arabic gum on paper, 24,9 x 29,7 cm.
The Apology I Expected, 2024, situation with two actors and an audience more