RES PUBLICA
Ensemble
The ‘public cause’, the political organisation of society, must be the central concern of all forms of power. Parliaments are its vital heart. It is therefore essential for them to be receptive to what is happening outside their hemisphere. Society has different ways of being heard; art is one of them.
The Senate, like the House, is fully authorised for the Constitution and fundamental legislation. In this capacity, it strives towards the ‘Ideal City (society)’.
Through this work, Sven 't Jolle (°1966, living in Melbourne) evokes the importance of struggle in the conquest of liberties. Strikes and demonstrations are the expressions of popular dissatisfaction, even opposition: a way of being heard by parliaments. However, is this form of expression still relevant in a globalised world?
These two paintings by Marcel Berlanger (°1965, living in Brussels) representing a ‘gille’, an central figure of the carnival in Binche, show their production process. Underneath the easily recognisable image, the paint reminds us that it is only a painting. The gille is the representation of how carnival reverses the order of things and how power is merely bestowed and passing.
In this video, Koka Ramishvili (°1956, living in Geneva) combines ‘found’ images of the 2003 ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia with scenes from Fassbinder's film ‘Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss’. The work shows the ironic antagonism between the male choreography of the power surge in Georgia and Fassbinder’s female, melodramatic scene of wasting vitality and death.
