A visit to Berlin, for us the first time since 2003, always brings a search for the past. What was built, what was destroyed, what restored. What are the echos…
“Meeting the past we noticed the dogmas
painted by forgotten doges on enamel plates
in a Berlin impasse.”
eine kleine Gasse in Berlin
“It is a fossil expression
appropriate for the time”
warning
“Washing and fill up with fuel of your vehicle is forbidden at this property”
How to deal with stupidity is an issue / that arises frequently these days. // Can one battle stupidity, or is it best ignored.
Can one convince stupidity to lay off / to stop breathing or kill it self / any other way.
That´s the issue.
blood is iron
“Blood is iron, in essence. // Because of it’s stream and smell. // But I rather see the spill / from rusting tubes than from blood / which today leaks from pure stupidity.”
From upstairs
The title responds to our / sense of reason. // Now imagine someone trying to push up / these blocks of concrete / even if aerated.
The greater the distance / or the darker the surrounding / the bigger the sense of futility / of longing for the unreachable. (from the writings of the poet Malcolm Eduard Lionel Alfred Nicotene Cholious)
images and texts Drager Meurtant (2013, 2016, 2025)
In creating art, this artist examines human actions and the resulting society, with bonds and clefts.
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Bij het scheppen van kunst, onderzoekt deze kunstenaar het menselijk handelen en de maatschappij die hieruit volgt, met verbindingen en kloven.
The Oil Terminal at Dissension
After one village a second was build // and as so often / these contained two communities / with different beliefs. // After peevishness came quarrel / and this raised high: a full five meters. // The arrival of the oil-terminal / changed little apart from more fencing. // The bridge does not unite the inhabitants / but enables them to dwell on different paths.
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De Olieterminal bij Tweespalt
Na één dorp werd een tweede gebouwd / en als zo vaak, / waren het twee gemeentes in het geloof. // Na wrevel kwam ruzie / en die liep hoog op en wel vijf meter. // De komst van de olieterminal veranderde weinig / behalve nog meer heining. // De brug verenigt geen bewoners, / maar maakt dat de wegen gescheiden voortgaan.
the oilterminal at dissension / de olieterminal bij tweespalt
At the age of one year, the artist Drager Meurtant (b. 2012) wanted to create a vision of the world in it’s infancy.
With mountains, a lake and mystical homonoid figures standing idle.
“With a few”
“The mountains that I encountered, the swamps and gadflies: for milennia remained nearly unchanged: One time the first people came, or were Neanderthals earlier? People won, but whether that was the best outcome? “
In the years that followed, the increased tendency in our world to strengthen frontiers, raise walls, and push back ‘illegal’ immigrants, became a worry and cause to doubt progression of human society.
This did in 2023 lead to transformation of the above sculpture – assemblage, into “Borders and Fences”
The lake became a place for a small city with skyscrapers.
“Borders and fences – 1”
A high gate was raised, on a scale that in real life would be 10 m high, and that makes existing roads and path dead-ends. And a refugee camp was created on the other side of the fence.
“Borders and fences – 2”
Two societies come into existence, populated by the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’.
“Borders and Fences – 3”
After the ‘Chinese Wall’ and the ‘Hardrian’s Wall’, modern society got to know the ‘Iron Curtain’, and became aware of the fences that separate Northern and Southern Korea. However, in 2024 the length of walls and fences that separate Israel from Palestine, the (U)SA from Mexico, and in several countries in Europe to impair crossing the borders for immigrants impossible stretch of thousands of kilometers…
“Borders and fences – 4”
All images and texts by Drager Meurtant, 2013 – 2024.
drager-meurtant 