25.04.10 – 13.06.10

Studio Job is an internationally acclaimed art and design studio led by artist Job Smeets. His fascinating work plays ironically with traditional classifying methods, which tend to divide the art scene in unfitting and suffocating pigeon-holes. Smeets has caused considerable uproar in the slick world of contemporary design.The studio quotes art history in a playful and often cartoon-like manner, combining well known icons from western culture with objects from everyday life. This stylistic confusion very often creates a tremendous tension, turning observers into accomplices. Although Studio Job’s work seems to flirt with naïve fairytale elements and childhood memories – Alice in Wonderland somehow always seems to be around – it is far from innocent or harmless. There’s something alarming about it too.

Smeets’ craftsmanship is impressive. Some of his works seem to exhale a rather ominous atmosphere, combining aggression and a darkish fascination for ‘gothic’ castles and cathedrals. This aspect of the oeuvre suits Gaasbeek Castle wonderfully.

Taking a closer look at the objects, one cannot help feeling carried away into a restless, alarming world in which the difference between good and evil (a very Protestant topic!), between genuine and fake, becomes increasingly blurred. A typical post-modern comment on the decay of values? Perhaps…  But Job definitely doesn’t proceed as a moral crusader. He generously scatters around symbols and over-the-top ornaments. Functionality is systematically questioned, even in works that seem to serve a ‘useful’ purpose (cabinet, safe, bench, coal shuttle, …). Moreover, some of his creations can be considered as almost ostentatious ‘lies’ – Pinocchio for example. The castle plays the same games with its visitors: almost every room has a few ‘tricks’ in petto, from hidden staircase to mock-renaissance throne.

Visitors to the Alter Ego exhibition are invited to consider Studio Job’s interventions as a contemporary continuation of our castle’s multi-layered history and identity. Each work is positioned in order to create situations of both clash and dialogue between Gaasbeek Castle’s sometimes heavily laden interiors and the ‘intruding’ objects. This can lead to surprising, grotesque imbroglios or surrealistic still lifes. Be welcome in our slightly deranged world!

-Luc Vanackere, 30 April 2010