Esse Est Percipi #whatever
Kim Hospers

drawings, three dimensional work

16 June through 15 July 2018

after 15 July open by appointment only through 19 August

Kim Hospers (1982) researches the ways in which we try to shape and to hold on to our identity at a time when perception and validation are increasingly determined by social media. In his work a bigger question concerning the meaning and purpose of our existence lies hidden. In the series of drawings called Hail St. Claire, Kim Hospers elevated the medium of television to the level of a pseudo religion, and in Narcissistic Tendencies he depicted himself in reality TV shows or movie stills. Over the past year and a half, he has been working on the series Esse Est Percipi #Whatever.
The title meaning: to be is to be perceived refers to a statement by the 18th-century philosopher George Berkeley who argued that things can only exist through the perception of human beings. For the series Hospers makes drawings of so-called pranks : photographs published on the internet of drunken, sleeping people adorned with make-up, food or objects to ridicule them.

George Berkeley’s statement is thus interpreted in a cynical way. Kim Hospers preceives this embarassing exposure in a positive manner though. All victims are equally ridiculous and therefore also equally valuable. Typical for the Esse Est Percipi #whatever drawings is Hospers’ time-consuming and extremely virtuoso technique
that is in stark contrast with the transitory character of the photos on social media.
In the exhibition twelve boxes, each with twelve small-sized drawings, that are all methodically numbered, are displayed in rows on the wall, together with a number of medium and large sized drawings. Also exhibited is a collection of small sculptures of saints, heroes and stars that are painted white and covered with insulting texts in golden letters. This not only ridicules the heroes and saints, but also restores them to human proportions: freed from the heroic status history has imposed on them.