Christiaan Diedericks :
The Skull beneath the Skin
Eigentlichkeit? This was Heidegger's big question. How do we live authentic lives? How do we escape being sucked into suits and smiles which always seem to sit just a bit too tight around our skin? How do we avoid preparing those faces with which we meet other faces? Through death. Or at least by the knowledge that the eternal Footman waits on our doorstep, snickering.
Cold Sweat, the latest offering by Christiaan Diedericks, is a critique of modern man's tendency to hide himself in the flimsy costumes of public life. The phantasmagoric narrative, that shows life's sleepy understanding of its fieshless end, is patched throughout with things half-forgotten and half remembered. As Diedericks explains in the exhibition's accompanying leaflet, the work attempts to reconcile two warring ideas of the post-modern consciousness: the longing for otherness and the dread of losing autonomy.
The 44 year-old Capetonian calls Cold Sweat his darkest work to date, yet the voice I find on the other end of the line sounds anything but foreboding. It's crisp and baritone, possesses a generous laugh, and modulates between tones of passionate joy and fiery indignation.
Fiery indignation comes first. "We've lost the capacity for compassion, and our take-away culture has come out on top. Personally, I have a moerse problem with the corporate world and its drive to regulate and restrict. My new work goes out in search of that lost compassion and portrays how corporation denies our humanity."
Despite the dystopian overtones of Cold Sweat, the work also carries a message of great hope. "Step", for instance, is a piece whose monochrome yields to finer strokes of colour and movement. The act of dancing (traditionally a symbol of connection and celebration) is shown as fragile and temporal, and exactly because of its finitude we are urged (through the motifs of skull beneath skin) to cherish what time we are given.
"Sentinel", in spite of its obvious statement about our modern malaise, also hints at hope. The imagery evokes a sense of nostalgia for something that perhaps never was, and this is Diedericks' mission. "I want to add value to society through my work. It must say something, change something, rather than concern itself with making money. A work of art is never complete - once I put my brush down, the dialogue begins."
During our conversation Diedericks tells me about his beliefs and doubts. For him, post-modernism never existed (we're the bastard children of Modernism) and we're leaning towards the resurgence of humanism. His view on religion which journalists have often speculated but never bothered to ask, is that it creates division. Spirituality, on the other hand, offers the possibility to unite beyond the borders of man-made rules, says the self proclaimed "pagan-with-strong-New-Age-inclinations."
Cold Sweat clearly belongs to a man of eclectic moods and interests. The diverse media are matched by equally diverse subject matter. And his attempt to "juggle these sometime disparate images to make them correspond without collapsing into one particular style, mode of thought, emotion, or art-historical reference" is testimony to his humility. And humility in an artist of Diedericks' stature (30 solo exhibitions, over 40 international exhibitions, 120 local group exhibitions, recipient of the Ampersand Fellowship to NYC, lifelong member of the Cite lnterntionale des Art in Paris, etc.) is an unexpected quality. Perhaps it is the reason for his success, Perhaps it is the reason for his ability to find art in almost everything around him. And perhaps it is the reason that you feel sublimely overcome in the presence of his work.
Rick de Villiers, A Look Away magazine.
Issue 11, Quarter 2, 2009.
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