Wild Apples
20.09—22.11.2023
Group exhibition at Abbey Sint Trudo, Sint-Truiden, Belgium.
William Ludwig Lutgens brings 18 dolls to Sint-Truiden that he painted all over with paint - the dolls have since transformed from textile into paint, the dolls are now by definition paintings, and they arrange themselves around the spacious negotiation table in the Abbot's Hall. A stiffened game of musical chairs, a strange scene observed by surrounding paintings with portraits of dignified to introspective clergymen. The dolls are said to form a committee - in conclave to perhaps try to figure out, years after the fact, why many years ago the creek exploded near the abbey in Sint-Truiden. Dolls are derivatives of real characters in society; long live the detour of parody. The dolls remain silent; nothing is clarified. The abandoned abbey site is now partly occupied by the officials of the heritage cell - they are the diligent custodians of small histories and locally colored news items. Motionless, the 18 dolls prick up their ears. William Ludwig Lutgens loves classics/artists who, in an unforced gesture, incorporate the common folk into their oeuvre. Pieter Bruegel and James Ensor are the most obvious examples of this; Bruegel never painted on commission for the church but enthusiastically and without hesitation captured the folk's lively, voluptuous life. Ensor, in his visual language, shifted the brute power of the state and clergy into a sharp and bitter masquerade, where the mask no longer (or not anymore) censors free speech. As a young boy, William Ludwig Lutgens spent time in a boarding school where isolation, small chambers, the smell of the unpleasant kitchen, and cheap coffee lingered as stacked memories, whether or not 'skeptical'. Stories of truth or falsehood intersect the art of William Ludwig Lutgens, which completely has no qualms about connecting non-aesthetics with the manipulation of correct ethics. 18 dolls, a peculiar public announcement about the secret conclave in the abbot's hall, and in the adjoining impressive library, a series of personal drawings, which likely address the difficulties during the time spent in the boarding school - are aspects formulated in a plastic way that keep the rumor mill going. It's not the dolls but the chairs that dance.
The exhibition "Wild Apples", organically grown without a "curator" - is like a fully grown apple tree 'somewhere' located in the green wilderness, which, at the beginning of autumn, drops its apples. The apples fall ripe, sweet or sour, but always around the tree.
Excerpt written by Luk Lambrecht (translated from Dutch)
Photography by We Document Art
