Nobody asked if you wanted to be born.
For Maurice Nuiten life exists of moments.
Moments that define your freedom.
Moments that define your existence.
We are here and now but this is not a moment that will stay with us forever. Nuiten wants us to see the moments that he encounters and with this he wants us to feel his truth. Inspired by his personal life and the book “the little prince” he makes us feel a friction between the world and himself and the struggle he makes within this life.
He doesn’t make any great (political) statements with his work. What we see is more subtle and poetic, it is within the directness in the work that gives the viewer a feeling of discomfort that will stick with them throughout the exhibition.
Nuiten uses the reappearing image of his body as a tool. In the work “Boomerang I” and “Boomerang II” we can see the body as present and absent. We can feel the unnatural position the body is in and feel the struggle and pressure to perform. In the current time we all have a sense of pressure on everything we do, a need to prove ourselves and to perform on a level that is often to high to reach.
In the work “Only by gazing into the stars, you can see the past” you can see a similar uncomfortable position of the body. This work exists of a video shown on clothing of ex-lovers and one nightstands. We can see a part of the life of the artist that is almost too private, this can make you feel as uncomfortable as the artist must have felt while making the work. The work is so direct we are feeling his struggle in life and we can recognize a part of this in our own lives.
We can see by the use of different lens based media, performance, installation and text that this is part of his explorations. This gives him the opportunity to explore a broader field within the conditions of our existence.
Nuiten is telling us all the uncomfortable truth. Texy by Roeliena Aukema
