G.W.M.Q.F.A.S 2017

The General World Magazine for Quackery, Fraud, Arts and Sciences

(G.W.M.Q.F.A.S)

The focus in Eikelboom’s practice is often characterised by the striking imagery but it’s primarily about the interspace; an interlude in where meaning is given to a range of possibilities and combinations, the point that is susceptible to multiple interpretations. This language speaks of the gap between culture and its codes, from high to low.
Through the imagery and the use of specific materials Eikelboom creates a tendency between derogation techniques and honesty. There is always something behind the work that is not revealed on the surface. We are never sure if the image gives us satisfaction or makes us critical.
In the same two-way way, Eikelboom undermines the artistry. In the project G.W.M.Q.F.A.S the metaphor of the quack (a fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill) runs subject. Comparing artistry to quackery seems like stepping onto thin ice, and that’s what Eikelboom wants. Since art is the place to stimulate different ways of looking and applaud ambivalent opinions it is matter to shape internal polarities and to conquer conventions within the world. Quacks were known for shouting in loud voices to sell their wares at the market, this is comparable to that what Eikelboom conceders to becrucial for a healthy art practise. ‘Art doesn't need to be responsible, that’s not its job.’
Eikelboom is showing a series of paintings/collages that are made with magnets. The magnets are here to confront the spectator (here too the appurtenant) to fill the artist’s shoes by allowing them to intervene in the composition. A similar approach isused in the Liberal Picture Service XS (LPS) where observing and listening places you in the role of the picture maker. Eikelboom describes the LPS as a pseudoscientific, conceptual, free association machine inspired by the ever-increasing amount of images we deal with daily.
All this is a gateway that provides a wave of meaning that can only be given form to through the consciousness of the spectator. And that raises questions; is Eikelboom’s shared artistic inner world a form of quackery or does the fraud take place outside of the world of his imagination?
- October, 2017