"As a matter of fact, the video by Arthur Elsenaar was the only really convincing work. Through wires and electrodes his face is continually put in motion. The Varieties of Human Facial Expression (in which we can discern, if we watch closely and keep looking long enough, 4096 expressions of the face) is a specimen of a classical portrait. It is an exemplary piece because it throws a new light on the old esthetics when Remko Scha's software kneads his face. He seems to work in the tradition of F.X. Messerschmidt, the eighteenth century sculptor who made a series of busts with the most impossible facial expressions. Elsenaar shows expressions of pain and laughter, reflection and surprise, and all possible other mental and bodily experiences. These are not only the basic expressions of the modern human and the modern artist, but because of their artificial character they also say something about the existential sphere of the postmodern artwork. No doubt Elsenaar's pose also involves the sexual extasy which in other work here is hinted at, but shown in a somehow disguised way."

Paul Groot: "Nederland speciaal."
Metropolis M,
1998, nr. 2, p. 52.

 

 

 

 

 

Arthur Elsenaar

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