Artist statement: My paintings often attempt to invoke a sense of separation or loss of the real, which flows from the realization that the modern world has lost a ‘fullness’ (or a ‘fuller-ness’) to spectacle and the superficial seductions provided by modern technologies and social structures. It can be said that humanity has fallen into an inauthentic state of being.

Heidegger (1889 – 1976) is famous for his analyses of the meaning of Being. In his book Being and Time (1927), he distinguishes between an authentic and inauthentic way of being. He argues that people, for the most part, passively find themselves in an inauthentic state of loss and separation from the real. He describes this state and the process that leads to this state as a process that begins with focus being shifted from the object to that which is claimed about the object. These claims are passed on and soon become groundless, which eventually results in an uprooted understanding of the world by those who take on these claims. Focus moves from the immediate environment and tends to float to that which is exotic, alien, distant and novel. People seek out the new, not to gain a deeper understanding of the object, but to be stimulated by its newness. However, this superficial understanding is acclaimed as profound, and ‘real’ understanding is taken to be eccentric and marginalised. This inauthentic world is seductive as people are anesthetised into thinking that it is secure, genuine and full. It is also characterized by hustle and frenzied activity, a constant curiosity driven search for the novel and exotic. Consequently, people are alienated from their immediate environment and from themselves. They have been caught up in the turbulence of inauthenticity.

The modern or post-modern era, with its modernisation of the environment and social structures through modern technologies is a catalyst for more intense manifestations of inauthentic ways of being. These modern structures are inherent in the images as they are produced by modern technologies. For Vivier, the act of painting these images, which, because of their inherent ‘modern-ness’, are symbolic of this inauthenticity, is an ironic attempt at the redemption of the ‘real’, and an expression of a desire to transcend or resolve this situation. The rather meticulous layering of colour in a scheme similar to that of a modern printer sets up a context of rigid mechanical impersonality, which can then be ripped apart and subverted from within by his innate human imperfection and a determined, if perhaps rather cautious, disregard for these rules.

The other participating artists: Lance Friedlande, Talitha Els, Cobus Haupt, Malose Pete, Katlego Modiri, Ronel Kellerman

Hosted by: Kievits Kroon
Curated by: Platform on 18th & Front room Art