Pinball Wizard
The Life’s work of Painter, Sculptor and Graphic Artist Jacqueline De Jong at her former workplace—The Stedelijk.
Written by Callum Jackson
Creative Intern at VBAT
Last month I visited the ‘Pinball Wizard’ exhibition of the work and life of Jacqueline De Jong, painter, sculptor and graphic artist — at the Stedelijk Museum. I visited on the Friday late entry, the museum had a bustling atmosphere due to an International Women’s Day event taking place that evening.
The exhibitions name ‘Pinball Wizard’, comes from the proposed 7th edition of ‘The Situationist Times’ a magazine which De Jong was editor and publisher from 1962–68. The title also references The Who’s 1969 hit song. As well as displaying the unreleased edition and the six others, the exhibition features De Jong’s incredible body of work spanning several decades.
The exhibition curates her sixty-year career in chronological order—throughout the curation shows the connections between the work De Jong was interested in at the time and how it shaped her practice.
If you were to take on an overall view of her work you’ll notice she differs from many other artists in the fact she does not tie herself to one art movement or style but instead floats effortlessly between several, from expressionism to new figuration and on to pop art.
De Jong is a former employee of the Stedelijk Museum, where the pieces on display occasionally acted a basis for inspiration. Occasionally directly embedding the art itself in her paintings. In the piece ‘le professeur Althusser en etranglant’ (which translates to The professor Althusser strangling) she places two drawings from Wassily Kandinsky. As well as the art in the background, the piece is a mash-up between two new stories— the first a major news story at-the-time about Professor Althusser who had strangled his wife and was deemed not responsible due to a mental disorder and the second the death of the Wassily Kandinsky’s wife in a robbery gone wrong in a Swiss chalet.
In the mid-1960’s De Jong began using this darker, figurative style of painting. After witnessing a traffic accident involving a dog she started the series ‘Accidental Painting’ which then lead on to ‘Suicide Paintings’ after witnessing a man commit suicide from her studio window. Using distorted characters as subjects mixed with her own fantasy. Despite working with dark subject matters, there are undertones of humour throughout her work. She tries to make light of sometimes rather bleak topics, ‘Le professeur Althusser en etranglant’ being a perfect example of this.
De Jong, like many other artists, used her art for activism. In the 1960’s she became a member of Situationist International (a Marxist movement of artists) but was later kicked out of the group. This is when she began editing and publishing ‘The Situationist Times’.
“Our magazine is a semi-commercial (avant-garde) art magazine. For example, we previously had a publication about Labyrinth, one about chains and rings, one about weaving and braiding patterns, etc.”
Jacqueline De Jong used the magazine to express her interests, but also to convey political messages and ideologies on culture. The first issue documents the rift within the Situationist International in a belligerent manner. The fourth ‘Labyrinth’ edition gives De Jong the chances to go into detail on a subject matter she is passionate about—topology (the way in which constituent parts are interrelated or arranged). As well as featuring found imagery and text De Jong illustrates her own diagrams and analysis—to great levels of complexity. There are over four-hundred diagrams featured in the issue. Also featured in the issue is a floor plan of 1962 Stedelijk Museum exhibition ‘Dylaby’, in which the museum was transformed into a labyrinth.
“My work has changed so often in terms of theme, but I remain the same person”
De Jong’s style may not be for everyone's tastes—but her wide variety of art movements means there’s most likely something suited for everyone's tastes. The project which resonated with me most was ‘Pommes de Jong’, in which she took potatoes grown in her garden and left them for years-on-end till they had shrivelled down and spores had begun to shoot off. She then submerged them in molten 18-carat gold—preserving the unique form they had become forever. After noticing a picture of De Jong wearing one as a brooch and a quick internet search I found that they have been turned into a jewelry line. Creating a new form for the ornate objects.
“There’s something very humorous about coating an utterly mundane potato in gold.”
Her latest work and the last room of the exhibition runs on the theme of war, mainly conflict in Syria and Iraq. The paintings and pastels depict the depravities and casualties of the poison gas attacks—with eerie skeletal figures and pasted in Newspaper headlines which correlate with the tragic events. Continuing to use her art as a means of activism with dark undertones, as she has done throughout her life.
As I was about to leave the exhibition when I noticed a large crowd gathered around the entryway. I peeked through to see what the commotion was about, and there on a small stage was the artist herself giving a lecture. Sadly, my Dutch skills weren’t good enough to decipher what was being said and I could only pick up snippets from context, a nice way to end the exhibition. It felt almost like going to a movie screening and leaving to find the film star outside holding a Q&A.
If you want to check out the exhibition for yourself, it's on until mid-August. On the day De Jong’s exhibition ends at the Stedelijk Jacqueline will be awarded the Prix AWARE for Outstanding Merit at the Ministry for Culture in Paris, France.
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written by Callum Jackson , Creative Intern at VBAT
edited by Connie Fluhme, PR at VBAT
