Josephine’s Well

“Nowhere in the work of Arent Weevers does our paradoxical relationship with the Other, whom we reach towards and whom we desire, but whose radical otherness we have to accept, come so clearly to light as in Josephine’s Well. The 3D stereoscopic installation, a 3.5-minute loop, shows a young girl with blonde hair who slowly floats upwards from the depths. After some time, a second and a third girl follow. One by one they direct their gaze upwards and then disappear into the darkness. Then a naked woman appears – also with long blond hair. She floats towards the viewer with an outstretched hand, so close that she almost seems to break through the virtual floor.

The work evokes very conflicting emotions in the viewer. Your first impulse is to want to touch the woman and at the same time you realize that the image is pure illusion. The viewer knows only too well that the woman is part of another world. For one moment she seems to breaks free, although the viewer knows she can never really bridge the gap. The inability to really touch or embrace has a painful side. The floating woman, with her perfect, naked body, is like a ghost from the underworld, as Eurydice was for Orpheus. The desire that does not end with death.

Neither the lost love, nor the resurrection from the dead is addressed thematically. Arent Weevers has undressed the ‘anastasis’ by omitting direct references to love and death. Because of her perfect, doll-like body, the woman is anonymous amid the dark environment; she becomes the personification of desire itself. An image of a desire that transcends all dimensions.”