COBRA

Recently I reviewed untitled/. {COBRA voor bij de koffie} (COBRA for the coffie-table) a conceptual piece that I started in 2003 (for more info, click here)

It's main and central element is that of play. I wanted to create an experience of spontaneous and creative people at play, in whatever way their inspiration takes them. How could this be made possible? How would it be a healthy balance between construction and destruction, and how to make sure that it remains a collaborative effort, where every one gets a maximum range of expressing and action?

I realise these days that is was also a pre-lude and a preparation that lead me to »les enfants du paradis« A successful realisation of COBRA is a state of Paradise, and that this is something I want, as an individual, also as a creator and an artist.

When I re-read the statements of those artists that created the original CoBrA art-movement in 1948, many of them are at the heart of what I think is possible now, it only takes a more thorough and wide-spread change of mind from insight, not force.

That yes, we can live in paradise, all that was originally needed was there. This is in sharp contrast to the state of the planet's human population today (as of 2007) Too many of us live in poverty and terribly hostile life-conditions, without having chosen to do so, which is completely unnecessary and could very easily be helped.
(see for example the section did-you-know? at www.whiteband.org)