Rob Scholte - BIG! -2006- Silkscreen -The Fear!- limited edition (50/111) pencil signed

• Very large silkscreen by Rob Scholte. Title: The fear! Year: 2006. Edition: 50/111 Dimensions sheet: H122 x w80cm. Dimensions image: H69.5 x w70cm. The work is signed, titled, dated and numbered by the artist in the white margin at the bottom. The authenticity of this work is fully guaranteed.

Rob Scholte is a representative of postmodernism. And if everything in history has already been done, you can quote and combine to your heart's content in a personal mix of layers and dizzying jokes that Scholte himself calls "meaningful cubism". Scholte's work largely revolves around the media, their effect on us and how they can be manipulated. Underlying themes are value, money and power. He provokes in an elusive way: for example with the idea of the artist who can print money like a bank, expressed in his series of silkscreen prints about monopoly money, meanwhile sprinkling quotes such as: "I am as commercial as the plague!" Media expressions often serve as inspiration. For example, in an early work he meticulously painted a newspaper article with criticism of his working methods as an artist. Scholte often takes an image from the mass media and provides it with a completely new context. The distinction between high and low culture is irrelevant here. Art and real life can come very close to each other, just like in Scholte's hero Duchamp, but from a meaningful context. Woven rugs based on the “crying gypsy girl” can just as well form the basis for his work as a quote from a painting by Manet or Titian. As a collagist, for example, he processes packaging of consumer goods into compositions. Advertising brochures and the Copyright sign also formed the basis for his paintings. Reproducibility was a plus for Scholte in this respect. He makes an initial selection from his image archive and comes up with a plan. Together with his assistants, he works out this plan in a traditional way into an often reproducible new image that he then provides with a signature. Scholte does not see his role as an artist as that of a tormented genius who works alone in an attic room on incomprehensible masterpieces, but as that of someone who is in the prime of life. He wanted to break with the generation of artists before him, such as Jan Dibbets, Stanley Brouwn and On Kawara. Just like one of his great examples: Max Ernst, he sees not finding himself, not committing himself to an endlessly repeated personal style as an important quality. He continually pushes his boundaries to new elusive horizons, leaving art criticism (hopefully) confused. This may also be done with a wink. As far as Scholte is concerned, humour is essential and Laurel and Hardy are at least as great philosophers as Wittgenstein. He also transforms autobiographical elements into new images, such as in his series “Bergensche School – 13 village views”, which has a link with his youth: he grew up in villages in North Holland. Craftsmanship and craftsmanship are also essential to Scholte. Yet Scholte's work is not without a message. The new context of an image can also express a critique, for example. The combination of layering and the almost complete absence of a personal signature in the technically advanced execution is a commentary on the cult of deeply feeling personal emotions in artists from previous generations. The technically perfect execution leads to an alienation that gives the work an almost anonymous quality and is therefore a commentary on the artist myth. The use of assistants is also part of this, or the use of projection and computer modeling as aids. At the same time, a technically perfectly executed Vermeer is also capable of letting you experience something else: a layering that does not at all stand in the way of the technical execution. Just as a Rembrandt that happens to be largely executed by Gerard Dou can still be a Rembrandt: an expression of his vision of the work.