Niet Normaal www.nietnormaal.com
Curated by Ine Gevers

Difference on Display
16 December, 2009 - 7 March, 2010

Niet Normaal - Difference on Display is an art exhibition, but not in the traditional sense. It is more of an exploration, an investigation into the concept of normality within our contemporary society.

What is normal and who decides? The question weaves itself through the exhibition’s different sections.

People have a tendency to conform to what the majority would consider normal behaviour. Norms come into being on a daily basis, through practice, and are hardly ever explicitly addressed. Artists reflect our conformity and offer a critical view of what we, in contemporary Western society, take to be normal.

Victor Boullet will show three pieces from the ‘Kate’ (2002) series of photographs which documents the rhinoplasty of a young Jewish girl. Boullet considers this intervention to be the denial of what is commonly taken to be the physical manifestation of her creed.

The photographs document the period following the surgery and serve as a comment on the social and religious consequences of such actions.
Boullet is questioning the negation of an internal sense of belonging by redefining what is considered by the collective unconscious to be the externalisation of her identity. This changing of ones appearance exhibits a certain hypocrisy by attempting to deny a truth which can never truly be escaped.