The fountain, underneath the viaduct over the Groesbeekdreef, consists of six life size self portraits (head to toe) of the artist posing as ‘Manneken Pis’. The colours of the “Pisseurs d’ Amsterdam” (red, white, blue, green, yellow and black) are based on the flags of Cameroon, The Netherlands and Belgium.
The description of the artwork by the Belgium-based Cameroon artist Tayou is short and clear: ‘Six fountain statues in my exact likeness, both my body and my face, in the pose of the famous Manneken Pis of Brussels. The figures will be placed under the bridge, their feet on the water’s surface.’ Tayou provides no further explanation about the rationale behind the figure. It is what it is: six self portraits of the artist as Manneken Pis.
Pascale Marthine Tayou uses a wide variety of materials and forms of expression in his work. He paints and draws, does collages, sculptures, installations and performances. Tayou’s sculptures are often richly decorated with objects he has found; junk that appear to have been picked up from the rubbish dump. His use of everyday objects, stacked up and repeated, gives his work an alienating quality. A central theme – one of many – in Tayou’s work is the light and playful manner in which he uses kitsch and folklore. He uses materials from African daily life and popular culture, playing with the clichéd images people have of his country of birth as well as his current resident country. Tayou weaves a host of different threads through his work in the most subtle way. Or even better, he lets us do the weaving. The ‘black man’ might represent the immigrant, his urinating the decay that has plagued the Bijlmer for so long. At the same time, it is an ironic self-portrait of an African artist who lives in Belgium. We could for instance find references to the Cameroon and Dutch flags in the colours used. Tayou gives new meaning to the transitional area under the bridge as a monumental frontier between the old and the new Bijlmer, the high-rise of the 70’s from the previous century and the low-rise of more recent times. But also to the pleasure of mixing and combining cultural clichés, especially in times when the debate about cultural identity is as serious and heavy as it is today.
Pascale Marthine Tayou
1967, Yaoundé, CM. Lives and works in Ghent, BE
Tayou belongs to a generation of African artists who are redefining post-colonial culture and blending the experiences of their origins with those of Europe, where they have made their home. Tayou’s work ranges from drawings, sculptures and installations to videos and performances. It raises uncomfortable questions about cultural and national identity and provokes existential reflections on subjects such as AIDS or the cacophony of city life. Africa is ever-present in Tayou’s work. In Import/Export, Tayou combined the logos of Cameroonian companies in a collage of stickers, photos, packaging labels and neon lights. These symbols of Western-style commerce are juxtaposed with typical African street markets in Fashion Street, a series of photos of local fabric and clothing merchants.
