The No Problem Show 15

Filip Gilissen’s theme is contemporary society, in which everything turns around success and margins of profit. His works glitter, shining like gold, and are frequently based on advertising slogans and images. Happenings, performances and installations are for Gilissen a means of analysis of a meaningless search for happiness. One of these installations is the faux-naïf “No Problem Show”, made up of flickering neon tubes: with the help of a magic wand, dice, playing cards, a dove and glittering stars are conjured out of a top hat, always in the same order. Tirelessly, the sensation of the moment suprême is repeated; however, the repetetion inevitably leads to an anti-climax. The installation is also an ironic comment on the modern art scene, in which curators, art critics, gallery owners and collectors are constantly chasing the new, and even artists are obliged to be perpetually ‘innovative’ in order to survive in the art market. Gilissen destroys the illusion of the ‘genial artist’, but he destroys also the expectations observers project onto a work of art. For “Blickachsen 10” “The No Problem Show” has been installed on the Brunnenallee in the Kurpark – tellingly, very near to the Bad Homburg casino.