To Kaspar Dejong (1995), traces of human presence in the public space — weathered walls, elephant paths, posters, or street litter — form an important source of inspiration. During his rambles through the city he documents these, as well as scenes affected by time, like walls with weathered paint, cracks in the road, or greenery sprouting up between paving stones. They often make up unintended compositions, or ‘street still lifes’, that Dejong transforms into sculptures, paintings, and installations in his studio. In doing so he is interested in the various layers hidden within the image. They remind him of palimpsests: reused pieces of parchment sometimes still containing visible traces of earlier use. The same applies to city walls tagged with graffiti that are cleaned to, unintentionally, make room for new traces. Dejong: “This ultimately leads to a dialogue in the public space and a new composition on the wall.”
The triptych included in Prospects shows how Dejong is constantly finding new ways to incorporate the urban space in his work. An example of this is a section of a fence filled with stickers which he presents as a readymade — a Gesamtkunstwerk many people unwittingly collaborated on. But he also shows panels for which he translated the traces into his own handwriting. He invites us to look closer: not only at what is and was, but also at Dejong’s new constellation. The sculpture, a life-sized readymade that would not look out of place as a roadblock, here shows the unexpected beauty and power of the everyday.
Text: Esther Darley
Translation from Dutch to English: Marie Louise Schoondergang