Edwin Janssen

Narcissus and the Pool of Corruption

The exhibition project “Narcissus and the Pool of Corruption” was presented at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, in 1995 and emerged from my interest in museum culture and artist-led curatorial practice, and was partly inspired by a quote by Georges Bataille in which he expresses his view of the museum as “the colossal mirror in which man, finally contemplating himself from all sides, and finding himself literally an object of wonder…”

The installation brought together works from the museum’s collection with borrowed and replicated artworks, photographs, and photocopies. Using display structures such as storage racks, pinboards, and mirrors, the installation critically examined museum culture, art-historical classification, and cultural recycling. Influenced by artists and thinkers including Joseph Kosuth, Peter Greenaway, Hans Haacke, Walter Benjamin, and Mieke Bal, I explored questions of aura, value, authorship, and the ways exhibition design and cultural context shape the interpretation of artworks.

The texts in the accompanying publication were written by Hanneke de Man and Mieke Bal.