Edwin Janssen

Theatrum Mundi I

Inspired by Erasmus of Rotterdam’s In Praise of Folly, this installation was created for the Wiener Secession, Vienna, Austria, incorporating an actor in the role of a jester.

Theatrum Mundi, developed specifically for the exhibition, combined a diagram from my Monkey Business project, a video fragment depicting a dramatized chimpanzee burned at the stake, and a live performance by the actor as a fool.

The work was presented as part of Oppositionen und Schwesterfelder (1993), an exhibition curated by Sabine Vogel and accompanied by a publication, which brought together a group of young artists united by an interest in everyday reality and its transformation into aesthetic explorations of social and political concerns.