The Garden of Emoji Delights
Rechtstraat 27
In The Garden of Emoji Delights (2014), Carla Gannis brings Hieronymus Bosch’s iconography into the digital realm. Inspired by The Garden of Earthly Delights (1505), she reimagines Bosch’s anarchic and visionary world using the contemporary symbolic language of emojis. This new visual lexicon serves as a medium for Gannis uses to interrogate the excesses and desires of human nature in a technology-driven era. Like Bosch, she confronts the viewer with a world where sensory pleasure and moral ambiguity collide.
Bosch laid bare the human psyche in an era ruled by religious doctrine; Gannis, in contrast, explores the self in a boundless digital universe. Despite shifts in visual culture, our fundamental urges – desire, power, status, and the need to uphold a carefully crafted image – remain unchanged. By using emojis to remix Bosch’s religious and allegorical symbolism, she dissects our obsession with consumerism, self-presentation, and fleeting communication. And in manner akin to the late medieval master, Gannis masks her critique behind a vibrant and seemingly playful façade.
Thanks to W. Sommer en Zn BV en BRCK bedrijfsmakelaars.