A Conversation with the Gods

As I walked through Frans Franciscus's solo show, Twilight of the Gods, laid out across the rooms of Centraal Museum’s De Verdieping floor, with the artist himself, it became clear how much sense it made to present it there. Not only because it fits the space and the institution’s legacy, or because "de verdieping" (floor) also translates to deepening, but perhaps even more so because of a candid, personal connection that the Dutch painter has with this institution.

Franciscus grew up in Utrecht, basically around the corner from the museum. His childhood visits to the museum marked his relationship with art, and whether it’s Rietveld or Mondriaan and De Stijl or the Utrecht Caravaggisti, the exhibited works spanning 40 years of his career all have an indelible connection with those early experiences w art. This foundation also shaped his devotion to traditional elements such as the dramatic use of chiaroscuro or tenebrism, and the intensity of biblical scenes often depicted through that lens. So mixing that w his personal experience of growing up in a shifting but still queer-unfriendly environment of the 80s, and a deep love for the male figure and body, resulted in a body of work that is as timeless as it’s currently relevant. 

“It’s incredible for me to see these young artists speaking so openly about their bourgeois gay lives,” Franciscus mentioned at one point, thinking back to the way he had to navigate the idea of his work being seen as “homo art.” Often reinventing archetypal compositions and scenes such as the descent of Christ, the pieta, or even the last supper, Franciscus reflects on contemporary and personally important subjects in a slightly different way. He decidedly removes the sense of the divine and, employing a naive-like approach to anatomy, depth, and perspective, brings it closer to the human. This holds true in both his paintings and his more recent ceramic sculptures. Speaking to the painter’s life, life as an artist in general, and the violence he experienced as a queer person, his images subtly and flawlessly arrange memory, imagination, and references to the very edge of surrealism. Whether nodding to a place he stayed in Italy, Maasai tribesmen he met in Kenya, or masterpieces that impacted him, Franciscus patches these elements into a relevant story that has been unfolding for almost half a century. An evolution easily seen in the works on view and documented in a new book published on the occasion by Uitgeverij WBOOKS. —Saša Bogojev