In his work, Kim Hospers is continuously searching for the true meaning of entertainment and the game media and
media-consumers play together. In his earlier work the artificial additives to image were his main interest. Now the value of what
is actually presented has become to play a leading role. Media offers spectacular imagery, all to gain viewers. This results in a
monstrous flow of images with nearly identical intensity.
Everything is presented with a disproportional amount of theatricality, only to intrigue the viewer. Regardless the actual
weight, everything can be sold as a ‘spectacle’. The death of hundreds of soldiers in Iraq, the bad love-life of a mediocre
popular singer, a vacuum cleaner that even sucks-up nails, or the long-expected cure for cancer. On condition that it is presented
in the right way, all these things can be regarded an enormous ‘spectacle’. Everything can be AMAZING!
By reproducing these images in motionless media they can be revaluated. In this process of rebirth of the image Hospers tries
to conserve characteristics of the original context (the artificial additives). These form the scars of the new images, which remind
the viewer of the origin. Besides that, because of the new appearance, the new images are alienated from the origin and
context they were in.
In Hospers new series around the person of Saint Claire (or Clare) Hospers continues his search from the perspective of the
woman who was, without knowing it, declared as the patron saint of one of the “guiltiest” media of all.
In 1958, Pope Pius XII designated her as the patron saint of television, This because, when she was too ill to attend Mass,
she had reportedly been able to see and hear it on the wall of her room. But what would she think of the television?
What would she think of what it shows us? Would she like to be associated with it, and the almost religious bond and dedication
some people feel for it?
