QUOTATION # 88.

ON THE NEED FOR EMPATHY.

SMILE OF MY DAUGHTER; GUY Woueté, spray paint on wooden sheet, 115 x 165 cm, 2010.

“Empathy is, from what we have inside of us, the one thing that enables humanity to live on.

We must learn again that sharing and commiserating with others’ difficulties is a form of investment that will certainly not inflate our bank account but can create added value that can bring more wellbeing around us.

I grew up in an environment where I was taught to appreciate symbolic gestures, to be available for others and the community.

And this is also present in my art practice.

Artists, through their work, through the aesthetic they propose, can be mirrors to society and witnesses of their time.

We are beings of reason, able to feel and to imagine ourselves in the shoes of others of our kind in order to tell, for them and for us, the complexity of our world, of being human.

There are plenty of beautiful things in this world, and I find it a shame that most human beings do not have access to them.

We can either put things into perspective, telling ourselves “c’est la vie” and that a perfect balance does not exist.

Or we can say no to this kind of relativism that furthers the system of commoditization, that considers us all as pure statistics.”

                                                                      GUY WOUETÉ.

SUR LE CHEMIN DE IMMIGRATION: Guy Woueté. Installation.
JAN 20: Guy Woueté. Installation.

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Guy Woueté lives and works in Douala Cameroon and Antwerp in Belgium.

His oeuvre is in video, sculpture and painting, intallations and photography.

Guy Woueté through his artwork engages in social criticism and the questions of immigration in the age of globalization; everyday life realities are his source of inspiration.

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