Zdzislaw Beksinski & Elisa Seitzinger
Be careful, there is a war going on. The battlefield is your mind, the target your soul.
- Prince, 1999 -
Prince's phrase which stands out as the subtitle of this page can well introduce and masterfully summarize all the artistic production of this truly visionary and delirious character, one might say, but I prefer to define him as concrete and courageous.
Artist with strong colors Zdzislaw Beksinski, very strong, not in purely chromatic terms but rather in terms of contents and messages that may appear disturbing or outrageous but which, like it or not, reflect our real daily experience. This artist has captured the essential nature of our existence, even if he can be particularly hard to accept for those who are ignorant of certain topics and for those who live in the matrix without any awareness of it.
Artist with a troubled and complicated life, but a troubled life is not a justification, it is not strictly a "cause", it is rather an opportunity, an experience that corrodes your ordinary vision of the ordinary world, allowing you to glimpse its underlying structure. They are experiences that make the masks fall, and reality shows itself for what it is, and that you can perceive precisely thanks to your experiences that have marked you, made you suffer, but also have "taken the ham out of your eyes".
After reading about psychic energies, subtle bodies, egregore and energy fields, after reading stories of religions and mythologies, where gods and divinities are artfully created and manipulated at the pleasure and satisfaction of those who pull the reins of the world (and not certainly politicians, governments, lobbies or religious leaders, all these are just the first front, the facade), after having drawn on conspiracy theories of all kinds, having "accidentally" come across the images of this artist was like a revelation, a sum of knowledge condensed in the lines of these very profound drawings. It is as if Zdzislaw removed, perhaps without much grace or delicacy, the "veil of pork", uncovering Pandora's box!
Our world, our concept of reality, is entirely illusory and artfully constructed to keep us tied to this illusion, all ancient philosophies say so, quantum physics confirms it. You may like it or not, I hardly think you will like it, but certainly, when reality is crudely thrown in your face, it cannot leave you indifferent, then all that remains is to treasure these glimmers of knowledge, these saving visions, and begin to change something, and that something, that change, can only happen within us, and if it happens it can trigger a chain reaction and perhaps give rise to a new renaissance of the human race. But perhaps this is just utopia, it would already be a great honor to defend one's soul, a great achievement to be able to save it.
Allow me a small digression in this regard on what the crucifix really represents and means, just to give you a vague idea of the symbolism of the world that surrounds us and chains us. The cross represents the institution of the Church, the character nailed above represents each of us: well this man has his hands and feet tied, nailed to the cross, meaning that he cannot do what he wants or go where he wants, but he can just do and go where the Church to which he is linked says. He has his head bowed, as a sign of submission, and on his head is a crown of barbed wire, which is not exactly the crown of a king, but rather a fence, the fence in which his thoughts are confined, he is not allowed to think freely , but his thoughts are forcibly relegated within that well-guarded enclosure. Finally his side, pierced by a blade until it reaches the heart, to fatally wound the most vital part of the being, the heart, seat of the soul. But if we don't want to grasp the symbols that surround us and shape reality from within our mind, we can easily put the ham back on our eyes and go back to being satisfied with that pre-packaged theater that we inappropriately call life, and dismiss these drawings as degenerate art. .
The greatest deception is precisely this: everything is clear and evident all around us, there is no secret, yet we don't see it, and if we see it we don't believe it, this is the true strength of our enemies, the 'deception, achieved through our own minds. Because we don't believe it, but they do, and they know well how they work and what the powers of our minds are.
But don't you ever have doubts? What if it were instead our life that had degenerated? What if we were living a life like farm animals? Succubi who let their energy be sucked out? Who let their souls be raped in exchange for some comfort or some social prestige? That we prostitute ourselves every day for a few crumbs, like little ants? What would be more degenerate? Live respecting yourself or sell your soul to the devil?
Let's look at the opening image: the one in the background, the scene of battles and destruction, is our world, our everyday life, the fruit of our lifestyles based on competition, greed, struggle and the desire to appear and excel , think about our cities, our streets or our workplaces, they are often not very different from that red hell painted in the background. Then observe those ugly, skeletal beings, because they are now deprived of their vital, soul energies, which look like ants, insects, but if you look carefully they have vaguely human features, but who cares? What's the difference ? Are our lives really that different from those of insects? All lined up to follow the mass, to eventually be swallowed up by some supreme superior entity whose existence we are completely unaware of, because no one dares to raise their eyes to look! These images, highly symbolic and very profound, truly say more than a thousand words!
Let's also look closely at this other drawing, what exactly do you see ?
I'll tell you what I see: I see a woman sitting on a chair inside a squalid room, well that room is the world, it's her world, our world, from the open door you can glimpse the whole world out there, but the woman spends her life in that room, which she is convinced is the world, ignoring what is out there, because she is too busy with her pastimes and her enjoyments. She sits on that chair which is all her power, an ephemeral power, queen of a room full of waste, while the world and life are out there. But there is much more: her pleasure device is connected to a wire, someone provides it to her and gives her energy to make it work, that someone can be glimpsed just beyond the threshold, this woman (who represents all of us, women and men without distinction) is not aware of what she is doing, she thinks she is acting for her sole pleasure, instead she is a pawn, she is a sort of human battery, with her pleasure she produces an energy that someone else takes nourishes. She doesn't see the character beyond the threshold, caught up in his ecstasy, she probably doesn't even see the world out there, and if she does she doesn't care, she is queen of her world, sitting on her elegant stool like a throne, queen of a dingy room full of rubbish.
Try to think about it, are our lives so different from the reality represented by this scene? Imagine replacing the device of pleasure with anything else, with sport, beautiful cars, designer clothes, a bank account, beautiful lovers, academic qualifications... life and the universe are still the outside, and whoever provides you with your favorite toys is still out there, it's just us in the enclosure pushing each other.
But so? So I'm part of a revolution, but not with pitchforks, those are just stagings that are part of a script already seen and revised, and which doesn't work, but an internal revolution, a return to the meaning and value of beauty, of simplicity and a rapprochement with Nature, a total immersion in it to regain memory and awareness of who we really are. Re-establish a connection with the energies of Nature, and not just the material nature of our planet, because ultimately we are still children of the stars, and we miss this connection, now more than ever.
Elisa Seitzinger
"Typography is a hidden tool of manipulation within society"
In the period in which I met this artist, in the moment in time in which I was mulling over these images and reading books on similar subjects, walking through the streets of Parma, one morning when I had an hour to spend waiting for an appointment, I came across in some images that attracted me and captured me from afar, it was the poster of an exhibition of an artist that I honestly, in my total ignorance, didn't know at all. Intrigued, seeing as the exhibition was still ongoing and it was just a stone's throw from where I was, I decided to drop by, and it was a shock. Right from the start, the enigmatic figures of this artist, Elisa Seitzinger as she is, introduced me to a magical, multidimensional, fantastic world, but at the same time full of dangers and pitfalls. Although stylistically completely different from Beksinski's works, in their essence I found a great commonality of content, a subtle affinity. It was a pleasant discovery, a piece that enriches my mosaic. In seeing the exhibition, I found all my reflections in it, all the questions that in a perhaps very confusing way I also tried to condense in these lines of mine. I don't claim to teach anyone anything, but only to tell about my lost experiences, my wanderings, so that perhaps they can offer some food for thought for someone.
Her beautiful images, elegant and delicate in stark contrast to those of Beksinski, are rich in archaic, alchemical, mystical and esoteric symbolism, and closely resemble the visionary world of Tarot and its symbolism, in fact the artist herself drew some a beautiful deck that could not fail to enter my collection.
For further information, I leave you the link to his interesting profile >>>