April fool, 2020

The visual narrative of April Fool 2020 gives shape to the emotions and images that paralyzed me after we all suddenly woke up in the surreal nightmare of this pandemic.

Fear and powerlessness have dominated me for a few weeks now; I feel like an insignificant extra in some morbid film, the conclusion of which is entirely unknown.

The plane in which we are all sitting has lost its engines – the benevolent silence is only a harbinger for what is still to come.

The supermarket shelves, emptied by hoarders, made me realise that for decades I have assumed that everything would always be there, that our dancing on the volcano’s edge would never end.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and here I stand, my mouth full of teeth.
Vacantly I walk around, waiting for the utter unknown, afraid of an enemy that I cannot see, and who I fortunately cannot feel yet.
The house of cards is collapsing, and we are all the joker.

Erwin Olaf
22 April 2020, Amsterdam


Post Covid 19, a special exhibition by Erwin OLAF, April fool 2020