Senza Titulu, the title of Raymond Minnen’s solo exhibition in Everyday Gallery, apparently contains a typo. In reality, it is a willful and playful way to disrupt the meaningless Italian Senza Titolo (untitled), so often found in abstract paintings from the 1970s. It is emblematic of Minnen’s artistic approach: many of his works are seen to be a little naive, but the opposite is true, he unleashes small shifts in the meaning of a word or a symbol that have far-reaching consequences. This is often a way of questioning the existing order or criticizing power.
Raymond Minnen was born shortly after the Second World War into a working-class family in Balen, in the southern part of the Kempen. Apart from a short study period in the city of Antwerp at the end of the sixties, he spends most of his working life in his home region. The region has played an essential role in his work since the 1980s. At that time, Minnen developed a unique visual language that enabled him to provide an artistic commentary on the world at the end of the Cold War and on the region in which he is rooted. Humor and feigned naivety are important elements for providing social criticism.

Artists: Raymond Minnen