Peter Krynen

Pinball machine and other things

Installations and ceramics

September 23, 2023 to November 4

Opening September 23, 2:30 PM by poet Menno Wieringa.

The focus is on a work that Peter Krynen created especially for this exhibition, which is inspired by a pinball machine. As a student, he regularly played these noisy machines with refined and sensitive analog techniques where he had a very physical influence on the course of the game. Stomping, pushing and shaking the cupboard until “TILT” lit up in the window.

On the back of the pinball machine it is written; “Thinking about thinking gives a feeling of serenity”. It is a quote from the writer WG Sebald, a walker, a slow traveler, a viewer, a contemplator. Krynen recognizes that seeking serenity by thinking: he likes to keep control and regularly goes into 'solution mode'. But he also felt serenity during the pinball game, with friends and beer, where problems were solved in the sound of the pub. Serenity there is like stepping outside yourself, a film, a mirror.

The males that figure in his work were created around 2000. At that time they had an egg-shaped head without facial expression. Four years ago, Krynen made a few masks and covered them with an elastic band for an egg-shaped head. Everything then suddenly fell into place; “masks, rubber bands, interchangeable identity, 'I am someone else', life as a stage, as a game, who am I and am I always that person?” These masked figures play their role in a strange, chaotic, sometimes burlesque and always surprising performance.