WATERLOO FOREVER!

A fictionalised impression of the Battle of Waterloo, as it is created every year by more than 2000 reenactors in the same fields where the slaughter once took place. In heroic battlescenes, thousands of figurants try to act historically correct, with perfectly reconstructed costumes, horses, cannons and gunfire. But at the same time they can not resist to take pictures of themselves, to use their mobile phones and to smoke industrial cigarettes.
As in other recent works by Koen Theys, a lot of references to 19th century ‘pompier’ paintings can be detected. But using the form of a triptych, the historical film ’Napoleon’ by Abel Gance also comes in mind.
With this work, Koen Theys places himself in the tradition of Belgian artists like James Ensor and Marcel Broodthaers, who, in their time, made an actualised interpretation of that battle too. (Source: https://www.flandersimage.com)