Advanced Conceptualization: "The Invisible Sunflowers of 2025" – A Subrealist Abstraction Between Historical Memory and Algorithmic Dystopia

1. Reinterpretation and Philosophical Legacy

My work, "The Invisible Sunflowers of 2025," is part of a dual lineage: that of Adrian Ghenie's Expressionist reinterpretation (Sunflowers in 1937) and that of contemporary post-digital heritage. By distorting Van Gogh's sunflowers under the stigma of Nazism, Ghenie created an allegory of censorship and cultural violence. My piece transposes this logic into a current context, where the invisibility of abstract artists by algorithms replaces the book burnings of 1937.

- Subrealist Abstraction: My hybrid technique (acrylic, photography, digital animation) blurs the lines between the tangible and the virtual, reflecting the forced dematerialization of art that does not conform to dominant digital trends.

- Dystopian Homage: Sunflowers, symbols of light in Van Gogh, become floating specters, erased by platform filters – a critique of "degenerate art 2.0," that is, what AI and social media no longer recognize as "valid."

2. Xanthopsia: Altered Perception and Digital Utopia

The title Xanthopsia (yellow vision) refers both to perceptual disorders (like those experienced by Van Gogh) and to the illusion of algorithmic positivity. Yellow, the emblematic color of Sunflowers, here becomes an artificial glow—the glow of screens that promise visibility while denying it to abstract forms.

- Duality and Coexistence: Just as Van Gogh captured the tension between beauty and melancholy, my work explores the tension between artistic preservation and digital obsolescence.

- Meditation on the Invisible: Minimal animation (frame by frame) evokes the flickering of data, an intermittent presence that recalls how abstract art struggles to exist in a continuous flow of standardized images.

3. Digital Subculture as Resistance

My work is rooted in a hybrid aesthetic (physical canvas + digital layers), reflecting the underground culture of artists circumventing algorithmic norms. This approach echoes movements such as Glitch Art and Post-Internet Art, but with a poignant historical dimension:

- Photographed Acrylic Painting: A gesture of preservation, as if the physical work were to be archived before its disappearance.

- Minimalist digital animation: An artificial respiration, symbolizing the precarious survival of abstraction in virtual space.

4. Conclusion: Van Gogh in the era of metaverses

By reactivating the dialogue between Ghenie and Van Gogh, I propose a critical archaeology of the present. The Invisible Sunflowers of 2025 is not only a work about censorship, but also about the systemic self-censorship induced by the logic of digital visibility. The Xanthopsia collection thus becomes a manifesto:

- Utopia: Believing that yellow (creativity) persists despite erasure.

- Dystopia: Noting that abstraction is the new "degenerate art" of platforms.

My reinterpretation goes beyond homage to question how art resists when it becomes "invisible" through algorithmic convenience—a crucial question for contemporary artists navigating between physical galleries and metaverses.

Implied References:

- Adrian Ghenie: "Sunflowers in 1937" (Part of a group of works exhibited at the Judin Gallery during the artist's Berlin Noir exhibition in 2014)

Original at : National Gallery London

reread acrylic painting on canvas : 48 x 71 cm

digitalised in :

2160 x 3840 px / 4k MP4 / 70.4 Mo / 5 fps / 1/1 édition

On @objktcom :
https://objkt.com/tokens/KT1SPfxmyYFdQtFdc8cr9o1Mgkc6RU3LBKHP/154