Let us be us (2012)
NEON LETTERS AND MIRROR
In the neon sculpture Let us be us , Lieven De Boeck confuses his viewers. The reduction in scale makes it unclear whether we are dealing with a museum room containing a gigantic neon sculpture or a small box containing a light sculpture. The confusion is also in the linguistic realm: the title of the work does not correspond to the text we can read in neon. The artist magnifies this semantic uncertainty even further by providing his room with a mirror floor on which the reflected phrase becomes completely illegible. By challenging the meaning of the word “us,” De Boeck raises an essential question about identity formation. Exactly that question about “identity” held Belgian politicians hostage in 2010-2011 when it took 541 days to form a government. De Boeck refers to that difficult situation by giving his neon sculpture the Belgian tricolor.