> archive. too sad to cry. mixed media. 2000-2001
silkscreened paper bags. television. dvd player. dvd video. plastic tub. waterpump. water. heartshaped plaster casts. taxidermied birds.
 
 
An anxious crowd of cloned bodies wear empty bags ready to face the world. They march without legs, rhythm at equal distance and yet the transparency of their body doesn’t weaken their implacability. Jasper Budel combines here self-participation and distance desexualising his own body in a straight-forward and pitiless way. His empty looks, 'too sad to cry', just like the title, stare at us - a straight forward look. Each look defies cruelty.

In the video installation tears drop down from the television. Stuffed black birds eat hearts that look more like pigs as if it were a comic dunghill. The face is the only thing that doesn’t smile or laugh. It is 'too sad to cry'. Too serious, too cold, too human... who could imagine that technology could make one cry - the valve of an oppressed suffering - stuffed stocked love which refuses to be a victim. The television cries but the man does not.