Remy Jungerman

Promise IV (2018–2019) was inspired by shrines built by the Surinamese Maroons, a community of people of African descent who escaped enslavement in the former Dutch colony to settle in inland Suriname in the 18th century. In Promise IV, Remy Jungerman connects a variety of visual languages and influences that have relevance for him, incorporating the culture and traditions of his Surinamese Maroon ancestors as well as 20th-Century Modernism. 

Constructed out of wood, textile, threads, and nails, Promise IV also features a less easily identifiable material: kaolin. This white clay is used in Winti religious practices as a purification agent. The act of using this clay to coat religious objects or one’s own body brings worshippers closer to their ancestors, so they can ask them for help or advice. Jungerman derives the characteristic lattice and other graphic patterns from fabrics used for Winti religious practices, but his work also references De Stijl, for example in his use of color. Rather than taking Western art history as his sole departure point, Jungerman’s work reflects the multiplicity of traditions in which specific customs, visual elements, and patterns occur.

In homage to the conceptual artist stanley brouwn (1935–2017), who referenced his own private system of measurement in his work—a system derived from his own body and including units such as the “sb foot,” “sb ell,” and “sb step,”—in the nearly five-meter tall Promise IV, Jungerman utilizes brouwn’s units of measurement and adds two of his own (R = ½ Ell and J= ½ Step).