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A slimy pile of fish, nonchalantly deposited around a lamppost. Bas Oussoren (1993) enjoys creating confusion. Take these ceramic fish: they may look familiar, even vibrant and attractive with their gleaming, glazed skins, but combined with the lamppost, this set-up is bound to raise questions. What has happened here? What is this story leading up to? In the installation Yes, No Maybe (2025), this is how Oussoren captures our attention. His comical and light-hearted sculptures have a surprising way of making us see reality from a different perspective, while visualizing the ‘non-existent difference between fact and fiction.’ A world similar to the comic books of Oussoren’s youth, in which anything was possible and allowed to exist alongside each other.
Oussoren prefers to work in the public space. In Leiden, for instance, he created a classical archway in pastel colours, as if constructed from giant marshmallows. And last year, in Utrecht, he put up a five-metre-high ‘curl’ resembling the flourish of approval generally used to grade the work of Dutch schoolchildren. As if he is lending his personal approval to these surroundings. The lamppost at Prospects can be seen as a nod to the semi-public nature of the location. At the same time, the lamppost also serves as an illuminated pedestal. Combining this with the ceramics, Oussoren doe not only intends to supervise visitors, but also means to remind them of the age-old vanitas trope memento mori (remember that you must die). A pile of fish as a dazzling excess: fragile and fleetingly fresh.
Text: Esther Darley
Translated from Dutch by Marie Louise Schoondergang (The Art of Translation)