#satisfyingslime is the title of Emmeline de Mooij’s first exhibition at our gallery. The centrepiece is the sculpture Poging tot een Dutje (Attempt to Take a Nap) in which the visitor also becomes performer. An electrically-powered massage chair relates a story about the internet sensation ‘slime videos’ and ‘ASMR’. Slime videos are clips posted to Instagram that show a slimy substance being kneaded by a woman’s hands; some depict plastic objects disappearing into the gunk. The videos fall under the popular YouTube genre ASMR (Automated Sensory Meridian Repose), videos in which women address the viewer, whispering softly, and give them ‘personal attention’ by miming the act of hair-washing, or taking an optician’s eye test.

Emmeline de Mooij deals with themes such as loneliness, the elimination of the body from social processes, care, maintenance and repair, the spa and wellness culture, ‘emotional labour’, and the ‘inability to turn off the stand-by button’. Complicated themes to engage in through art, that she explores with an exquisite sense of poetry and humour.

The exhibition features videos, paintings, sculptures and drawings.

De Mooij has garnered attention both in the Netherlands and elsewhere with exhibitions such as Cure Park, Amsterdamse Bos (2017), Art in Therapy, Centraal Museum Utrecht (2016), Museum Kranenburgh, Bergen (2015) Photo Global, New York (2014) Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (2014), Facing And Touching Treatment Method, De Centrale, Brussel (2014), Legion TV, London (2013) and Daegu Photo Biennale, Korea (2012).

An essay on Emmeline de Mooij by Liesbeth Visee will appear in the February issue of Metropolis M.

Made possible by: Mondriaan Fond, AFK and TotalSeat