April Is The Cruellest Month
TONI AREAL, ROOM 5K09 GALERIE 2
THE ROOM IS BOOKED FROM:
13.04 - 19.04 (2026)
The opening line from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land published in 1922 serves as the title and
inspiration for this exhibition. The ruins post-WW1 and a global pandemic (1918-1920 flu
pandemic) form the context of the line as resonant and post-catastrophic.
The line acts as both prophecy and cliche. It is prophetic in the sense that it points to the coming
of spring as a force which violently stirs us out from the inertia of an undead winter. It is cliche in
the sense that seasons, their metaphors, even the poem itself are nothing new to us, they have
been in circulation for too long. Plenty of coincidences can be noted from the context of the
poem to the here and now, these parallels are themselves part of a culture burnt out from its
excesses and self-observation.
This exhibition allows several ways to explore and confront its title. The title operates as a poetic
device and absolutist claim. In this way an affective and critical dynamic is established, in which
a yearning for emotive participation meets critical distance and caution.
“April Is The Cruellest
Month” opens up several thematic possibilities, these are situated and renewed in a
contemporary problematic of
...
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April Is The Cruellest Month
TONI AREAL, ROOM 5K09 GALERIE 2
THE ROOM IS BOOKED FROM:
13.04 - 19.04 (2026)
The opening line from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land published in 1922 serves as the title and
inspiration for this exhibition. The ruins post-WW1 and a global pandemic (1918-1920 flu
pandemic) form the context of the line as resonant and post-catastrophic.
The line acts as both prophecy and cliche. It is prophetic in the sense that it points to the coming
of spring as a force which violently stirs us out from the inertia of an undead winter. It is cliche in
the sense that seasons, their metaphors, even the poem itself are nothing new to us, they have
been in circulation for too long. Plenty of coincidences can be noted from the context of the
poem to the here and now, these parallels are themselves part of a culture burnt out from its
excesses and self-observation.
This exhibition allows several ways to explore and confront its title. The title operates as a poetic
device and absolutist claim. In this way an affective and critical dynamic is established, in which
a yearning for emotive participation meets critical distance and caution.
“April Is The Cruellest
Month” opens up several thematic possibilities, these are situated and renewed in a
contemporary problematic of suspicion, performativity and plurality. The title is relevant as a
loaded term expressing the tension of the real, the impactful and unavoidable in relation to
historicity, contingency and discourse.
Participating artists:
Pedro Redard
Girbe Voogd
Leonardo Galassi
Arya Rambod
Veljko Mrvic
Kiki Chan
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