Utopia - Jan Theuninck, 2016

nova insula Utopia

new world order

"De ellende komt nooit van de stratenmaker of de vuilnisophaler, maar altijd van hoogopgeleide intellectuelen. Die willen een utopie vestigen en zijn bereid om daarvoor elke prijs te betalen: vooral door anderen" (rabbijn Tamarah Benima) "The misery never comes from the road builder or the garbage collector, but always from highly educated intellectuals. They want to establish a utopia and are prepared to pay any price for it: especially through others" (Rabbi Tamarah Benima)

The painting "Utopia" (2016, acrylic on canvas) is part of Jan Theuninck's series addressing authoritarianism and societal control, listed alongside related works such as "Threat" (2016), "Conformity" (2017), "Brainwashing" (2018), and "The Culture of Learned Helplessness" (2011). It critiques the dangers of utopian ideologies that evolve into dystopian realities, often at great human cost. The work is associated with a quote from Dutch Rabbi Tamarah Benima: "They want to establish a utopia and are prepared to pay any price for it: especially through others." This statement underscores the ethical and human toll of pursuing idealized societies, echoing critiques of historical utopian experiments like those in totalitarian regimes.Regarding psychology, Theuninck's broader oeuvre incorporates psychological concepts, such as conformity (social pressure to align with group norms, as in Solomon Asch's experiments), brainwashing (manipulative indoctrination), and learned helplessness (a state of passive resignation from repeated adversity, coined by psychologist Martin Seligman). In the context of "Utopia," these tie into the psychological dynamics of utopian thinking: how individuals and groups may embrace grand visions of perfection, leading to obedience, groupthink, and the "banality of evil" (another Theuninck painting title, referencing Hannah Arendt's idea of ordinary people enabling atrocities through unthinking compliance). Rabbi Benima's quote highlights a related psychological facet—the cognitive dissonance or moral disengagement that allows people to impose costs on others for an abstract ideal, akin to phenomena studied in social psychology like bystander effect or authoritarian personality traits. This aligns with discussions in Holocaust-related literature (which Benima has engaged with) on the psychology of discrimination, obedience vs. resistance, and intergenerational trauma in second-generation Jewish communities.
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Modern totalitarianism uses data, surveillance, and algorithms to enforce compliance, potentially leading to transhumanism (merging humans with technology for "utopia").
cfr Prof. Mattias Desmet

global conscience - Jan Theuninck, 2016

Theunink's oeuvre can be seen as a visual exploration of the global conscience—a recurring motif in his work that addresses humanity's shared ethical burdens. For over two decades, he has depicted the "evolution of Western totalitarianism," critiquing shifts in political ideologies (e.g., the "Third Way" movements of the 1990s and 2000s under leaders like Clinton, Blair, and Schröder) and their role in fostering communitarianism and control over individual thought. He views his art and poetry as a "personal mission" against a society that polices consciences, where even nonconformity renders one suspect.

Jan Theuninck (born June 7, 1954, in Zonnebeke, West Flanders, Belgium) is a contemporary abstract painter and poet whose work deeply engages with themes of human conscience, historical trauma, and socio-political critique. His artistic practice blends minimalism and monochrome expressionism, often using acrylic on canvas to create stark, evocative compositions that provoke reflection on collective moral failures.

sleeping generation - Jan Theuninck, 2016

rear view - Jan Theuninck, 2016

Civilisation - Jan Theuninck, 2016

   a thin layer of.....

Art History: Belgian painting from the 20th century up to now: year 2016
La peinture belge du XXe siècle à nos jours: année 2016

http://www.graphiste-webdesigner.fr/blog/2013/04/la-peinture-belge-du-xxe-siecle-a-nos-jours/

Kunst ist der Spiegel der Zivilisation

Compassion - Jan Theuninck, 2016 / 慈悲宪章 - 2016

The Antidote: Universal Compassion
To counter the danger of an ethics manufactured by state or political systems, Theuninck points back toward foundational human empathy. As detailed in his piece Compassion, cataloged on Kunstwerkt, he maintains that a healthy moral framework must transcend individual political groups or religious boundaries, prioritizing the baseline dignity of every person over the demands of an abstract system. https://charterforcompassion.org/arts/arts/international-reflective-writing.html/title/belgium

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The Charter for Compassion
The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.
It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others - even our enemies - is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.
We therefore call upon all men and women ~ to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion ~ to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate ~ to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures ~ to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity ~ to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings, even those regarded as enemies.
We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global compassion.

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Des usages de la compassion (Le Monde Diplomatique, Décembre 2022)
https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2022/12/PIEILLER/65339

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Overview of the Painting "Compassion""Compassion" is an abstract painting created in 2016 by Belgian artist Jan Theuninck. It measures 70 x 100 cm and is executed in acrylic on canvas. Theuninck, born in 1954 in Zonnebeke, Belgium, is known for his minimalist and monochrome expressionist style, often addressing social and political themes such as pacifism, colonialism, and societal issues. His work draws influences from artists like Ellsworth Kelly and Joan Miró.Visual DescriptionThe painting features a bright yellow background with a central, irregular bean-shaped form outlined in thick black paint and filled with vibrant red. Positioned below and slightly to the right of this shape is a small, solid blue circle, evoking a sense of isolation or punctuation. The overall composition is simple and abstract, potentially symbolizing themes of emotion, suffering, or empathy through bold color contrasts and minimal elements. A small signature appears in the bottom right corner.Connection to the Charter for CompassionThe painting is directly inspired by and dedicated to the Charter for Compassion, an international initiative founded by Karen Armstrong in 2009. The Charter promotes compassion as a core principle across all religious, ethical, and spiritual traditions, urging people to treat others with justice, equity, and respect while working to alleviate suffering. The full text of the Charter, often quoted in descriptions of the painting, emphasizes restoring compassion to the center of morality and rejecting any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred, or disdain as illegitimate. This ties into the concept of "illegitimate violence," referring to acts or speech driven by spite, chauvinism, self-interest, exploitation, or incitement of hatred, which the Charter denounces as a denial of common humanity.Theuninck's pacifist leanings align with the Charter's call for empathy, cultural appreciation, and transcending boundaries to foster a peaceful global community. The artwork serves as a visual manifesto for these ideas, using abstraction to evoke reflection on human interdependence.

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https://web.archive.org/web/20230201165556/https://charterforcompassion.org/belgium

Belgium

Jan Theuninck

(1954-    )

Though born after World War II in 1954, Jan Theuninck finds himself writing about the war and its aftermath.  A poet and minimalist painter with a strong interest in social and political issues, Theuninck writes under his own name as well as the pen-name, ORC, a name he uses in honor of Raoul Wallenberg.  Although Dutch is his mother tongue, he often writes in French.  His work frequently appears in poetry journals and magazines internationally.

Shoah

 

wandering jew, damned jew

and no words on them are forbidden

suspected of crimes and treason

they have been put in jail

they have been tortured and murdered

in the name of an insane idea

and now - more than ever -

who is next, please?

 

Shoa

 

juif errant , juif maudit
et nul mot sur eux est interdit
traités de crimes et de trahisons

ils ont été mis en prison

on les a torturés et tués

au nom d’une infâme idée

et maintenant plus que jamais

a qui le tour s’il vous plaît ?

 

 

 

Yperiet

 

‘s avonds laat

vult een mist

Jde vallei

zonder te beseffen

verstikt hij ons

als een duistere macht

op de velden

liggen onze lijken

en onder het graseen bruine aarde.     

 

                                                       

Yperite

 

late at night

a mist

fills the valley.

without knowing

it suffocates

like a dark power.

on the fields

our dead bodies

and under the grass

a brown soil

 

Zuydcote 

 

the sun shines

on the dune

the bunkers hide 

the undesirable

all of them lose 

their innocence

lost blood 

on the beach

the sea...

guilty!

 

Auschwitz  

 

burned in the oven

I perished in smoke

the remaining ashes

are deep grey

 

Red River  

 

the train was too late

by foot it was too far

the river too nearby

the hatred too strong

bullets through your head

river of blood

red Danube

dead Budapest

 

This poem is about the elimination of approximately 20.000 Jews who fell victim to the fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest.  Today artwork depicted in the wikipedia article is a monument to them:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoes_on_the_Danube_Promenade. Text from the poem, Tyne Cot cut in the corten steel wall of the library in Zonnebeke, Belgium

© by Jan Theuninck

 

Tyne Cot

 

when you left

for the front

you were

living heroes

and now

you are on top

of the hill

where only

poppies

blow..........

 

Tyne Cot is the largest military cemetery of Commonwealth forces on the continent (WW1), the text is cut in the wall of the library in Zonnebeke, Belgium, a mile away from Tyne Cot : see photo at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_Cot

Hill 60 

 

poppies blood

on the green grass

on the hills of mud

away they pass

© by Jan Theuninck 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hill_60_(Western_Front)

 

Polygon Wood   

 

like a shrine

you lie

in the middle

of the wood

and warn

of those

who preach

peace

and make

war

  © by Jan Theuninck 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Polygon_Wood

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Frans Masereel

A pacifist in World War I, Frans Masereel, tried to make his art accessible to the ordinary man. His works were banned by the Nazis and widely distributed in Communist countries. But he rejected "political" art and party affiliation, condemning all enslavements, oppression, war and violence, injustice, and the power of money. We present here some of his many works and witnesses.

The painter and graphic artist Frans Masereel was born in the Belgian town of Blankenberghe in 1889. In 1896 he moved to Gent, where he began to study art at the "Ecole des Beaux-Arts" in the class of Jean Delvin at the age of 18. In 1909 he travelled to England and Germany, where he was inspired to create his first etchings and woodcuts.

From 1911 Frans Masereel settled in Paris for four years and then emigrated to Switzerland, where he worked as a graphic artist for various journals and magazines. His woodcut series, which were mainly of sociocritical content and of expressionistic formal concept, gave Frans Masereel international acclaim. Among them were his so-called image novels including "Passion eines Menschen", "Mein Stundenbuch", "Die Sonne", "Die Idee" and "Geschichte ohne Worte", which all date from around 1920. At that time Frans Masereel also drew illustrations for famous works of world literature by Thomas Mann, Emile Zola and Stefan Zwei.

In 1921 the artist returned to Paris, where he created his famous street scenes, the Montmartre paintings. From 1925 Frans Masereel lived near Boulogne-sur-Mer, where he painted predominantly coastal landscapes, harbor views and protraits of sailors and fishermen. During the 1930s the number of illustrated books and individual woodcuts decreased considerably.

In 1940 the artist fled from Paris and lived in several locations in Southern France. At the end of World War II, Frans Masereel was able to resume his artistic work, which had been lying idle for years. He created woodcuttings and paintings. From 1946 Masereel worked for several years as a teacher at the "Centre des Métiers d'Art" in Saarbrücken. In 1949 he moved to Nice. In the following years until 1968 numerous woodcut series appeared, which differed from his earlier "novels in images" as they were no longer based on a continuous narrative but on variations of a subject.

Source: http://www.fransmasereel.com/

Examples of Frans Masereel's Woodcuts

During the Great War, Frans Masereel joined in the fight to stop the war, a hopeless struggle, given the general fervour. Ink drawings and woodcuts were his instruments, and his engravings were brought together in collections Arise, You Dead and The Dead Speak which are unequivocal denunciations of the blood-letting. Masereel simplifies, brutalizes, contrasting black and white. He takes scenes and photographs from the newspapers and in a drawing style all of his own, he takes suffering to unbearable extremes. Or he uses a macabre and fantastic style with two headless bodies carrying their heads on a stretcher, one with a French képi and the other with a German helmet. It is madness everywhere, a madness against which Masereel knows he is powerless.

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Émile Verhaeren Emile Verhaeren was a Belgian poet, art critic and wrote short stories and verse plays. He was born at St Amand lez-Pueres, NC Belgium on May 21st of 1855.  He studied law at the University of Louvain and while there started a journal, La Semaine, which was suppressed by the authorities as well as the following work Le Type. He was admitted to the bar at Brussels in 1881 but soon began devoting his time to literature, writing in French. He was soon one of the leading figures of the Belgian literary renaissance.  His poetry hovers between powerful sensuality, as in Les Flamandes (1883) and the harrowing despair of Les Debacles (1888). Among his most notable works are La Multiple Splendeur (1906) and the five-part Tout la Flandre (1904-11). Source: PoemHunter.com: http://www.poemhunter.com/emile-verhaeren/biography/ In this play the Belgian poet, Emile Verhaeren, has voiced his hopes for the regeneration of human society. The city of Oppidomagne is beseiged by a hostile army, and the revolutionists in both armies conspire and revolt. The gates of the city are thrown open, and the end of war declared. A captain in the hostile army is speaking over the body of Hérénian, leader of the revolutionists in the city. I was his disciple, and his unknown friend. His books were my Bible. It is men like this who give birth to men like me, faithful, long obscure, but whom fortune permits, in one overwhelming hour, to realize the supreme dream of their master. If fatherlands are fair, sweet to the heart, dear to the memory, armed nations on the frontiers are tragic and deadly; and the whole world is yet bristling with nations. It is in their teeth that we throw them this example of our concord. (Cheers.) They will understand some day the immortal thing accomplished here, in this illustrious Oppidomagne, whence the loftiest ideas of humanity have taken flight, one after another, through all the ages. For the first time since the beginning of power, since brains have reckoned time, two races, one renouncing its victory, the other its humbled pride, are made one in an embrace. The whole earth must needs have quivered, all the blood, all the sap of the earth must have flowed to the heart of things. Concord and good will have conquered hate. (Cheers.) Human strife, in its form of bloodshed, has been gainsaid. A new beacon shines on the horizon of future storms. Its steady rays shall dazzle all eyes, haunt all brains, magnetize all desires. Needs must we, after all these trials and sorrows, come at last into port, to whose entrance it points the way, and where it gilds the tranquil masts and vessels.

The Cathedral of Rheims   He who walks through the meadows of Champagne  At noon in Fall, when leaves like gold appear,  Sees it draw near  Like some great mountain set upon the plain,  From radiant dawn until the close of day,  Nearer it grows  To him who goes  Across the country. When tall towers lay  Their shadowy pall  Upon his way,  He enters, where  The solid stone is hollowed deep by all  Its centuries of beauty and of prayer.  Ancient French temple! thou whose hundred kings  Watch over thee, emblazoned on thy walls,  Tell me, within thy memory-hallowed halls  What chant of triumph, or what war-song rings?  Thou hast known Clovis and his Frankish train,  Whose mighty hand Saint Remy's hand did keep  And in thy spacious vault perhaps may sleep  An echo of the voice of Charlemagne.  For God thou has known fear, when from His side  Men wandered, seeking alien shrines and new,  But still the sky was bountiful and blue  And thou wast crowned with France's love and pride.  Sacred thou art, from pinnacle to base;  And in thy panes of gold and scarlet glass  The setting sun sees thousandfold his face;  Sorrow and joy, in stately silence pass  Across thy walls, the shadow and the light;  Around thy lofty pillars, tapers white  Illuminate, with delicate sharp flames,  The brows of saints with venerable names,  And in the night erect a fiery wall.  A great but silent fervour burns in all  Those simple folk who kneel, pathetic, dumb,  And know that down below, beside the Rhine -  Cannon, horses, soldiers, flags in line -  With blare of trumpets, mighty armies come.  Suddenly, each knows fear;  Swift rumours pass, that every one must hear,  The hostile banners blaze against the sky  And by the embassies mobs rage and cry.  Now war has come, and peace is at an end.  On Paris town the German troops descend.  They are turned back, and driven to Champagne.  And now, as to so many weary men,  The glorious temple gives them welcome, when  It meets them at the bottom of the plain.  At once, they set their cannon in its way.  There is no gable now, nor wall  That does not suffer, night and day,  As shot and shell in crushing torrents fall.  The stricken tocsin quivers through the tower;  The triple nave, the apse, the lonely choir  Are circled, hour by hour,  With thundering bands of fire  And Death is scattered broadcast among men.  And then  That which was splendid with baptismal grace;  The stately arches soaring into space,  The transepts, columns, windows gray and gold,  The organ, in whose tones the ocean rolled,  The crypts, of mighty shades the dwelling places,  The Virgin's gentle hands, the Saints' pure faces,  All, even the pardoning hands of Christ the Lord  Were struck and broken by the wanton sword  Of sacrilegious lust.  O beauty slain, O glory in the dust!  Strong walls of faith, most basely overthrown!  The crawling flames, like adders glistening  Ate the white fabric of this lovely thing.  Now from its soul arose a piteous moan,  The soul that always loved the just and fair.  Granite and marble loud their woe confessed,  The silver monstrances that Popes had blessed,  The chalices and lamps and crosiers rare  Were seared and twisted by a flaming breath;  The horror everywhere did range and swell,  The guardian Saints into this furnace fell,  Their bitter tears and screams were stilled in death.  Around the flames armed hosts are skirmishing,  The burning sun reflects the lurid scene;  The German army, fighting for its life,  Rallies its torn and terrified left wing;  And, as they near this place  The imperial eagles see  Before them in their flight,  Here, in the solemn night,  The old cathedral, to the years to be  Showing, with wounded arms, their own disgrace.

real security - Jan Theuninck, 2016 真正的安全

security rhetoric under the false flag of an impossible right to security - zero risk doesn't exist !! - Health security rhetoric under the false flag
of an impossible right to health

Health security rhetoric: Le port du masque parasite nos fonctions cognitives à 3 niveaux : l’inconfort physique, l’absence de toutes les expressions qui complètent le verbal et enfin, un rappel constant à la pandémie, au danger, à la maladie, à la crise, aux privations dues à la Covid. C’est dans ce dernier registre que se joue l’affaiblissement de nos fonctions cognitives. Prof. Isabelle Barth(Chercheuse en sciences du Management)

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Context: Theuninck describes it as "security rhetoric under the false flag of an impossible right to security—zero risk doesn't exist!!" It critiques how governments or institutions use exaggerated threats to justify invasive policies, eroding freedoms under the guise of protection. This ties into broader anti-authoritarian motifs in his portfolio.

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Nos preocupamos por su seguridad

La "religion" sécuritaire
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Building the Permanent Security State

Alongside invasions, aerial bombing and drone attacks of eight Muslim nations since 9/11, the US, UK, and EU promulgated many new laws allegedly to fight the manufactured enemy of al-Qaeda in the homelands. The USA PATRIOT Act passed the US Senate with 98 votes for and one against six weeks after 9/11. It granted sweeping surveillance powers, legalised the indefinite detention of non-citizens, and reduced judicial oversight of government spying on citizens, and arbitrary arrests. Its provisions were subsequently renewed and remain in place. The US also created dozens of new security agencies after 9/11 including the Department of Homeland Security and NCTC.

Britain’s Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, rushed through the Westminster Parliament within weeks of 9/11, allowed the Home Secretary to detain foreign terror suspects indefinitely without charge or trial. This involved suspension of habeas corpus – the legal requirement that a person arrested for an alleged crime is brought bodily before a court within 24 hours of incarceration – which English law traces back to Magna Carta. Under the Anti-Terrorism act, sixteen men were held without trial at HMP Belmarsh, some for close to three years, before the House of Lords ruled in December 2004 that the power was unlawful, not because the emergency was unjustified, but because the power applied only to foreigners. Lord Hoffmann’s dissent went further: ‘the real threat to the life of the nation… comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these.’  Parliament’s response was not to relinquish the power but to extend it to British citizens as well, through a ‘control-order’ regime a High Court judge later called ‘an affront to justice.’ 

Agencies charged with administering the war on terror and the surveillance state have grown significantly since 9/11 in the UK as well as the US and other western "democracies". In the UK MI5 records show the Service doubling in manpower from roughly 2,000 in 2001 to around 4,000 today . Counter-terrorism now consumes two-thirds of MI5 activities, a growth the Service attributes to 9/11, and the 2005 London bombings...  

https://propagandainfocus.com/weaponising-religion-9-11-the-war-on-terror-and-the-permanent-security-state/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2026-09-12&utm_campaign=Propaganda+In+Focus+Newsletter

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Jan Theuninck is a Belgian abstract painter and poet (born June 7, 1954, in Zonnebeke, Belgium) known for his conceptual, politically charged works that critique societal issues, totalitarianism, ideology, and perceived manipulations of truth. His art often explores themes of power, propaganda, and human rights through minimalist, symbolic styles—typically acrylic on canvas, emphasizing stark contrasts, text overlays, and evocative titles. Theuninck's pieces draw from historical events (e.g., the Holocaust, Hiroshima) and contemporary controversies, blending visual art with commentary on freedom, censorship, and collective delusion. He describes his process as "live autopsies" of society, not nostalgic reflections, and his bio on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) highlights a pursuit of "lost truth" while opposing "thought prohibitions."

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refugee - Jan Theuninck, 2016

The UN Refugee Agency

https://www.unhcr.org/

The United Nations' World Refugee Day is observed on June 20 each year. This event honors the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence
https://www.un.org/en/events/refugeeday/

under embargo - Jan Theuninck, 2016

Molenbeek - Jan Theuninck, 2016

Glasnost / Гласность / Transparency - Jan Theuninck, 2016

Glasnost means to make the country's management transparent and open to debate…
 but it is not compatible with official blackmail practices
Гласность:  максимальной открытости в деятельности государственных учреждений и свободы информации. (Википедия)


We defeated the Soviets, meanwhile a Stasi culture engulfs Europe... (Jan Theuninck, August 2009)

Our past is your future / Notre passé est votre futur(Vladimir Boukovski):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM2Ql3wOGcU

Glasnost in 2021 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEkvD5To02U

https://arnolfini-mma.blogspot.com/2025/06/no71-jan-theuninck-b.html

Change - Jan Theuninck, 2016

Tout changer pour que rien ne change!

Change everything so that nothing changes
Cambiare tutto affinché nulla cambi...
Alles ändern so das nichts ändert ...
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....afin de satisfaire le désir de rupture partagé par de larges secteurs de la société mais sans remettre en question le statu quo.....(Raffaele Laudani, professeur d'histoire de la pensée politique à l'université de Bologne)


...to satisfy the desire to change shared by large sectors of society but without questioning the status quo ..... (Raffaele Laudani, professor of history of political thought at the University of Bologna)

an inconvenient truth….

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The phrase “tout changer pour que rien ne change” (change everything so that nothing changes) is the classic formulation from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s Il Gattopardo (The Leopard, 1958). It describes adaptive conservation—altering forms, personnel, rhetoric, or institutions just enough to preserve the underlying distribution of power, privilege, and structure.

Jan Theuninck (Belgian abstract painter and poet, b. 1954) works in a hard-edge/minimalist-to-monochrome style influenced by Ellsworth Kelly and Miró. His paintings and poetry are politically engaged: colonialism and its afterlives, the Holocaust, pacifism, conformity, brainwashing, surveillance, post-truth dynamics, and the hypocrisies of systems that outrun their own stated principles. Titles and themes such as Metamorphosis, Brainwashing, Post-truth society, Sustainable Dictatorship, and critiques of “New World Order”/communitarian management fit the motif of apparent transformation that leaves core relations intact. The subtitle on a work called “Change” aligns with his broader focus on how language and spectacle of reform can mask continuity.

“Change” functions as a floating signifier that can signal hope, rupture, or merely managerial recalibration. The same pattern appears elsewhere: crisis rhetoric that produces more of the same governance logic under new branding.

True metamorphosis (in the biological or Kafkaesque sense) is irreversible qualitative transformation, not cosmetic redesign. Much of what passes for “systemic reform” is closer to homeostasis: adjust variables so the system’s attractors remain stable. “Positive zeroes” evokes the illusion of net progress that registers as zero substantive shift—metrics improve on selected axes while underlying asymmetries or extractive logics persist. Philosophy of history and political thought have long tracked this: from Marxist analyses of bourgeois revolution as formal equality masking class power, through elite theories of circulation, to contemporary critiques of technocratic or “Third Way” governance that neutralize radical potential by absorbing it: Theuninck’s abstract visual language can be read as an attempt to make that continuity visible rather than narratively smoothed over.

The observation is sharp and diagnostic. Political language of “change,” “reform,” “reset,” or “metamorphosis” is routinely co-opted into adaptive preservation. Genuine structural shifts are rarer and usually require either sustained destituent pressure (mass withdrawal of legitimacy, parallel institutions, refusal) or exogenous shocks that elites cannot fully absorb. Superficial metamorphosis is the default of complex systems under stress; it explains why successive “transformative” moments often leave the same concentration of power, the same incentive structures, and the same patterns of exclusion intact—only better branded. That does not make every reform cynical or every call for change fraudulent. Incremental adjustments can matter, and destituent energy can open space for something different. But the historical and philosophical pattern Theuninck’s subtitle evokes, and that Laudani helps theorize, is real: the most effective way for an order to survive is often to appear to reinvent itself. Recognizing the difference between genuine rupture and managed continuity remains one of the central tasks of political judgment. (Raffaele Laudani is Professor of the History of Political Thought at the University of Bologna - Theuninck quotes or refers to the work and analyses of Laudani in the context of his own artworks.)