‘Another Day in Treaty Town - Koen Theys’

Another Day in Treaty Town is a contemporary European western. A saloon, a covered wagon, a campfire, a couple turkeys and a wooden grandstand appear in a sun-drenched Flemish landscape. The grandstand is filled with cowboys and indians. Dignitaries from both sides are smoking the peace pipe. They are flanked by men cleaning their guns or sharpening their knifes. In front of the saloon, a couple of women wait for clients. The ceremony continues while night falls... Another Day in Treaty Town is part of an ongoing series by Koen Theys that takes a critical look at the phenomenon of the uniform as an expression of cultural identity.
 
Koen Theys (°1963) belongs to a generation of visual artists exploring and appropriating narration in video-art as early as the 1980s. In his photographic, videographic and sculptural work, he deconstructs Western cultural icons by manipulating them via displacement, doubling and/or morphing until they become reversals of themselves. In Another Day in Treaty Town, he comments on contemporary mores by strategically playing with time and anachronisms.