The exhibition Circular Tragedy by Jacopo Koning blends digital elements with hand-drawn illustrations to explore the chaos of contemporary reality. Through an artistic language inspired by Dadaism and Surrealism, Koning challenges established norms, revealing the cyclical and contradictory nature of modern existence. A journey through art, irony, and critical reflection on today’s hyperstimulated society.

Circular Tragedy
Curated by Bianca Rafaelle and Jacopo Koning

Jacopo Koning presents a diverse collection of works that embody his artistic philosophy: embracing the absurdity of modern life and rejecting conformity — the anti-normalization. His 2025 exhibition Circular Tragedy blends digital elements with hand-drawn illustrations to further explore the chaos of contemporary reality. Koning’s work dismantles conventional structures, emphasizing chaos and distortion in response to a fragmented world.

Rejecting established norms, Koning’s pieces confront content overload, the pervasive influence of social media, and the divisions caused by political extremism. His art challenges the cyclical and contradictory nature of modern existence, where overstimulation alters our perceptions and distorts reality. Inspired by Dadaism and Surrealism, the exhibition invites viewers to critically examine the nature of norms in an age where they are often manipulated or diluted by external forces.

Koning pushes the boundaries of art by forging a new expressive language. His works pay tribute to humor, infusing wit and irony into the artistic process. The exhibition invites the audience into a space where chaos is not only accepted but embraced as a legitimate form of expression. The tragedy portrayed is not linear, but cynical — urging us to reflect on our place in a constantly shifting world and question the forces that shape our reality.

Babaism

Defined as New Age Dadaism, Babaism draws references from the original Dadaist movement born in 1915. Dadaism emerged as an artistic response to the trauma of World War I, embracing the nonsensical and absurd as a rejection of the rationality that had led to such devastating conflict.

Today, Jacopo Koning invites us to reconnect with the unconscious and harness the power of the liminal mental state. Just as World War I traumatized the original Dadaist generation, Koning believes our current generation has experienced its own collective trauma through the 2020 pandemic. This shared experience, combined with an unprecedented technological landscape, has radically transformed the way this generation reacts to the world — and how it translates that into content creation (such as memes and surreal videos).

Koning pays homage to the absurdity and nonsense that defined the original Dadaism, reviving its approach with renewed relevance for our time.

By forging a new wave of expression that defies established boundaries, Koning seeks to create a new artistic language — one that acknowledges our collective trauma while pushing the limits of contemporary art. Babaism stands both as a tribute to the revolutionary spirit of Dadaism and a bold statement on how art can respond to the unique challenges of our present.