25_Robert_Smit_Now_or_Never_2012_acrylic_tempera_oil_print_canvas_200x400cm_1280_hoog

25. Now or Never, 2011-2013

Literally keeping up the ‘Dutch Dream’ from the Golden Age, a 17th century three-masted schooner is held up in the air by three men standing around inside a bubble in an open field. The site resonates the panorama that covers the whole diptych, in this instance overgrown by Spanish moss.

An enormous bridge over the Mississippi river parked on top of the trees, not connecting anything, looks rather useless. Smoke coming from the construction floating off in opposite directions turns the bridge into a ship, still useless and not going anywhere.

Dutchmen are always proud, dreaming of the 17th century when commercially speaking, they ruled the world from the Netherlands, actually from Amsterdam, its principal financial center and seaport. Today this position is held by the United States, propagating the ‘American Dream’, although China might soon take the lead.