Magnus Gjoen

It is easy to understand why humanity has always longed for a return to a mythic Golden Age when we consider the state of our world East of Eden. But is lost innocence such a bad thing? This British-born Norwegian artist offers us a post-modern meditation on the theme in a new media, art historical pastiche piece, depicting what he describes as “Adam and Eve reflected in the glass looking in at the Garden of Eden, pondering if it isn’t actually better on the outside.” For all the enchanting beauty of this primal paradise made up of visual motifs borrowed from the edenic landscapes of Baroque masters like Jan Brueghel the Younger, the world our first parents view here with nostalgia is a fixed habitat kept safe under glass, as cold in its way as the snow globe it resembles.  In trying to make sense of the central paradox of the human condition, Christian theologians from St. Augustine of Hippo onwards came to view the Expulsion from Eden as the felix culpa, “happy fault,” which brought greater good to humanity by setting in motion the redemptive work of God. This image inspires a different thought. As the red-lettered warning on Gjoen’s enclosing sphere suggests, to shatter the glass and re-enter this well-ordered world would come at a high cost: the loss of human freedom. (John Kohan)