Wim DELVOYE (b. 1965)
Darling I’ll be back
2000
Photo cibachrome print on aluminium.
n°4/6
39.3 x 49.2 in. / 100 x 125 cm.
The “Mountains” series by Belgian conceptual artist Wim Delvoye is a collection of large-format photographs created in the late 1990s and early 2000s, connected to René Magritte’s conceptual surrealism and its ironic subversion of landscape art, with a shared linguistic wit, deeply rooted in Belgian art tradition.
The series features majestic mountain landscapes where banal everyday messages are digitally carved into the stone, mimicking monumental rock sculptures like Mount Rushmore. Delvoye used advanced digital retouching on high-quality photographs.
The series contrasts the timeless grandeur of nature with the trivial, fleeting nature of modern human communication with texts imitating refrigerator post-it notes, classified ads, or casual text messages. Through this subversion, Delvoye mocks humanity’s urge to leave a permanent mark on the world.
This poetic, absurd contrast triggers a cognitive disconnect for the viewer, very similar to Magritte’s practice of pairing ordinary objects with entirely incongruous contexts or labels.