Your own personal Jesus
Arie Schippers Folkert de Jong Martina Marciniak
30 October 2026 to 17 January 2027
Perhaps the most depicted person in Western cultural history is Jesus Christ. No one knows what he really looked like, but everyone who has grown up in this cultural tradition has an image of him.
Your own personal Jesus invites visitors, through the work of three contemporary artists—Arie Schippers, Folkert de Jong and Martina Marciniak—to reflect on the role of religious visual culture in today’s society.
At the heart of the exhibition is the monumental series of paintings Golgotha by artist Arie Schippers (1952, NL). In Golgotha, Schippers draws on biblical stories as a rich cultural and art-historical archive of images. Through contemporary figures and a free approach to traditional iconography, he explores universal themes such as suffering, guilt, compassion, hope and mortality. His work shows how centuries-old biblical stories remain relevant today.
The exhibition brings Schippers’ works into dialogue with sculptures and video works by Folkert de Jong (1972, NL) and Martyna Marciniak (1991, PL)
De Jong’s compelling installation Gods Army references saints, martyrs and scenes of the Crucifixion, connecting them with contemporary themes such as power, sacrifice and political imagery. Marciniak brings the subject into the digital age. In her project Anatomy of Non-Fact, she explores how AI-generated images, deepfakes and disinformation shape our understanding of truth, including through the viral image of the ‘Balenciaga Pope’. The exhibition also features examples from contemporary visual culture, including advertising imagery and the annual live television spectacle The Passion.
The project is organised in collaboration with the Oude en Nieuwe Kerk Delft, where a selection of Arie Schippers’ paintings is presented under the title Golgotha . By presenting the same themes both in a contemporary art context and in a historic religious setting, visitors are invited to reflect on how context shapes meaning.
