CLINT ENNS - As the World Burns #II

Paper: Hahnemühle Fine Art Archival Print
Sheet size: 40 × 40 cm with 1 cm white border around the motif.
Year: Edition of 2025
Edition: 5 + 1 AP
Signed, dated and with an edition number by the artist on a separate label.

Clint Enns – As the World Burns I & II

The series As the World Burns depicts the apocalypse as an everyday spectacle. In #1, people sit lethargically in front of a burning room, unable or unwilling to react to the obvious. In #II, a lone man attempts to extinguish an inferno with a garden hose while the smoke turns into iridescent rainbow colors.

Both works reflect the paradoxical relationship of our present to catastrophe: We experience the destruction in real time – and react with apathy or helpless gestures. Enns' images are as serious as they are absurd, reflections of our own powerlessness and our strange need to search for beauty even in the sea of ​​flames.

As the World Burns # II

A man stands with a garden hose in front of an inferno that has long since gotten out of control. The flames blaze high, the smoke tinges rainbow colors, as if the fire itself had decided to become art. The gesture of extinguishing the fire seems helpless, even absurd—a banal act against the overwhelming power of the catastrophe.

Clint Enns' As the World Burns #II is both comic and tragic. The rainbow in the smoke makes the disaster seem almost beautiful, while the man clings to his seemingly hopeless task. Here, the apocalypse tips into the grotesque: a picture of our time in which we fight global fires with small hoses—literally and metaphorically.

The work quietly asks: Is our hope merely a thin stream of water against a world in flames? Or does the true power lie in acting despite it—even if the outcome remains doubtful?