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Remains and traces (illustrated takl) Lichtbilder - photographs (light pictures (an old fashioned word for photography) – the emerging of the face in different distances, the revelation of the essence of portraits 1976 Time and Space – the vertical and the horizontal Jon Fosse, Negative Mysticism Is it a comedy? There are things, and they might be part of what matters most, that are best passed over in silence. Things that are transformed, disfigured when expressed by words. They might even be transformed to a degree that what was known when unexpressed gets lost. What you can’t speak about you need to be silent about, Wittgenstein said. Derrida, on the other hand, says, what you can’t speak about you need to write about. I think I understand what both of them want to say. Maybe we should surround with silence what we know deep down. Maybe it is silent in itself, maybe it is solely the unspoken within the spoken. In this case it seems plausible that you can’t just drag out what you know deep down and impose arguments on it. It is too silent for this, you know it somehow, but how you got to know it and why you’d want to know it and all that is less important. It is probably the best to leave it undefined in the written. Yet, there’s something I’d like to say. remarks about painting I am interested in the basics more than in elaboration of painterly styles some drawings, which are dated but untitled at that time I was painting mainly after sculptures, I was fascinated by the challenge of how to transform the three-dimensional figure in space into a two-dimensional appearance on canvas Boris Groys (a Russian philosopher): (quote) Their existence is fragmentary and dusky, it works in a way in the zone between life and death, in the zone of pure duration (end of quote) The gesture of Job, 1986, egg-tempera, paper-maché and encaustic on canvas, 180 by 130 cm The virtual triangle, 1985, oil and encaustic on canvas, two parts, 45 x 88 cm baroque sculpture of THE CHASITY (virtues and vices) The Guardian of Manners, 1987, usual technique beside tar - tabletop as a base (socle, pedestal), 208 x 180 cm, (acquired by the museum ) the tabletop is mounted below the painting – the denying of its common function and its usual appearance in space (turned from the horizontal to the vertical) Folds, 1987, egg-tempera, oil, encaustic - enamel tin, 50 x 129 cm End of the Line, 1988, usual technique - table-top, 216 x 130 cm Torso – study on the good + bad functions of pictures, 1985, usual technique with spatula, 273 x 183 cm the embodied experience Study on Morality, diptych, 1986, egg-tempera, oil, paper-maché, wood and encaustic on canvas, 135 x 2o2 cm refers to an Egyptian sculpture from the ancient times Female Worker, 1988, usual technique and tabletop, 195 x 120 cm Virtual Form, 1987, pastel, encaustic and enamel on canvas with cake-tin, 84 x 65 cm The Unknown Children, 1988, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, wallpaper on wood, 195 x 273 cm the sculpture of the nineteen century was appealing to me Untitled (Lad), 1985, usual technique and table-top, 208 x 100 cm Red Morning Sky, 1985, oil and encaustic on canvas, 180 x 130 cm Il Magnifico, 1986, usual technique on jute, 130 x 100 cm Figure with Table-top, 1988, 180 x120 cm
EbenBilder - title of an exhibition and of the catalog accompanying the show in 2000
2 meanings: if you write it in one word, it means: Spitting Images (an image of someone, he is a spitting image of his father for example/ in two words, it means: Nothing else than just images Photograph - Hoexter, a small city in Westfalia, 1991, milker-coats with hats – hanging in a spitting distance taking pictures for my private ARCHIVE (working for television) German Basic Meat (oak leave) 1989, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 150 x 120 cm drawing, dating from 22nd of January, 90, pencil and pastel on paper Double-Head, 1990, usual technique, 150 x 120 cm (German card game) Portrait (senza parole, Italian: without words), 1991, usual technique, 130 x 105 cm Portrait, 1992, (with a writing by Petrarca - Canzoniere (1327-70) - The charcoal-pile - you see from the Outside how I burn in the Inside - the face – the metaphor – the charcoal burner) egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 60 x 50 cm
Holding Point - bus stop (playing with the literary and the metaphorical meaning of the expression), drawing from the 27th of June, 92, graphite and pastel on paper Statue, 1991, usual technique, 150 x 120 cm, inspired by a Greek sculpture in the Glyptothek (a 19th century collection of antiques) of in Munich, representing a drunk, also used for Portrait, 1992 Without words, drawing from the 3rd of November, 94, graphite on paper The half smile (lifting the angels of the lips), 1993, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 150 x 120 cm The Stranger I , 1994, same technique, 60 x 50 cm The Stranger II, 1994, just the same, 60 x 50 cm Lead Glass and Curd Soap, 1995, an edition of six little sculptures, belonging to the smell and temperature in my childhood, 11.5 x 8 x 7.5 cm in the living-room cabinet it is all a question of forms, shapes, light and memories I can’t escape my German background (remains and traces) In the catalog book Ebenbilder, Keto von Waberer starts her essay with a quotation: An awful desire came over me, like the people on an old photograph, who wish to be with the ones, they just look at in the favourable light of The Lamp (end of quote) Yehuda Amichai Childhood/Happiness, 1995, diptych in still the same technique, each 150 x 100 cm Resi B.( the initial of the last name is for keeping the anonymity) 1995, a friend in the 50th, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 150 x 100 cm Christa M. 1995, my best friend, same technique, 150 x 100 c Une, 1995, like one, like a graffito, 60 x 50 cm, private collection MERZIG (writing on the wall, nearly not readable anymore, faded away) Father and Son, 1996, usual technique, 100 x 150 cm Without Words for Heinz, 1996, a friend who died on cancer that year, 100 x 150 cm
I'm not at all interested in telling stories - the represented figures are not interacting their communication is only with the observer/spectator
Mothers and Sons, 1996, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 50 x 100 cm drawing, Feb.10th 1996, pencil and pastel on paper - von dulden molden...O.Pastior Georg Z., 1995, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 130 x 180 cm (UNE) Low Sunday, 1995, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 100 x 40 cm Trigeminus II, 1996, same as ever, 50 x 60 cm (the central nerve) Trigeminus I, 1995, Triptych, each 40 x 30 cm Flowers, 1997, egg-tempera, graphite and encaustic on canvas, 60 x 80 cm (my contribution to beauty – Dostojewski said: I am looking for a beauty which shakes/shatters) The homely light of the lamp, 1995, same technique as in Flowers, 50 x 70 cm The mountain soldier, 1994, casted in 97, edition of six little sculptures, bronze, (The Cairn - Steinmann) 7 x 14.5 x 3 cm The brother, 1997, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 60 x 50 cm Diptych, 1997, usual technique, 100 x 102 cm Man with donkey, 1997, usual technique, 60 x 80 cm all the just shown pictures deal with fading remembrance Young woman with olive leaf, 1997,pencel- drawing/collage on paper (its a small leave and its position is referring to the lost paradise and the question of innocence) Luggage, 1997, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 170 x 150 cm The Elective Affinities 1998, as usual, the man with the hat is Kafka, the other a colleague of mine, 130 x 180 cm it is just a composition of two not related subjects which creates a new meaning (Anaxagoras, antique Greek philosopher: In the beginning everything was together, then reason showed up and put everything in order) Three Sisters (the sisters of Kafka), 1998, 50 x 100 cm Sleep, 1999, egg-tempera, paper maché, photocopy and encaustic on canvas, 130 x 100 cm (there is a small photo behind the sleeper pinned to the wall: it is up to you to jump conclusion) Photograph for Paul Thek, 1998, The bowl of cherries until they fly, four paintings on newspaper, Diözesanmuseum, Cologne Ulrike Marie M.(dot) 1999, as usual, 130 x 180 cm, with photocopies, before she co-founded the RAF (red army fraction) with Andreas Baader, also called Bader-Meinhof gang, which shacked the German republic in the 1970s Is the upcoming terrorist visible, recognizable? Photograph, Marseille, 1999, heads in a hairdresser shop, just a small, but important section is visible of the barber shop
Doktorspiele - Playing Doctor, 1999/2000, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 150 x 120 cm, after an anonymous picture (I know neither the children nor the photographer (I like to call it a ready-found, instead of ready-made – a word, a friend of mine created) Thirty-two, 2000, same technique, 150 x 180 cm, (somewhere in England) La Coppia, The Couple, 2000, same technique, 180 x 130 cm, I found the model in the paper-trash story about the mother and her lover Eva B.-dot- and Torsten M. - dot- , 2001, same technique, 60 x 80 cm, Eva Braun and Torsten Mai, the women beside Hitler and the unfortunate fighter Photograph, Munich, 2002 Untitled (green, in brackets), 2002, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 60 x 50 cm Detail - to conclude my lecture on Remains and Traces Report from the Old Europe, 2002/2003, egg-tempera and encaustic on canvas, 180 x 150 cm Self-Portrait and Robert Walser on one of his last walks, before he was found dead in the snow. Detail - The Eyes - and the ways of seeing,
Thank you for your attention in the homely (uncanny) light of the lamp Montreal, March 2003
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