“Because we are just the shell and the leaf.
The great death that everyone has inside
that is the fruit everything is about.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
It is sometimes a small death that the artist dies when hopes are dashed again. Of course there is always a renewed blooming when you let go, but first you have to rest and be quiet in order to prepare the next fruit … OK, maybe expressed a little too dramatically, but it does move me.
What happened?
These are the 4 works that, in the opinion of a jury unknown to me, are not worthy or good enough for the upcoming exhibition at the Kunstverein. Are they too “new”, too “different” or “incomprehensible”? Yes, yes! Where are the trees, faces or landscapes?
Stanko 2018 | magenta-turquoise-2018 | oil on canvas | 110 x 90 cm
It is astonishing that in 2020 we will again see so much “figurative” art, which is once again the standard for many. It is not the case that over 100 years ago an art revolution did not shake the world of vision and point the way to freedom of expression and thought. Yes, and today we see works in the kitchens and hallways of German homes as all sorts of prints that were horrible for people 100 years ago. Even the furniture stores and hardware stores are not afraid to squander a Kandinsky or Chagal as cheap printing. A Klimt or Schiele is now just as acceptable as a Van Gogh (which, incidentally, could not sell a picture during his lifetime). Not to mention the impressionists like Monet, Renoir or Cezanne, who now decorate walls, postcards and cups everywhere in the living room.
Stanko 2020 | emerald turqouise | oil on canvas | 80 x 80 cm
Please do not misunderstand, I love the art of these colleagues and their work, which was revolutionary and stirring at the time, but that was many years ago. Art and every kind of representation has fundamentally changed, expanded and developed. Even my pictures are somewhat anachronistic in their way of making – oil on canvas – superficially. Wouldn’t a video installation, a performance or a purely intellectual art be much more appropriate? Maybe, yes maybe if I wanted the effect. But that’s not my approach …
When we approach the contemporary, an important aspect is the perception and the process of perception. Without going into this, contemporary art is rather superfluous or incidental. So don’t care and interchangeable.
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