my art stories: part two

my art stories: part two

in the ethnological museum, berlin-dahlem.

i imagine:

copyright: http://www.smb.museum/smb/sammlungen/details.php?objID=56

ethnologisches museum, berlin dahlem

the wise man chose to make his second jug the same shape as the first.
again, it is a symbol of sublimation as the way through life.

this time, he has used black. solid black.

black is the sum of all colours and all possibilities. while white is the beginning, black is the essence, space in concentrated form. it is the sum of all stories and all strokes of the pen and the brush, condensed into a single, solid black.

for the wise man, this jug was about harmony (between people, in society) that exists beyond individual life stories.

the left side of the jug is smooth.

it is a restrained, pliant existence. edgeless, it can enter into social interactions and nurture them.

on the right we can see unbridled urges, raw impulses, the jagged outcrops of individuality.

only the perfectly balanced interaction of one side with the other (they are both exactly the same size), interlocked and overlapping, ensures the stability of the jug, i.e. of life and its progress, which was also the theme of the first jug.

alone, neither side would constitute a jug. together, they complete and nurture one another.

the wise man’s one true love was again delighted by her gift. she found the jug’s aesthetic at once exciting and exquisitely beautiful.

the smooth side of the jug flattered the tips of her fingers, the jagged edges set her imagination alight. she made the jug a vessel for a rare lotus flower schnapps that she would use to moisten her lips during intimate engagements.

the wise man knew of his beloved’s secret and was enchanted by its effect.

 

my art stories: part one

my art stories: part one

in the ethnological museum, berlin-dahlem.

i imagine:

ethnologisches museum, berlin dahlem

ethnologisches museum berlin dahlem

the jug was a gift from a wise man to his one true love.

it is meant to symbolise life. the water inside, a pulse.

the fat round belly of the jug depicts life, unfiltered. conflict and violence reign. the thistles are a reflection of spiritual drought. these scenes continue for generations. we can see this in the two levels. children are born in the house on the left and grow up in a world where conflict is the status quo.

the children all look exactly the same: lifeless eyes staring out from beneath war helmets worn too young.

and yet, there is progress. the conflict on the second level is less brutal and the thistles are beginning to develop a lush colour.

the two fighters at the top have paused, distracted by a snake or a vine which leads to a woman who wears no armour and holds no weapons. naked, she is the only figure to appear entirely at ease and open to the world.

she is the gate to the sublimated, the guided source of water that brings us our elixir of life.

the source is a circle, an aura that gives her space to fully evolve. she is inspired by (who else?) the wise man’s one true love.

she is surrounded by birds.

these birds symbolise the bond between heaven and earth, or between divinity and the mind. in this way, they symbolise the love he feels for the woman.

perhaps the wise man who designed and painted this jug wanted to show that humans can only ever really evolve at the gateway between impulses (the lower level) and the spiritual world, and that our potential will only truly unfold if we release ourselves from the history and the dramas of those who went before us. this also explains the nudity.

his one true love was so besotted with the gift that he immediately made her a second jug.

 

les anges se promènent dans berlin

“c’est encore une nuit où les anges se promènent dans berlin”

art… how can we get closer to understanding it. or do artworks want to understand us? how do they make sense of things?

pots, plates, south america, more than a century old.
pictures, sculptures. recognising art. isn’t that the ability to bestow belief on your own imagination?

imagination.

imagination connects objects to us and makes their aura visible. an artwork cannot live without a viewer. viewers give a picture its soul and allow the picture to breathe life into theirs.

and as the picture enlivens our soul, we create a connection, a connection that gives our life strength and spirit.

there are so many sides to a picture, as many as there are faces and facial expressions in the world. there is no one single story.

in addition to my musings on art, i also want to present works and find, perhaps invent, a story for them. one story from many. the essence probably lies in the oscillations between all the many possible stories, and perhaps, in that movement, lies life.

i do not want the writing of art stories to be an act of writing history, of grabbing hold of something, storing it, suffocating it and fixing it in the past. i want my texts to be personal stories, stories that reach back into the past and all the way into the future, stories that still to this day give a work a strength, its strength. art triggers something inside us and makes us live and love. art will not be constrained by the notion of time and instead only acts NOW.