_Objektserie IDENTIFICTION
Surprisingly a lot of doll parts appear in my objects. I think you can only bear dolls in well-measured single parts ! I never used to play with dolls when I was a child and I found these plastic things with plastic hair simply horrible – I felt mortally offended when I once got one from a school buddy for my birthday, even though she knew exactly that I couldn’t do anything with it ! An acquaintance has got 2 kids, a daughter and a son. The boys gets books as birthday presents, the girl receives dolls stuff – amazing that this still happens in this day and age ! So right from the start the girl gets squeezed into an antiquated, outmoded stereotype. I hope that she will “rebel” early enough and she could become a childless bachelor – for example. I love the “Black Hole Sun” video by American band Soundgarden – in it a Barbie doll is done in over a grill. It is a real pleasure to see her empty hollow face melting, dripping and deliquescing. A real “Barbie-Q” indeed. Dolls are a very disputable symbol of a kind of feminity, how, for the most part, it’s been understood by the male part of society. I can’t do anything with that.
You can only bear dolls in single parts. Single parts to which I assign tasks to in my objects and that are taken out of the traditional context. They are only dummies. Placeholders.
Since my parents died both in 2007 shortly one after the other, I feel the need to express myself in a three-dimensional way. Now this is my very own kind of dissecting “puppet show”. Self-analysis, coping with the situation and little places of total mental freedom at the same time. What moves me can be read in my objects. Of course it isn’t always that easy to be so honest and to lay oneself open, but in the end no one can run away from themselves. Sooner or later you’ve got to confront yourself with yourself. Pleased to meet you. The inspiring quote of surrealist André Breton from 1929 springs to mind: „Let us not lose sight of the fact that the idea of surrealism aims quite simply at the total recovery of our psychic force by a means which is nothing other than the dizzying descent into ourselves, the systematic illumination of hidden places and the progressive darkening of other places, the perpetual excursion into the midst of forbidden territory.“
- “Little Miss Self Destruct” (display cabinet, antique wax half doll [original manufactured before 1945], metal head clamp, moss stones, aluminium wire, 2 crocodile clips, 41 x 20 x 20 cm, 2011)
Actually everything is alright. A green idyll. But then there is this thought that occupies you to such an extend that you can’t let go of it and you’re thinking it over and over – until you have “thought broken” what once was a positive thing and now you’ve got hell in your head !
- “What the hell ruined you that way ?“ (display cabinet with drawers, antique wax doll head, 2 wax heads [over 40 years old], 2 fake pomegranates/3 apples, open fake pomegranate, 2 shot glasses, 12 teeth, stretcher frame, artificial insects, glass eye, glass bottle with cork stopper, box containing tubes with time washers of watches, fixing pins, death’s head hawk-moth drawn with coloured pencils on Ingres paper, 27,5 x 27,5 x 63 cm, 2010)
When the brain splats open, that’s the ultimate mental freedom ! What the hell ruined you that way ? As what did they peg you this time ? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But not every beholder has an eye.
- “Icon Del“ (old display cabinet, black acrylic paint, black duct tape, old golden crucifix with porcelain Jesus, „eject“ key, 4 black glass eyes, 1 playing card, 3 little blackboards, 1 black quill, „remove“ plastic piece, transparent curtain pins, aluminium wire, 40,5 x 50,5 x 10 cm, 2010)
What can possibly be said about the Catholic Church that hasn’t been said already ? The funereal sermon at my mother’s burial has surely been the most impersonal thing that I ever had to witness. And this despite the fact that, in advance, me and my father, who was still alive back then, had a conversation with the priest for more than an hour and we had told him a lot of personal things about my Mum, to give him an exact picture of her. He mentioned none of it and when they even asked for a donation for the Pope I had enough. What kind of event are we attending actually ?!?
DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DELETE THIS OBJECT ? YES !
- “I can’t get no…!“ [machine version](red gumball machine, some hundreds of gelatin capsules with Satisfaction, sign „out of service“, screw, orig. Fender guitar string from the 70s, 28 x 15,5 cm, 2009)
Theoretically everything could be so easy in life – but then again there is an unpredictable factor that doesn’t work how it should, and before you know it you’re pulling a long face !
- “I can’t get no…!“ [med. version] (old pharmacist’s bottle 11,5 x 3,3 cm, glass eye from Lauscha, tooth, gelatin capsule with Satisfaction, orig. Fender guitar string from the 70s, in black glitter cardboard box with drawing, 14,5 x 9,5 x 4,3 cm, edition of 2, 2009)
Satisfaction to go.
- “If I knew you were comin’, I’d have baked a cake“ (transparent display cabinet with wooden base, white grog skull, 1 HO passerby, baby doll head, 34 x 17,5 x 16,5 cm, 2009)
You are born and you are strolling through your life and all of a sudden – BAM ! – death gets in your way. And of course not necessarily your own. You learn that it’s part of life and that death invites itself like an arrogant bastard. You can never be fully prepared for it. Bitch !
Birth and death are the distinctive cornerstones on the path of life. Everybody is happy at a birth of a new life. Then, in a lot of cases, you lose sight of the person over the years. A lot of times only when you hear of the death of a person it makes you prick up your ears again.
- “Die Ich-GG“ (transparent display cabinet with mirror rear panel, 24 old wooden letters, historical doll head casting mold made out of brass circa 1900, 108 white H0 figurines, 1 runway, 8 laboratory bottles, 1 screw nut and 1 whistle „If you want me whistle“, 29 x 20 x 16 cm, 2009)
As regards private matters, I’m a really introverted and secretive person. Basically a lot has to happen before I grant somebody access to my head, to my most private thoughts. Most of them don’t get that far. But they don’t have to. I’m more of a „private function“.
- “CSI Sorrow“ (transparent display cabinet, old plaster model of a human heart from the 50s/60s, 5 H0 figurines team crime scene investigation + 1 passerby, 1 plastic ice cube, 29 x 20 x 16 cm, 2009)
CSI Sorrow has been crawling on my heart clump for a couple of days, but the team of experts can’t find any usable tracks. You, perpetrator, have been way too clever…
- “Placeboman“ (old bell-jar circa 1890, 3 antique porcelain doll legs, 3 old hand blown doll glass eyes, 1 box of placebo pills, doll head circa 1920/30, height 28 cm, Ø 12 cm, 2009)
He makes you believe.
- “The grain of truth“ (wooden display cabinet with doll head circa 1950, 120 googly eyes, 2 playing cards, 16 laboratory bottles and 1 granulate grain, 30 x 25 x 11 cm, 2009)
As you can see from the numbers on the playing cards this isn’t really the right answer to the question. You can now rack your brains, whether there’s only a grain of truth in this statement or if there even is only a grain of truth in a man ! My opinion on this varies hourly, ho ho…
- “Sunday Blues“ (photogram, glass eye from 1920, rubber heart, junction, old letters, butterfly nut and spike file in display cabinet, 37 x 23 x 18 cm, 2009)
As unoriginal as it may sound, but Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince was right…
- “Best before…” (22 hands of mannequins, silver vase, artificial stalks, 2008)
Nothing lasts forever. Even if you change the water ever so often and really make an effort with flower care, a bunch of flowers will only last for a certain amount of time. Relationships and friendships with other people sometimes are like cut flowers from the weekly farmer’s market and can decay and fade just as quickly.
- „30 11 18 24“ (antique birdcage [iron/brass] circa 1900, old mannequin by Pierre Imans Paris, 2 keys, 12 pairs of specs of the dead family, 77 x 39 x 39 cm, 2008)
When words aren’t capable of expressing a tragedy’s scope, then only the hard facts, irrevocable facts, bare figures, can convey the information. Like 9/11. Something so big that you can’t comprehend or grasp it immediately. When, after the sudden death of my mother my father also died unexpectedly only 7 months later, both of MY towers had collapsed. Alongside the feeling of being amputated you also feel trapped in a cage out of good and bad memories, new duties and the expectations of others. There’s no escaping. As regards the good memories – wouldn’t it be great, if the eyeglass lenses were like some kind of monitors, through which you could watch the life and the experiences, the best moments and adventures of their former wearers from their perspective again and again, anytime you like ? If they could be kept forever.
- „This is no drill. We thank you for your cooperation.“ (5 preserving jars, 3 hands of mannequins, a dead bonsai, cardboard, 2007)
Eventually in your life you will reach a point, where you can’t be strong all the time and indeed have to admit to yourself, that you need the help, the hands of others and that you really are fragile that moment – even if you don’t create that outward impression. I always watered my bonsai, a present from my mum, regularly. Even when my mum was hospitalized. But when she died, suddenly the bonsai was sere and dead, too…