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15/1/2004

Jonathan Meese

Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt

KÉPI BLANC, NACKT

With its exhibition ”Jonathan Meese: KÉPI BLANC, NACKT,” the Schirn continues its series of solo presentations dedicated to contemporary artists, which began with the installation ”Double Garage” by Thomas Hirschhorn. Jonathan Meese’s sequence of rooms is an already existing work, too. For the presentation at the Schirn, the artist has extended this work from the Falckenberg private collection in Hamburg, which is usually accessible to a rather limited public only, and given it a new name. It will be on show at the Schirn until 12 April 2004.

”KÉPI BLANC, NACKT” is just short for the exhibition title which reads as follows: ”DR. NO’S DIAMANTENPLANTAGE, des PHANTOMMÖNCH’S PRÄRIEERZHALL, nahe den wässrigen GOLDFELDERN des DR. SAU, dabei die DSCHUNGELHAUT über die ZAHNSPANGE des erntefrischen GEILMÄDCHENS ‘SAINT JUST.’ (DER PLANETENKILLER DR. FRAU).” The title already leads us right into the center of Meese’s universe. Various figures and their world views clash in a flood of pictures, neologisms, texts, and objects of all kinds: Stanley Kubrick meets Richard Wagner, Stalin encounters Zardoz; Heidegger, Klaus Kinski, Hitler, Marquis de Sade, Mishima, Balthus, Romy Schneider, Dr. No, virgins, and busty girls are just some of the figures populating Meese’s pseudo-psychotic universe of art. In the fadeovers blending myth, art, and politics, boundaries between different concepts blur. Squeezing in between all people and things, Meese, deliberately crossing the line, creates a specific cosmos that is fuelled by both the past and present of his personal sphere and world history.

Born the son of German-Welsh parents in Tokyo in 1970, Jonathan Meese has attracted the international art world’s attention with his room-filling installations and performances since 1998. The installation ”KÉPI BLANC, NACKT” in the Schirn consists of a permanently developing sequence of rooms. The entrance area is a small space which, breathing an almost sacral atmosphere, reminds us of an Egyptian burial chamber. Penetrating the meditative darkness, we detect a dramatically lightened pedestal in its center which holds a portrait bust without any features. The inscription scratched into it in huge letters reveals who the portrayed person is. It is Balthus, the controversial French painter, who, with his scandalized erotic representations of young girls, was both reviled and celebrated. The following room resembling a salon, ”La Chambre secrète de Balthys par Jonathan Meese (2001),” clearly refers to the admired fellow artist. Contrary to the other spaces, this neat and tidy ”chamber” conveys a cosy upper-middle-class atmosphere. It is dominated by paintings most of which are self-portraits by Meese. Here, the artist explores the classical medium of painting as he has done for some years now: painting seems to be completely out of place in his work, as he has become known as someone who, relying on cheap and transitory materials, collects waste products of pop culture and the throwaway society.

This approach manifests itself in the extremely condensed sleeping-room ”Casino Royal (Goldenes Skelett), 2000.” In the center of this overloaded space, we come upon several beds. It is exactly the room meant for the private and intimate where Meese discloses the manic, traumatic, neurotic. In the next space, visitors are confronted with ”Staatsatanismus I–IV,” presented under the title ”Die Ordensburg ‘Mishimoend’ (Toecutters Mütze), 2000” in due order and serialization. The aspect of regularity finds expression in a long row of old washbasins. The flanking lockers are attributed to different persons outlining the mixture of Pop, personal mythology, and historical non-persons characteristic for Jonathan Meese’s world: Fritz Lang, Mussolini, Nero, Hitler, Nietzsche, Alex DeLarge, Caligula, a.o. A Legionnaire’s silhouette painted on the wall and the written reference to his attribute, the cap, the képi blanc, form a projection surface for dangers, fights, and things foreign. The installation named after this detail is rounded off by ”Der Vaterraum Daddy, 2000,” in which the artist examines the archive of the collector Harald Falckenberg’s father on behalf of the son – an archive comprising books, magazines, photographs, and souvenirs – and thus encourages reflections of the father figure as such.

CATALOG: ”Jonathan Meese: Képi blanc, NACKT.” Edited by Max Hollein, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. With a preface by Max Hollein and texts by Jonathan Meese and Martina Weinhart and an interview between Max Hollein and Jonathan Meese. German/English, ca. 70 pages, ISBN 3-937577-14-9, Revolver Verlag, Archiv für aktuelle Kunst, Frankfurt am Main.

PRESS OFFICE: Dorothea Apovnik (head), Jürgen Budis

SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Römerberg, D-60311 Frankfurt,
phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-118, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240

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