No easy solutions.
But feelings.
An understanding for ourselves?
Acceptance of our multiple trauma.
Because: Aeons of crisis!
Recognizing the beast, everywhere, in ourselves?
Deprivation, HUNGER!
Today: greed.
And – maybe – learning to love, nonetheless?
Everything?
The Beast – 10.000 years of utopias
The beast
- incorporates the greatest utopia: livestock breeding
- teats and volcanoes on its belly
- shows on its hide the works and plagues of mankind
- disposes of God and invents the new world
- lifts off in industrial revolution
- drove warfare to perfection
- fragments itself in the digital world
- is aching under climate crisis
- is frightening and needs our help
Great utopias often end devastatingly. In the beginning there is hunger, to the end the emergence of POWER, economy of scarcity and the annihilation of „the others“. Seeing it all – the beast – clarifies: As long as we answer to trauma with violence, as long as we cut off our roots, we will fail. Looking inside invites you to get past fear.
Accepting the beast – a small utopia indeed.
Recipe – the body
body and head made of newspaper, cardboard, paste, glue, linseed oil, marble powder
mouth: red plastic tissue, Japanese silk
plus: teeth of deer, found in the forest
(the head is shaking and finally decides for a yes)
for peeping inside: old glasses (long-sighted)
for visual connection to the Beast: a mirror (inherited)
legs made of Pet-bottles
hooves of egg crate
gesso as a primer
painting: collage/acrylique, wheat/impact metal
connection of the separated halves: gold file, brass rings, threaded bolts
light: LED-bulbs, golden lampshade
The images
works:
Cave art:
Bison/cows/giant deer/ Lascaux, dotted horses/ Pech Merle, 2 Bisons of clay/Grotte du Tuc d’Audoubert, lionesses/ Grotte Chauvet, Lady of Brassempouey, Woman* of Willendorf, Woman of Laussel, ivory horse/ Vogelherdhöhle, Cueva de las Manos, Argentinia
Neolithikum/high cultures:
Minoian bull leapers, wall paintings/ Knossos, 8fold shield/flower – seal/Crete, Magna Mater of Tarxien/Malta, seals, frescoes and bulls cranium Catal Höyuk, woman giving birth/Çatal Höyük, female figurines/Halicar, Amarna princess, painting of the „opening of the mouth – ritual“/Egypt, clay amphoras, Hathor, relief Göbekli Tepe
Antiquity:
Vase paintings: Klytaimnestra awakes the Erynnie, Theseus kills Minotaurus; Mosaik: Zeus/Bull abducts Europa, Venus Pudica, graffiti and wallpainting Pompeji
Middle Ages/Renaissance/Modern Age:
Irish illuminations, Stifterfiguren Ekkehard II. und Uta/Naumburger Dom, flying machine Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna by Raffael, Moses by Michelangelo
Persons, real and mythical:
Lucy, Jesus of Nazareth, Maximilien de Robespierre, Napoleon Bonaparte, Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, Leopold II. of Belgium, Adolf Hitler, to his left the female wardens of concentration camp Bergen Belsen, Josef Stalin, Wladimir Putin, Elon Musk, Superman and Micky Maus, Barbie the doll, Sofia the robot,
Invention:
Grain/wheat, livestock breeding, script (Linear A/Crete), gold – precious metal – rare earth-elements, sword, gun, Benz (first car), airplane, telephone, cigarettes, Volksempfänger, Turing machine, insecticides, television, vacuum cleaner, the Pill, Personal Computer, mobile telephone, SUV
Plagues:
War (diverse), rats, Pandemias (pest bakteria, Coronavirus, spanische flu of 1918) terror attacks (9/11), volcano eruptions (Pompeji), animal abuse (bulls fight), meat consumation, beauty operations, cupcakes, headlines/clickbait
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* Instead of Venus of…. science begins to use Woman of … , as the numerous figurines found in Europe very obviously show elderly – older women, past their reproductive age. Calling them Venus, just because of breasts and vulva, is inaccurate.
