Artists: Manuel Cornelius & Georg Thanner
Exhibition title: The Man-Servant
Venue: NAILS Projectroom, Düsseldorf, Germany
Date: March 12 – April 10, 2021
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and NAILS Projectroom, Düsseldorf
Did not k. marx once – perhaps when he was still a young lad – speculate on how things might have been before alienation had come into the world?
I might be wrong, but I think he said that in those days, not only was man not yet alienated from his labour/toil, but also the serf was not alienated from his Lord (note: he (k.marx) did not want this absence of alienation to be understood as some sort of supralapsarian “golden age”).
Anyhow: in those olden days, the serf encountered power exclusively in the corporal form of his Lord, who was not a structure, but a very concrete person to whom he (the serf) could have a relationship to, very much the way we today have a relationship to a person we, for example, love.
And in such fashion, the servant we made up loves his Lord.
But he should probably knock it off, ’cause feudal days are over. And not only does the Lord not love the servant back: the way the servant feels for him is making the Lord increasingly uncomfortable…
Text written by Georg Thanner & Manuel Cornelius
Manuel Cornelius and Georg Thanner, The Man-Servant, 2021, exhibition view, Nails projectroom, Düsseldorf, photo: Manuel Cornelius
Manuel Cornelius and Georg Thanner, The Man-Servant, 2021, exhibition view, Nails projectroom, Düsseldorf, photo: Manuel Cornelius
Detail, Manuel Cornelius and Georg Thanner, Servant, 2021, plaster, concrete, foam, pigment, pumice powder, acrylic, polyethylenterephthalat, shellac, glass fibre, 207 x 128 x 55 cm, photo: Manuel Cornelius
Manuel Cornelius and Georg Thanner, The Man-Servant, 2021, exhibition view, Nails projectroom, Düsseldorf, photo: Manuel Cornelius
Detail, Manuel Cornelius and Georg Thanner, Servant, 2021, plaster, concrete, foam, pigment, pumice powder, acrylic, polyethylenterephthalat, shellac, glass fibre, 207 x 128 x 55 cm, photo: Manuel Cornelius
Detail, Manuel Cornelius and Georg Thanner, Servant, 2021, plaster, concrete, foam, pigment, pumice powder, acrylic, polyethylenterephthalat, shellac, glass fibre, 207 x 128 x 55 cm, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Georg Thanner, untitled, 2020 Ink on paper, 60 x 43 cm, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Manuel Cornelius, Head, 2021, concrete, plaster, pigment, pumice powder, acrylic, polyethylenterephthalat, shellac, glass fibre, 30 x 30 x 23 cm, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Georg Thanner, untitled, 2021, Ink, pen and watercolor on paper, 60 x 43 cm, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Manuel Cornelius, Shoe, 2021, plaster, shellac, pigment, pumice powder, polyethylenterephthalat, shoe lace, 35 x 9 x 13 cm, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Manuel Cornelius, Shoe, 2021, plaster, shellac, pigment, pumice powder, polyethylenterephthalat, shoe lace, 35 x 9 x 13 cm, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Manuel Cornelius and Georg Thanner, The Man-Servant, 2021, exhibition view, Nails projectroom, Düsseldorf, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Detail, Manuel Cornelius & Georg Thanner, Besala und Schäufala, 2021, 8 individual broom and dustpan sets, various materials, 15 x 15 x 15 cm each, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Detail, Manuel Cornelius & Georg Thanner, Besala und Schäufala, 2021, 8 individual broom and dustpan sets, various materials, 15 x 15 x 15 cm each, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt
Georg Thanner, untitled, 2021, Ink, pen and watercolor on paper, 60 x 43 cm, photo: Kai Werner Schmidt