Jannis Marwitz at Lucas Hirsch

Artist: Jannis Marwitz

Exhibition title: Kündigung

Venue: Lucas Hirsch, Düsseldorf, Germany

Date: September 4 – October 31, 2020

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Lucas Hirsch, Düsseldorf

Die Kündigung

Ever since I can remember the flat is moist. Recently water started dripping from the ceiling all over. Jugs, cups and different vessels, jars and pitchers are placed to catch the infinite source of drips and drops. But like the unevenness of a surface, or the gap in a weave, the more you concentrate on it, the more you see, so you end up taking even the last cup to catch the running water. The wall paper turns green and slides down the wall.

This morning there is an envelope in the mailbox. Big bold letters say: KÜNDIGING, later certain dates, certain numbers, sincerely yours… The dog whimpers. It’s astonishing how pets can feel their human owners emotions and liabilities.

2020, Tempera on Canvas, 40 x 30 cm.

Aristophanes

In the center a bust of Aristophanes now in the collection of the Uffizi in Florence. I got rid of the inscription on the lower part and made his hairdo more contemporary, more now. His cheeks and nose are reddened from the wine (I guess) he had at a yesterday’s little feast at his place.

Today’s audience is a handful of nightjars. Pliny the Elder writes in his Naturalis Historia that they would come to the stables at night to suckle on the goats’ udders, which cease to give milk after or turn blind. We know today, that this is not true, but what they are really searching for at the stables are indeed moths, flies and other insects they are feeding on. While they hunt and feast at night, they rest sleeping and dozing throughout the day, being perfectly camouflaged by their spotted feathers.

2020, Tempera on Canvas, 45 x 30 cm

Twilight

Twilight on Earth is the illumination of the lower atmosphere when the Sun is not directly visible because it is below the horizon. Twilight is produced by sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere, illuminating the lower atmosphere so that Earth’s surface is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The word twilight is also used to denote the periods of time when this illumination occurs – that’s the definition. Alas, to be precise, one has to divide the painting in three titles: The Rising of the Sun, The Moon’s Envy and Twilight in the middle.

A skeleton is pulling on, let’s say a satyr’s, tongue. With musical precision it puts a blue pill on the creature’s stretched muscle. S. says it’s much likely a Benzo (Benzodiazepine – a tranquilizer) because of it’s blue color and the dropping of the head in the realm of hypnos, to sleep.

2020, Tempera on Canvas, 50 x 35 cm

Dad

Dad is wearing a pitcher on his head.

Dad is carrying a coffee grinder. Every morning he places his grinder on the table, grinds as much as it is sufficient for two cups of coffee and puts the grinder back in the upper shelf. He likes his coffee medium ground.

Dad likes to go fishing. But since he’s often so tired, exhausted from the efforts of the day, the ailments of the week, he sits ashore dozing, at his favorite lake, that is only a desert to us.

2020, Tempera on Canvas, 50 x 30 cm.

Moving

At the end he did move. All the little and big things, all the high emotions and the rubbish had to be packed, all the dust collectors to be carried away from their places of gathering. Still, while he was looking at the things being carried out, the idea of having everything customized to its extreme pleased him, left a vague smile on his face. His name engraved on almost every piece of furniture unsettled lots of his friends and acquaintances at the time, but seemed perfectly normal later. They took it as a piece of his personality almost as if his ideas and his writing had crystallized into something graspable, and graspable it was, movable even. The small figurines he had made were even a bit much for him in the beginning, he felt uncanny in their presence, but the longer he shared a place with them, they became an essential part of the room, these little adorable depictions of himself. First he named them, later they were grouped after his moods, depictions of his very own emotions, then there were specific ones for the times of year and the hours of the day. Later he had felt the urge to show them to the outside world, the public, the audience if you want, so he commissioned bigger ones for the windows, which he placed on top of the frames in the center of the pediment each one facing in one cardinal direction.

2020, Tempera and Watercolor on Canvas, 45 x 30 cm.

There are 21 drawings hanging close to the floor.