Jonathan Meese
Jonathan Rockford (dont call me back, please)
26 May – 19 August 2007
de Appel arts centre
Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10
1017 DE Amsterdam
tel: +3120 625 5651
fax: +3120 622 5215
info [at] deappel.nl
Open: Tuesday – Sunday 11am-6pm
In the work of Jonathan Meese everything is Everything and everything is Nothing, according to art historian Friedrich Meschede. Jonathan Meese (Tokyo 1970), an inventor of idols who lives and works in Berlin and Hamburg, has installed in de Appel a contemporary site-specific Wunderkammer with paintings, murals, drawings, assemblages, objects, collages, photos, pictures from magazines, posters and painted texts on the walls.
Jonathan Meese is one of German arts rising stars, who through his radical way of working, ambitious themes and heavy symbolism has caused quite a stir since he graduated from the Hamburg-based Hochschule für Bildende Künsten in 1998. His work is based on an almost nineteenth century early romantic attitude to art: it is the mission of the artist to serve die Sache Kunst. This has generated an oeuvre that presents an eccentric universe filled with personal obsessions and bizarre fantasies: art with a grand gesture that depicts visions and appeals to universal sentiments. With his eclectic mix of mythology, history and pop culture, Meese alludes to major upheavals in Western political, art-historical and cultural history. He does not shy from pathos or bombast and refers repeatedly to his personal (notorious) heroes that range from dictators and Hollywood stars to philosophers and musicians. Noel Coward and Ezra Pound, Marquis de Sade and Dorian Gray, Stalin and Nero, Wagner and Napoleon, or Nietzsche and even Meeses own mother populate his chaotically visualized world of ideas. The installations in de Appel bear witness to Meeses interest in imposing themes like fallen heroes, the cycle of life, and the opposing forces of good and evil.
An intrinsic part of Meeses artistic practice is his much discussed performances. Since a few years, Meese also dares to venture outside the domains of visual art by collaborating with theatre makers and pursuing his own theatrical projects. After designing the stage décors for Die Meistersänger and Kokain by the German director Frank Castorf, his own theatre production De frau – Dr Pounddadylein was premiered at the Berlin Volksbühne in January 2007. During the opening of the exhibition in de Appel, on May 25th 2007, Jonathan Meese held a memorable performance, the fruits of which are to be seen in the present installation.
