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„Stubbs 2.0 x 7 + 2 = 16.0 – Sevens supreme“
(7x 20 x 30cm + 200 x 200cm, oil on canvas)

The pictures of the painter and academic teacher of anatomy, George Stubbs (1724–1806) nowadays are regarded as the quintessence of higher understatement, sublime enthusiasm for nature and scientific thought in English painting. As representatives of his oeuvre, seven (and an eighth) of his works have been updated formally and materially: According to the European tradition, into which Stubbs is embedded, the number Seven is, after the number Three, the second most prominent number. This is demonstrated by examples like the seven planets, the seven days of the week and the seven dwarfs. Hence, this series consists of seven pictures based on originals with a seize of up to xx y. In order to do justice to modern ways of living, these works have been serially minimized to 20 x 30 cm. (An eighth picture with the seize 200 x 200 cm, an update of Stubbs’ famous “Whistlejacket” – a horse in original seize – serves as a counterpoint for the case that the series should be shown in a large gallery. This picture is not shown here.)

Concerning material additions, these glorious seven have been dedicated to the seven deadly sins of modernity, the “-ations”, which stretch from medialization to automation and virtualization. The series begins with an allusion to the medieval deadly sin of desperation, in this case with the topic: fear of cognitive indeterminacy and hippophobia in the age of genetic engineering. In the next pictures there are implemented computer cursors and cyberdogs, a globalized moose with bridle, and the series concludes with a lonely zebra in an English forest. Here we’ve come full circle back to the initial problem: Modern man’s lack of orientation is alluded to. All of a sudden, there are zebra crossings where they never have been before, due to the absence of roads. So the zebra does not see the wood for the trees, and in the middle of this atmosphere of insecurity, is placed the multiply interpretable instruction “Up↑”, and with it, as the quintessence of highest ambition in art, the suggestion of a cognitive shift of perspectives (in this case by scientifically exact 90°).