THIS WORLD / NEXT WORLD

Venerated Skulls meet Arnulf Rainer’s Face Farces
at the Munich EXPOCA Gallery from 09/06 to 03/07/2010.

The Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer known by his overpaintings turned to eighty years last year. In the end of the sixties and in the beginning of the seventies of the 20th century came up his work group Face Farces. In these works Rainer tries to retrieve dynamism and tension by overpainting his photographic self portrait. The graphic reworking of the photos is taking place in the form of an accentuation because in Rainer’s view the photographs document his strain and nervous excitement at the time of exposure insufficiently.

Many indigenous people create a place for their ancestral souls by artefacts. Thus exist e.g., with the Asmat (southwest New Guinea) carved shields, which embody the soul of the late ancestor  and - as is customary with many ethnic groups –  see in an reworked skull the house of the ancestral soul. Through material and treatment the indigenous artist does not reveal, like Arnulf Rainer in his Face Farces, the expression of his own soul, instead of this, he creates a space, in which the soul of the late finds reception.

From 10/06/2010 on the Munich Pinakothek der Moderne will show a retrospective of Arnulf Rainer’s works titled “Naked Painting”. On the occasion of this, EXPOCA juxtaposes in opposition, six Face Farces of Arnulf Rainer and seven excellent ancestral and trophy skulls: Treatment of the portrait as an expression of the soul of the portrayed (This World) and treatment of the skull to create a refuge for the ancestral soul (Next World). This contrasting pair shows impressive how Arnulf Rainer shows his own soul state by intensification of his self portrait, while indigenous people get expression of her ancestral or victim souls in ritual intercourse with the skulls. This encouraged, by solemn mood and tranquillity which the skulls emit.