About the Work
Jonathan Meese does not order things. The viewer’s gaze compulsorily follows what is shown without a sense of hierarchy: images of Claudia Schiffer, Charles Bronson, Barbarella and Che Guevara blend with handwritten sayings, the name of Caligula and those of the eponymous actors Uwe Bohm and Klaus Kinski, along with the artist’s photographs. Only superficially disparate, they are all linked by their background as part of pop culture. As “Urkinski” and “Urbronson”, as a silkscreen print that has been reproduced a million times, as advertising photography or even as a self-creating artist individual, they have long since established themselves in our cultural awareness. “Overkill Instead of Reduction” is the premise behind the work process in which, during the course of (constantly escalating) attrition warfare, the artist allows the individual pictorial elements to compete with each other until they cancel each other out and only one thing remains: “The Dictatorship of Art”.
