JULIAN GÖTHE

Seven large panels in landscape format constitute the central elements of the exhibition, each one a unique piece and each one composed of repetitive motifs, on the one hand, drawings of Gothic cathedrals and skyscrapers which the artist made as a child, and on the other hand, photos of bodybuilders or male models he found on the Internet, and finally catastrophe scenarios like the crash of the Hindenburg, the sinking of the Titanic, or atom bomb explosions. The screenprints which are subdivided into three parts, each bring together these motifs, and the combination of childishness, physicality/sexuality and extreme peril or catastrophe has an effect that is partly traumatic and inscrutable and suggests that something repressed is being indicated. The titles of these works come from evergreens by the American comedian and arrangeur Jackie Gleason–the exhibition title “Oooo!” is also taken from the sleeve of a Jackie Gleason record–which, in their effusive mixture of cocktail music from the 50s and a kind of Gregorian vocal style, subvert the pictures in a strange retro-futuristic fashion. This also points to certain forms of archival music which has long served Julian Göthe as an imaginary referential space for exhibitions, work titles or DJ-sets.

In five other, smaller works on paper, Julian Göthe has reworked images of body builders with a swingograph. These pictures relate to the two large wall-ropeworks which constitute two fictitious world maps with new, abstract continents. In the conception of this work Göthe was thinking of the maps in the ‘war room’ in Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Dr. Strangelove’, an association which also suits the idea of a weird desire which runs out of control.

The ensemble is enclosed by two metal screens in the window which contain the installation space behind bars, adding a further spatial and ornamental layer. When seen from outside this intensifies the interplay of lines, loops and shadows, and shows an aspect of Julian Göthe’s work which, aside from content/psychological references, leads to geometric ornamental and perspectival/theoretical aspects.

In September the first monograph on the work of the artist will be released (with texts by Tom Holert and Bernhard Schwenk, and a conversation between Martin Germann and Julian Göthe) published on the occasion of his exhibition The Shadows Took Shape at the Kestnergesellschaft in Hannover in conjunction with our gallery.