F E A R F U L A W E S O M E - Ecstasy, death and rebirth of a male painter

The exhibition "F E A R F U L A W E S O M E – Ecstasy, death and rebirth of a male painter" speaks to the beauty and brutality of ambiguity. At the center of the exhibition stands the surreal act of Amazing (2007-2013) by Andy Hope 1930, depicting a man in the arms of a blonde Überwoman. Simultaneously a muse, dominatrix and archetypal mother, she carries the fallen, impotent hero in a gesture echoing the Pietà. Two blue cloud-like ghosts appear in a tumultuous sky. A golden eagle looms above the scene signifying an authoritarian imprint, a reminder of history, politics, and surveillance. 

The story unfolds somewhere between earth, heaven and hell. The title is written directly onto the painting, making the author an active character in this playful yet sublime narrative about love and surrender, generosity and control, forgiveness and restrain, devotion and personal limitation, heritage and future.

Amazing reveals human erring and error in its deepest sense: the silence around the irrational; the speechlessness; the adrenalin; the fear; the passion; the literal death of the author. Amazing never clarifies whether the fallen hero is dead. It’s a story devoid of resolution and a confession about the conflict of being human, forever caught in the fray between emotion and reason.

In recent series of public attacks, some of the individual’s hidden and secret obsessions have made their way into the public sphere. Secluded and unshared emotions, born from disappointment and the unhappiness of isolation, come out by both sensationalism and spectacle of media, continually fascinating and captivating the public. In the omnipresent triumph of “The Society of the Spectacle” (1967), Debord, death and violence are attached by a seductive quality, often ecstasy, evoking a sad voyeuristic curiousness as entertainment.

With "F E A R F U L A W E S O M E – Ecstasy, death and rebirth of a male painter" we would like to open the discussion about the power of emotions concerning the ambiguity and contradiction in human behavior. The disposition of body and mind becomes evident in contemporary society on many different levels. From both sublime to literal, we choose to show works that challenge the viewer to rethink his own standing as a private persona and as a public person in society.