MANHATTAN MARXISM a project by RAINER GANAHL

Welcome to MANHATTAN MARXISM - a project by Rainer Ganahl

MANHATTAN MARXISM

part one : MIddelburg Vleeshal , July - August 2014

about the locaton:

In the 17th century, the DUTCH GOLDEN AGE, MIDDELBURG was a very rich town and next to Amsterdam the most important center in the Netherlands, hence it was a little Manhattan of today.

Also, in that Dutch century, Manhattan itself was mostly founded and dominated by Dutch merchants and its oversea companies and hence called New Amsterdam, the center of New Netherlands.

Needless to say, Middelburg made it's money with oversea trade and the help of the DUTCH EAST INDIA COMPANY, the most powerful of the time. and was a major player in the 17th century slave trade.

DE VLEESHAL - meat hall - is the today a contemporary KUNSTHALLE or City Museum for temporary exhibitiion. This former market place is part of the CITY HALL building and stylistically often mistaken for some former church. The proximity between a market place for meat and the center of political power can only be explained by the importance meat had and can give a hint why today art and not food or tuilips are on display.

With the advent of the the global economic crisis (2007/08 ff ) originating in Manhattan with the spectacular colaps and bancruptcy of a one of the biggest world wide operating finaical power houses - Lehman Brothers, founded in 1850 - I started to be interested in working with foods inclding pig heads hence was albe to return some meat to De Vleeshal, the former meat hall.

Manhattan Marxism, 2014

Neon, ed. 1/6

opening

installation view

i present the works clockwise:

installation view, left side

The condition of the working class in England - Little Ireland. In memory of Mary Burns, 2011

Video, 15 min

This video is based on Engels’ biography. He fell in love with Mary Burns, an illiterate Irish worker who showed him the darker parts of the city on which his book is based. The Irish were considered the lowest of all workers at the time almost as slaves. Even Engels describes Irish workers in general in a very stereotyped negative version and nearly denies them human attributes and any degree of civilization.

For this video, I am riding in circles on a bike in exactly the spot where LIttle Ireland was located, the most famous and most miserable living quaters for predominantly Irish workers during the industrial revolution. While riding a circles a young "fierce woman" is reading from Engels's book these parts dealing with Little Ireland. On wikipedia this paragraph to Mary Bruns can currently be found:

"In Manchester Engels met Mary Burns, a fierce young working woman with radical opinions with whom he began a relationship that lasted until her death in 1862.[10][11] The two never married, as both were against the institution of marriage which Engels saw as unnatural and unjust.[12] Burns guided Engels through Manchester and Salford, showing him the worst districts for his research."

Today, we see a parking lot, an old mill /factory of the times and new complexes of luxurious living still in development since the recent economic crisis slowed down gentrification.

I HATE KARL MARX, 2010

video, 5 min 43 sec

For this video playing in the year 2045 Karl Marx has reincarnated as Chinese. He controls the world and the entire world is Chinese, speaks Chinese, dresses and eats Chinese (the same way it is today English/American). Marx's specter to haunt the world could not be stopped by any capitalist alliance. The young German lady speaking and screaming entirely in Chinese suffers a melt down in front of Marx' statue on Karl Marx Allee expressing her discontent and opposition.

installation view

installation view - left side with videos and GIORGIO MORANDI / pig head works

STILL LIFE / CRUNCH LIFE, GIORGIO MORANDI, NATURA MORTA / TESTA DI MAIALE / PIG HEAD, 1955 / 2012

oil painting, pig head, wooden base, aluminum foil, pig head

(a pig head may be present but doesn't have to be present for obvious reasons)

For this work which is in relationship to my Painting a pig head in front of a Giorgio Morandi works I ordered a copy of a painting by the Italian master in order to have a pig head meditating it. The Italian (and French) natura morta / nature morte can be really reanimated if there is a real dead animal head standing and watching at a painting.

The pig head spectacle is not only to be understood as a commentary on the injustice of our economic and social systems but also a play with the Italian expression “testa di maiale” which signifies not only a pig head but also a person with despicable qualities.

the curator, Lorenzo Benedetti and me--- (photo Lorenzo Bruni )

PAINTING A PIG HEAD IN FRONT OF A GIORGIO MORANDI, Bologna 2012

video, 20 min

In this video, you see me doing exactly what the title claims: Painting a pig head in front of a Giorgio Morandi though I have never painted nor attended any painting classes. I just bought some oil paint, some pig head and put myself in front of an original Morandi painting galleria d'Arte Maggiore, Bologna with a sales price of 1 200 000 Euro.

Giorgio Morandi (1890 - 1964) spent his entire life in Bologna and made apart of some landscape paintings exclusively very reduced still life paintings containing bottles and other simple containers in a very uni-colored haze. Given his biography, he participated in WWI and lived through WWII, saw most of his life poverty and gave expression to it.

The paintings and the video are part of works that dealt with the financial term Credit Crunch that started in 2008 with the near collapse of the entire world financial system. It also points to the contrasts our value and financial systems allows if one thinks about the incredible amount of money the authentic Morandi painting I was able to borrow costs.

Four Economic Thinkers: Marx, Mao, Lenin, dickhead, 2011

DER SCHWEINEHIRT / The Swineherd, 2012

Black and white, ffilm 16mm, 9:50 min

For this film, shot with black and white 16 mm film, I had to climb up into the Italian alps, the dolomites to find these naturally held pigs still in possession of all their dangerous teeth. My boots had steel protection and I was told not to fall which scared me even more. In the very proximity of this many century old mountain farm which was never consumed by fire and hence was stunningly beautiful and rare, the Otzi was found, more than 5 000 years old Iceman, also called Homo tyrolensis in good old latin who lived around 3 300 BCE.
The film plot was simple: I decend from the mountain, run towards the pigs and start feeding them, first food followed with a bunch of 100 Euro bills. The pigs eat it all and subsequently went into their urination and the defecation mode clearly enjoyed by themselves but also by a duck who got in on the liquid action tasting it.
Hence, I deciated this film to the 4 European countries that were in 2012 still struggling the most in the European community due to the 2008 financial credit crisis:

P ortugal
I taly / I reland
G reece
S pain

PS: Warning !

PIGS (also PIIGS) is a pejorative acronym used to refer to the economies of Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain with similar economic environments. Some news and economic organizations have limited or banned the use of the term because of criticism regarding perceived offensive connotations.
The money provided by the ECB is chemical free and was approved by the local veterinarian.

Bicycling from Karl-Marx-Allee through the Brandenburger Gate - Meditating Berlin 1989, 2007

video, 13 min.

Since 2002 I have been using the bicycle to make art. In most cases I just bicycle against the traffic without holding the handlebar. I do this to protest against cars and cars and cars.

The Karl-Marx-Allee was located in the Soviet controlled sector of East Berlin which was the capital of the GRD, a repressive state which claimed to based on the principle of Karl Marx classless society.

Marx against the grain, against rules and laws, against the flow and walls,towards the WEST.

Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, Erster Band, Buch 1, Der Produktionsprozess des Kapitals, 2009

video , 4 min

As I have done with Sigmund Freud, Lenin and Handke (his goal keeper book), I I'm kicking the book of Karl Marx to its full destruction. I don't do that out of hatred for the authors but out of a reminder that books were destroyed in the past (particular those of the firsts 3 authors). I do that also because it is quite an intense act of expression that transcends reading. The relationship between violence, destruction and (re)creation is quite challenging and provokes interesting questions that go beyond my pure will to "just make art." Interesting knods for associations and feed backs open up and reinscribe this act of planned destruction with the very content of the book:with Marx's Capital it is the question of commodity, (Ware), of commodification and Mehrwert (surplus value). Interesting enough, the book analysing the very nature of commodity, commodification, production and circulation offers itself best to this transformative destruction and rebirth into a piece of art - a sublime object of desire, reflection and (hopefully) value.

Reading Karl Marx in a stretch-iimo during the Armory Art Fair in New York, 2009

(two rides of approx. 30 min

Video, approx. 30 minutes ,

Invited to do some project during the Armory Art Fair, I decided to make a Karl Marx reading in a stretch-limo commonly associated with the world of glamour and wealth. But the reality is quite different since most riders are relatively lower middle class youngsters from the suburbs who want to party and larger groups during the weekends and convince themselves to have the life they would like to have. Also, the reality of the drivers is in most cases not very glamorous. This was the beginning of using readings also in less traditional settings which I first planed for Mexico city, thought I was not able to finally do it. Two years ago, I was reading Marx in a small rowing boat.

Four economic thinkers, Marx, Lenin, Mao, Dickhead, 2012

carved wood and vegetalbes and fruits with inscriptions

130 cm long, 57 wide x 52 cm high

120 cm long, 57 wide, 52 cm high

appr. 137 cm long x 57 cm wide x 57 cm wide

more on the FOUR ECONOMIC THINKERS HERE

Reading Karl Marx, 1999 ff

Organizing group readings and discussions is an integral part of my art practice since 1992. I love to read and discuss with people interested to do so. It is a series of ongoing projects with changing books, contexts and titles. These reading seminars can take place with and without institutional contexts. All these reading sessions are recorded on video and photos are taken – by me, by others and sometimes with a tripod and a timer. In 1999, I initiated an ongoing Reading Karl Marx series of which we see here images taken in Innsbruck 1999, Frankfurt 2000, New York 2000 and London 2001.

see: www.ganahlmarx.info

Holzwege, Die Religion ist das Opium des Volkes, Karl Marx / Religion is the Opium of the People, Karl Marx, 2009

carved wood, 80 x 100 x 10 cm

This work was made of an exhibition in a church and belonged to a series of context related figures and ideas I was addressing at the time in Germany. Since De Vleeshal reminds people of a church I decided to include this work as well.

Marx knew what complex phenomenon he was addressing. It should not go unnoticed that most conflicts around the world today are over religious difference and religious practices. In Europe, people were killed over religion throughout the 20th century on a large scale. The last time religious prosecution and mass murder happened in Ex-Yugoslavia which had Dutch UN troop involvement. I would not be surprised that these religious conflicts which are currently stunning the world just south of Europe might soon spill over into continental pockets of radicalism in the not so far future, something that media helps, accelerates and reinforces.

KOPF AUS GLAS' / SKETCH FOR 'A HEAD OF GLASS' , 2011

recycled PET bottles and glass,

This work is named after the film HERZ AUS GLAS /Heart of Glass by Werner Herzog in which all actors worked under hypnosis something that makes me think of people acting under ideological or religious influence.

The head is made of hanging parts for which I used transparent broken glass as well as one way pet bottles that end up in the sea destroying nature. It’s unfortunate that drinking water has become such a dirty international business that undermines the very nature clear water is symbol for.
The hanging parts are semi-transparent and oscillate between the Gestalt of a famous Karl Marx portrait in 3 dimensions and a bunch of hanging things that could as well be just a Glockenspiel depending on the video seen in the back ground .

installation view with SPANISH HARLEM WORKS /manhattan, New York

Haunted Hauses - Vacant Buildings on Third Avenue  Between 99th and 120th Street

16 mm, color film

What is special about this mile on Third Avenue in Spanish Harlem, Manhattan, New York is that many buildings are only occupied on street level leaving the rest of the often residential structures unoccupied, boarded or even bricked up. A New York Times article about this area quotes some housing advocates calling these vacant buildings throughout Spanish Harlem simply “Haunted Houses.”

Hence, I decided to film with 16 mm film these two blocks with a minimum of stops in a 90 degree angle traveling. Due to the fact that the camera couldn’t take the entire front in one I doubled it up with a second camera and a parallel view.

MARX 99 CENTS

99 cent polyester foulards

For this series, I exclusively used foulards that were sold at 99 cents at EL MUNDO discount shop in Spanish Harlem, Manhattan, New York and created some lose garments that were worn also as fashion items. The loosely hanging or tightly quilted fake silk scarves with colorful, fancy looking patterns took on quite some impressive forms and gained approving nice comments from ordinary street folks during our time parading and photographing them on Third Avenue where they are sold out of shipping boxes from China. At my exhibition and runway show COMME des MARXISTS at White Columns 2013, New York, they were not worn but the scarves were quilted into the big and significant number 99. This number mirrored not only the typical price for the cheapest somehow useful stuff to purchase but also echoes the Occupy Wall Street movement that spoke out for the 99 % of the populations that differs from the rest of society who controls nearly.

To put this into numbers in the USA according to FORBES magazine: (3/21/2012: http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneywisewomen/2012/03/21/average-america-vs-the-one-percent/)

The Distribution of Wealth Between Americans

Before you can talk about the 1 percent, it’s important to put the figures into perspective by understanding exactly what that figure means. The average annual income of the top 1 percent of the population is $717,000, compared to the average income of the rest of the population, which is around $51,000. The real disparity between the classes isn’t in income, however, but in net value: The 1 percent are worth about $8.4 million, or 70 times the worth of the lower classes.

EL MUNDO - A CLASSICAL MUSIC CONCERT AT FORMER EAGLE THEATER, SPANISH HARLEM, NYC, 2013

Two screen video 55 min

After moving to Spanish Harlem, Manhattan, New York in 1997, I have been shopping at EL MUNDO for ALL BRAND NAME toilet paper, laundry detergents, batteries, light bulbs, wrapping tapes and other stuff typically sold on Third Avenue between 103rd and 110th street. Third Avenue is defined by discount shops typical for low income areas now about to disappear in Manhattan.
When shopping at El Mundo I was always admiring the theatrical details I discovered after a while since all their stuff was standing, lying and hanging throughout the place, thus hiding the original function of this old theater space. In recent years, I found myself day dreaming of a Werner Herzog’ Fitzergeraldo kind of performance in East Harlem. El Mundo stands in my imagination not for a series of discount shops around town but for this particular messy, now gone discount business housed in this former theater which now risks to be torn down for redevelopment.

When the sign Closing in 14 days went up in January 2013, I acted quickly to put this dream of staging on opera into reality in order to restore the original glory of this place back to life for one night. With this little time to prepare in order to rent a grand piano, convince the shop keeper to rent the space and the tremendous help of my friends and in particular the violinist Rachel Kablakov as well as Matthew Higgs, I was able to stage it and mobile some interested people to squeeze into the shop after business hour just days before its final closing.

The magical performance of the mostly Juilliard School of Music trained musicians at the coldest day of the year 2013 served me also as a film stage for this two screen video which was filmed with a variety of cameras, ad hoc film camera man and women, a 16 mm film crew as well as a sound professional for a subsequent vinyl production.

This classical music performance, staged at the now-defunct El Mundo discount store, encapsulates the history of an East Harlem building as it passes through diverse incarnations that trace economic, demographic, and cultural shifts on both the local and global scene.

Also, some of the opera pieces – the pop art of the days - bring us back to politics, to emerging working-class cultures in which slaves and exploited people play a role, mirroring the industrialization of Europe in the 19th century with the rather under-privileged context in which El Mundo was built and functioned in Spanish Harlem.

here is A NEW YORK TIMES review

HERMES MARX

silk screen over authentic Hermes fouldards,

The synthetic silk scarves for 99 cents would not be even worn by people who belong to the economic group of the wealthiest 10 % thought they approve of Hermes whose 90x90 cm foulards cost nearly as much as real estate square foot. In the after match of the 2008 financial crisis this wealthy group got off to a much better start than those at the significantly larger opposite end of the financial spectrum.
Hermes is definitely one of those high end retailers where getting the wanted scarves is not always even easy. There products are soon sold out in their few boutiques found only in very limited few metropolises. They never see a “for sale” sign and don’t make it to any discounter shop. Their limited edition bags costing many thousands of dollars are not sold to just anyone walking in with the money but are usually reserved for the elected few who have connections or belong to the who is who’s of media, glamour and high wealth. But you always make it on a waiting list and will be informed when new once arrive in the shop, hence mimicking the sales tactics of galleries with blue chip artists where waiting lists with parallel express and no-check out lines are common.

Hermes is particular in many ways, including the fact that it stays a family business and rejects big capital. They produce everything they need themselves in their traditional way and that mostly in France apart of the silk and the natural colors which they also oversee overseas. Given the low volume, the high quality of their ware and the complicated, traditional not fully automated way of producing, their pricing seems more justifiable than it appears and I am myself fascinated and intrigued by their colors and their exotic and orientalizing designs. Hermes draws most of its iconography from France’s colonial past and glorifies it, something that gives it the false aura of having produced this phantasmagoric neck pieces already since the early 19th century. To my surprise, I found out that the foulard line only was introduced in 1937, i.e. the real beginning of the end of colonial France which was accelerated by the drama of WWII. In that sense one could even ask whether the desire for visualizing French empire was anticipated by Hermes at the very moment, when France itself came under server attack by the short lived brutal Nazi Reich/empire efforts that brought the dark reality of epic catastrophe from the colonial territories to the heart of Europe effecting anything and anybody around the world.

The history and revolution making intellectual who understood the connection between the fight over colonial hegemonies and markets in the tradition of Karl Marx was Lenin who drew in 1916 a clear connection between rivaling colonial powers and nationalism in his master piece of writing on the subject, entitled “Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism.” Hence, the connection between HERMES and MARX is therefore not just one of funky contradictions playing on the obvious that working class people were not covering their heads and necks with the silks of this French manufacturer. For my works, I departed from the enunciative name-city connection of the brand, Hermes Paris and silk screened my variation onto the very Hermes items itself elevating them to another kind of art, i.e. contemporary art, hence destroying the rather expensive user item as such.

The design of my printing is a monochrome abstraction of a hammer and sickle as well as the words HERMES MARX suggesting that PARIS, standing for ubiquitous beauty and style is now replaced by MARX, standing for endless questions and demands about social justice and economic workings. Even in German universities, students do not necessarily know anymore that the combination of hammer and sickle was the main symbol of communism.

more on this works here

THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS: SHOPPING ON EBAY.CO.UK: Vintage industrial factory cart, mill truck, table/prop, £355.00 plus shipping
wooden cart, ink on 4 papers, 8.5 x 11 inches

THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS: SHOPPING ON EBAY.CO.UK: Vintage Industrial TanSad Machinists Chair, £102.13 plus shipping
chair, ink on 3 papers, 8.5 x 11 inches

THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS: SHOPPING ON EBAY.CO.UK: Vintage industrial factory cart, mill truck, table/prop, £355.00 plus shipping
wooden cart, ink on 4 papers, 8.5 x 11 inches

THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS: SHOPPING ON EBAY.CO.UK: Vintage industrial factory cart, mill truck, table/prop, £355.00 plus shipping
wooden cart, ink on 4 papers, 8.5 x 11 inches

THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS: SHOPPING ON EBAY.CO.UK: 2 ANTIQUE WOODEN & METAL WOOL INDUSTRIAL LOOMS/SPOOLS, £16.95 plus postage, 2011
two wooden looms, ink on 3 papers, 8.5 x 11 inches

THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS: SHOPPING ON EBAY.CO.UK: 1930's Mill Photo Industrial Steel Workers, US $ 9.95 plus postage and packaging. 2011
photograph, ink on 3 papers, 8.5 x 11 inches

DIE LAGE DER ARBEITENDEN KLASSE IN ENGLAND - A COLLECTION OF THE GERMAN EDITION OF FRIEDRICH ENGELS’ THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS IN ENGLAND ACROSS 10 DECADES AS PURCHASED ONLINE FOR NOT MORE THAN 33 EUR A BOOK PLUS SHIPPING & HANDLING COSTS. 1913 / 2011: Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England - Engels, 1913/ 2011
10 books plus paper works and packaging

Engels epoch making book The condition of the working class in England that appeared in the early 1840s was eventually printed in Germany. For this work I tried to purchase one copy for the last 10 decades thus evoking for each decade a different kind of meaning. For example, having this copy during the early 1940s in Germany could have triggered a death sentence and in the 1950s the expulsion from the USA. That my 1913 version was sent from Israel is also telling us about the fate of the 20th century. So far, I couldn’t locate a copy for the 1990s when the desire for a new edition might have been very low. I did not only use eBay but resorted also to other on line book sellers. Currently, the value of books is rapidly declining since the number of actual book readers are shrinking drastically with the advance of portable electronic media.

THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASS: SHOPPING ON EBAY.CO.UK: Complete set antique metal printer blocks
industrial, AU $ 45, plus postage, 2011
printing blocks, ink on 3 papers, 8.5 x 11 inches

Today, people who are even without work or were once defined as belonging to the working class – as everybody else - are spending a lot of their times on line and on eBay where massive amounts of second hand and even new objects are circulating and exchange hands. Penny pinching as well an economic races to the bottom can be observed without much effort.
Engels was 24 years old when he wrote his epoch making book The condition of the working class in England that appeared in 1842. Hence I tried to purchase 24 items - books and vinyls - which mostly appeared in a period when the label “working class” was very chic and everybody wanted to be part of it, hence, John Lenon’s song Working Class Hero with the flip side Imagine and the variety of research and prominence into this subject. Today, nobody wants to assume the label “working class” anymore.
The printers and type setters were the first professionals who lost their jobs due to computerization, hence these old printer blocks are without much functional value today and symbol of changing times.

WORKING CLASS - A PORTABLE LIBRARY CONSISTING OF 24 BOOKS PURCHASED ON EBAY.CO.UK FOR 0.99 GBP PLUS SHIPPING & HANDLING COSTS
24 books purchased on ebay for 0.99 GBP plus shipping and packaging.

JOHN LENNON WORKING CLASS HERO - A MUSIC LIBRARY CONSISTING OF 24 VINYLS PURCHASED ON EBAY.CO.UK FOR 0.99 GBP PLUS SHIPPING & HANDLING COSTS: John Lennon - Imagine/Working Class Hero 7"
24 vinyl disks purchased on ebay for 0.99 GBP plus shipping and paper works and packaging.

Credit Crunch works

Since 2008, I have created special Credit Crunch Meals inspired by the obscene combination of unregulated financial markets, high finance and politics that created a series of the biggest economic and financial ruptures since the great depression of 1927. The so-called CREDIT CRUNCH CRISIS is a perpetual crisis we seem unable to escape. The CREDIT CRUNCH époque started in 2007 with an early climax in the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, one of the biggest US banks in 2008 that nearly collapsed the world financial system. The effects of this crisis haven't gone away.
Penises and vulvas are symbols of power and might and imply very easily the opposite: post-climactic fatigue, impotence, and refer to the constant promiscuous shift of power and influence. Graphic caricatures of genitals are desirable and obscene at the same time. Combined with political and economic terminology they have an immediate impact on the beholder that is even stronger when made out of perishable material like food. The hidden unmentionable undertone of this current perpetual crisis is that we experience a massive shift of economic and political power from West to East, from the USA and Europe to China, India and other emerging economies with plenty of cash and important raw materials. This is a process that started with the end of the Cold War and gets only highlighted with this ongoing economic crisis. (for ex. China controls 96 % of Rare Earth - cruxial for all intelligent products)

For different events I have created different objects to combine the food sculptures ranging from porcelain objects copied from previous food arrangements, German style Vesperbrettchen ( Vesperbrettchen für Kreditkrisenfraß / Wooden boards for Credit Crunch meal, 2011) to larger wooden floor sculptures entitled 4 Big Economic Thinkers, i. e. Marx, Lenin, Mao and a Do it yourself dickhead. With the exception of these later non of the presented credit crunch sculptures are paired with actual food sculptures to underscore the historical aspect of these works.

The Four Big Economic Thinkers, made as fruit or vegetable bowls somehow overlooked by these thinkers are contained with organic produces specific to them: Marx standing or lying in for capitalism was biting red apples, alluding to Apple Inc., for long stretches of time the most valuable company on the planet; Mao, associated with China’s nascent hyper capitalism under overall communist leadership – Marx’s dream come true – about to become the world’s biggest economy was watching over some world currencies issued in potatoes; Lenin overlooks oil producing pumpkins with inscriptions like oil, $, RMB, corruption, Crimea and Putin, the new big strong man of the East who thanks to high oil and gas prices would like to reinstall the Soviet empire again under but without any of the communist ideology since Yeltsin outlawed communism in Russia; A Do it yourself dickhead is filled with carrots due to market conditions - phallic corn used the last time is not yet growing but big carrots do. Neither the dickhead nor the carrots are in need of any explanation and it economic impact is obvious.

see more here

Vesperbrettchen für Kreditkrisenfraß / Wooden boards for Credit Crunch meal , 2011

see more details of earlier presentations in Stuttgart and Friedrichshafen

Vesperbrettchen für Kreditkrisenfraß / Wooden boards for Credit Crunch meal , 2011

carved wood, size apprx. 30/32 x 55/60 cm

see more details of earlier presentations in Stuttgart and Friedrichshafen

Karl Marx Tea Party / Proper Tea is Theft, 2010

Ceramic tea pot and various cups

Based on Karl Marx's quote and conviction 'Proper Tea is Theft' playing with Proudhon's 'Property is Theft' I produced a series of tea parties and tea related works. The Tea Party is takes on the right wing movement currently shaking the American political landscape. I am clearly opposed to the Tea Party but I 'm in support of the Boston Tea Party that brought independence from colonial Great Britain.

Vesperbrettchen für Kreditkrisenfraß / Wooden boards for Credit Crunch meal, Mao, 2011
carved wood, size apprx. 30/32 x 55/60 cm

Tea pot, Mao / Tea Party / Proper Tea is Theft , 2010

ceramics

the Credit Crunch porcelain sculptures are products of Credit Crunch Meals I made before. more info here

STILL LIFE / CRUNCH LIFE, Dick, banana, raddish, 2011
porcelain

STILL LIFE / CRUNCH LIFE, Wallstreet cheese, 2011
porcelain

STILL LIFE / CRUNCH LIFE, Lenin Apple with fly, 2011
porcelain

Vesperbrettchen /wooden board , Pussy, 2011
carved wood, size apprx. 30/32 x 55/60 cm

Vesperbrettchen /wooden board , Dick, 2011
carved wood, size apprx. 30/32 x 55/60 cm

STILL LIFE / CRUNCH LIFE, carrot fucking zucchini, 2011
carrot zucchini fucking,(porcelain)

STILL LIFE / CRUNCH LIFE, tomato pussy , 2011
porcelain

STILL LIFE / CRUNCH LIFE, dick with stings, 2011
porcelain, wooden stings

STILL LIFE / CRUNCH LIFE, small cucomber dick wiht testicals, 2011
porcelain

STILL LIFE / CRUNCH LIFE, small raddish dick , 2011
porcelain

Vesperbrettchen /wooden board , We serve E Coli, Made Cow Deseasse, Green Salad, 2011
carved wood, size apprx. 30/32 x 55/60 cm