Moritz Götze - Schönheit und Untergang - Malerei, Emaillen, Zeichnungen und Objekte

Opening with the artist on Saturday, June 28, 2014, at 9 PM

Laid upon ancient ruins, covered with a plaid, hat on, looking to the right, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lounges incognito on ancient ruins in the Campagna while being portrayed by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein. Portraits of lounging figures were all the rage in 1786, and Tischbein knew it; this trend was tied to Classicism. This style was committed to antiquity, and in Greece, as well as later in Rome, people dined while reclining on the dining couch, the lectus triclinaris. On the other hand, laissez-faire was aristocratic; lounging had already become fashionable in the Rococo, as can be seen in the works of Fragonard, Bouchet, or Gainsborough. Goethe hit the nail on the head; his casual portrait arrived neither too early nor too late. This is how classics are born.

Amidst the ancient ruins, a blonde woman painted by Moritz Götze lounges in a snug red-striped summer dress. Above her, in the cheerful sky, the word "SCHÖN" is inscribed in Antiqua capitals. The full title of the painting, which is not included in the catalog, is "Schön IV. The End of Antiquity." This suggests that there must have been predecessors. Indeed. "Schön I" depicts the already familiar blonde in the red-striped dress amidst the ruins of Speer's "Germania," with the word "SCHÖN" rendered in Gothic Fraktur. A year later, "Schön II" leaves the studio, featuring the same lady, this time in green and red polka dots, staged in the ruins of Honecker's and Ulbricht's East Berlin under a modest cursive script. "Schön III," on the other hand, portrays a casual long-legged figure amidst the rubble of the Bonn Republic, with the inscription executed as a graffiti tag.

Götze's series implies, alongside the classicist nostalgia of "et in arcadia ego" as spoken by Tischbein's Goethe, a similar yet more radical Christian vanitas motif, the realization of the transience of things and the futility of all pretensions. At the same time, it harbors a powerful turn towards optimism – beauty is eternal, it reappears again and again everywhere, embodied by young women in their beautiful dresses and their carefree spirit passed down from generation to generation.

The artist from Halle developed his own visual language early on. He adapted found objects and artworks, blending influences from Pop Art, comics, and medieval book illustration into a distinctive style that he later named "Deutscher Pop."

Numerous artists have further developed these inspirations in their own work, including Neo Rauch, who exhibited around 1990 alongside Moritz Götze at the "Galerie am Kraftwerk" in Leipzig.