Moritz Götze - Cranach - Goethe - Götze

When Goethe wrote that Cranach could "stand alongside Titian in terms of truth and bloom," he was unaware that the painter was one of his ancestors: Lucas Cranach the Elder's daughter Magdalena was married to the Saxon chancellor Christian Brück. From this lineage comes Goethe's mother, making Cranach Goethe's great-great-grandfather.

This connection makes sense, as Moritz Götze has been nurturing a significant Goethe-Cranach obsession for several years. His "Goethe Shelf" is piled high with memorabilia of the poet prince, from the garden house to the Lauchstädter healing spring; the dresses of his enamel ladies depict the young Johann Wolfgang engrossed in reading, and on a "Picture Vinyl," the Weimar Olympian examines a blue flower, the emblem of the young Romantics from Jena. The works of both Cranachs are seamlessly integrated into Götze's "German Pop" repertoire. "Venus and Amor" leave the mystically dark realm of timelessness that they inhabit in the Hermitage version by the older Cranach. They wander through a slightly littered central German landscape, under a blue sky where wind turbines spin. In Götze's paradise, empty cans are scattered about, skyscrapers are being erected, and Euro pallets are washed ashore.

"He gives the calamities of foreignness, the littered planet, the forgotten or stunted between window sills, beaches, and skies of air warfare, the poetry of a final untouchedness, the weight of an unquestionable existence, and thus also a sense of wonder, because for him, the event matters, not its reason. To see it this way makes him an artist; to show it this way, makes him Götze." (Michael Freitag)

"If history is a darkroom, then Götze is among the makers of light. He allows himself an unclouded view, free from ideology." (Christoph Tannert)

We warmly invite you and your friends to the opening with the artist on Saturday, January 16, 2016, at 9 PM in our Erfurt gallery. Rüdiger Giebler will speak.