Mummy´s Bedtime Story

"Mummy´s Bedtime Story"

180 x 320 cm

Oil on Canvas

2011

Description:

a. Christoph Schlingensief:

   "Art is the transformation of Shock in to Love."

b. Angela Merkel on 8th September 2010 in her speech at the M100 Media Award to Kurt

   Westergaard (the illustrator of the Muhammed cartoons):

   "...Article 5 of the German Basic Constitutional Law:"Everyone has the right to put one´s point

   of view in words,writing and illustration and make it public"... I am convinced: if we confidently

   stand by our values the world will meet us with more respect and acknoxledgement than if we

   do it only bashfully.For me personally,freedom has been,and,is,the most blissful experience

   of my life."

c. The renewal for the operating time of the German nuclear power plants,as intended by the

   German Federal Government - due to an energy conception which has based on an approval

   certificate financed by the nuclear lobby - is a massive success as to the profits of the four

   large nuclear companies in Germany and a huge setback for all renewable energy solutions,

   the latter of which require urgent investment.In August 2010,in an aggressive advertising

   campaign as well as through an impudent bribery offer to the amount of 30 billion Euros,the

   nuclear lobby pushed the German government to go for extended operating times of their

   power plants.At a time when brave steps towards climate protection are urgently required,

   Merkel´s plan regarding the extended operating times of nuclear power plants is undermining

   substantial investments in renewable energies and is also threatening Germany´s leading

   role in this field - particularly since the nuclear technology has not changed much since the

   70´s: there is no solution in sight regarding radio-active waste disposal (add to that the

   immense costs this would involve);and several outdated reactors such as Krümmel and

   Brunsbüttel have no future,in the medium term,as a "bridging technology".This type of

   lobbyist politics is a prime example of the influential power of large companies/institutions/

   associations over decision-making in Berlin (as well as over other areas such as the public

   health service and banks) so that the "Berlin Puppet Show" will,for a long time to come,play

   to us a wretched soap opera and,thus,they deserve being depicted in such a way as I have

   in my drawing and,later on,garishly and colourfully transposed in 180 x 320 cm in oil on

   canvas.

d. The format of my drawing is 16 : 9,as if one watching TV:

   "Atom TV"("Wir strahlen - Sie zahlen",a wordplay: we send rays - the customer pays) shows

   the "Mummy´s Bedtime Story":

   four little sandmen (i.e. the four German energy concerns masquerading as such) scatter

   sand (i.e. small poisonous mushrooms) and,thereby,open the "Berlin Puppet Show":

   before the sign for nuclear radiation appears Angela Merkel,on the body of the "Venus of

   Willendorf" (slightly altered,with four breasts);she is sucking a four-headed dinosaur (in the

   shape of a well-known dinosaur from a children´s puppet show program,Urmel).

   The drawing is drafted such that one can also put it on its head - then the dinosaur appears

   as the genitor who is spewing out Merkel.

e. Friedrich Nietzsche:

   "He who has not grasped that every great man not only must be furthered but must also,for

   the sake of the general social welfare,be fought against,is surely still only a big child - or

   himself a great man."