Art Projekt "Open Windows" 2007

2007/8 I take part in the art project "Open Windows":

Dabei gestalten (zu Beginn) mehrere Düsseldorfer KünstlerInnen auf bzw. in einen individuell ausgewählten Fensterrahmen ein Werk zu einem Land auf der Welt, zu dem sie eine besondere Beziehung/Affinität haben.

In einer späteren Phase werden KünstlerInnen aus den entsprechenden Ländern zu diesem Projekt eingeladen und schließlich ein geeineter Ausstellungsort gesucht.

My "Open Window":
"Looking for Tao in the autumn mountains"

111 X 138 cm
Oil and Sprühlack on wood and Fensterrahmen

The reasons for choosing China for my "Open Window":
a.) my admiration for mankind´s oldest living artistic tradition,especially its prominent use of main focus being the expressiv line,particularly in landscape painting;
b.) my concern about the possible consequences of modern China´s rapid economic developments,especially regarding environmental damage.

The starting point for my design was a drawing with the same title by the Chinese artist Chü-jan,a Taoist monk,who lived in the Sung period and searched for Truth and regarding nature as the only true teacher.His depiction of landscapes embodied the essence of nature that is at the deepest and ultimate reality,the eternal Tao:
mankind being just tiny part of the infinite cosmos.The viewer can identify with these tiny characters in these drawings and sense the overwhelming vastness of nature.The Chinese did regard man as the master over nature,but as an insignificant part of the whole. 

Through their enourmous economical rise to become a new superpower,the Chineses have left the Way of Tao.The results of this lose are described in my picture:
on the left,water floods are cascading down from the mountains;on the right,a blast of fire is raging upwards;in the middle (= in the end) remains a lifeless rocky desert with (at the bottom) the central motif of the Dragon: originally a positive heavenly creature in Asia mythology which announced great events to come,here now this magical being sets itself alight;at the top of the mountain,the Chinese Buddhist Goddness of Charity and Mercy,Kuan-Yin Simhanada,is sitting on a dragon holding a gong in her hand.

At the same time the entire landscape depicts the upper half of a Buddha´s head: to the right and to the left are,with the window open,his open eyes,and respectively,with the window shut,his closed eyes.