COTERIE

AUF DEM BERLICH | 2004 | COLOGNE

Both in English and French the term "coterie" refers to a small group of people who support each others' interests. In German, the outdated word "Koterie" describes a closed society or "old boy network". As the name suggests, in most cases its members are men. I presented the "Coterie" drawings as part of a group exhibition during the Art Cologne.

On the opening night I was introduced to a collector who was interested in buying. In fact, however, he was more keen on coterie in the old sense than in the "Coterie" drawings. He asked me what or who exactly was shown in them.

"Are they friends?" - "Not necessarily," I replied.

You could see his confusion linger for a short time. But it was clear quite quickly that depicting "Coterie" requires an outside view and excludes any kind of participation in it in real life.

In fact, it has always been part of my artistic work to question closed societies or cliques and their contexts. Even in works without this explicit subject, I wanted to show that a context or environment also means being exclusive, which can be accompanied by a dubious complacency that limits the view for the new, the other and the "deviant". In doing so, I often risked disrupting the consensus and as a consequence not being a part of it.

As was the case in this exhibition. I was fully aware that the participating artists were part of the established avant-garde, which was explicitly opposed to academic style and form. Although I generally supported that principle (I had, in fact, organized the exhibition and invited the artists), my drawings risked disturbing the aforementioned consensus (in this case the consensus of opposition characteristic for avant-gardes). At the time, their figurative nature, their large-scale format and their sheer number was obviously out of the ordinary in that specific context. Still, my subversive efforts and the "Coterie“ theme presumably remained unrecognized.

The boys depicted are wearing the plaid shirts and sweaters that are typical of their scene. They are self-satisfied and presented in a recurring form that ultimately makes them appear interchangeable.

The original drawings were made in pencil on paper, reproduced several times, reconfigured and redrawn. The exhibition featured six drawings in colored pencil on paper in a size of 80 x 100 cm. They also exist as prints in various sizes.

Later, my cat Diego liked the drawings so much that he used them as his bed. Since then, they have no longer been suitable for any kind of deep networking.