I want a government of art
An interview with German artist Jonathan Meese
Through May 15, well-known German artist Jonathan Meese’s solo show DIE DR. MABUSENLOLITA is showing at Vienna’s Galerie Krinzinger. Using the mediums of painting, drawing and sculpture, Meese follows the traits of Lolita and Dr. Mabuse, two fictional characters who stand for the establishment of their own systems of power.
Borrowed and inspired by the controversial and world-famous novel Lolita by Russian author Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita has been a present figure in Meese’s works for a long time. In his interpretation, Lolita is a revolutionary utopia, no longer a person but a state of being. The character of Dr. Mabuse, however, is new in Meese's iconography, and was inspired by the classic silent films of Fritz Lang. Dr. Mabuse is a psychoanalyst and criminal who paves his way to power with his ability to transform, hypnotise and manipulate. From that point of view, his image is a perfect addition to the extravagant gallery of villains and movie antiheroes who have always fascinated Meese, joining the ranks of Dr. No, Goldfinger, Scaramanga, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Mr. Big, Zorin, and others.
In Jonathan Meese's interpretation, as strong and symbolic signs of the time, Mabuse and Lolita merge into a new, synergistic formation – "Mabusenlolita", or in other words, a visionary and powerful "warrior of art", the evolutionary force that moves everything onward and replaces the traditional with the future.
“Dr. Mabusenlolita is a principle, a structure, a method, a law! The ‘Dr. Mabusenlolitastaat’ is only ruled by art. All Mabusenlolitas are toys of art, that is, objects of timelessness," says Meese.
“Art is the driving force. Art is so strong; it always creeps into everything. You cannot put it aside, it will always conquer,” says Meese, the most untamed enfant terrible of the German contemporary art scene. He’s a provocateur who, using the tools of art and without any prejudice, pulls into the light of day and dissects in detail everything that most politically correct types tend to keep shoved away and out of sight. Meese shakes the dust off of events, ideas and images that many would rather forget, thereby allowing us to look into the faces of the demons living in ourselves and the modern world as well as throughout human history. He encourages us to rewrite our relationships with things and processes, whether it be the "Hitler salute", a gesture forever marked by a political context, or an ancient but now controversial symbol such as the swastika. “We have to deal with the past much freer than we do now. By playing with it, I decontaminate its symbols and overcome its references to things. This is an important task of art, which is allowed to do everything,” says Meese.
Jonathan Meese's signature style is impulsive; it seemingly exhibits chaos and a passionately free-spirited madness, and even though at times it seems as if he has completely succumbed to a free-falling impulsivity of colours and brushstrokes, the samurai – i.e. preparedness and an absolute fusing with the current moment – is always present. Meese and his brush are one, just like a samurai and his sword. "I am the samurai of art," he has said more than once. This statement also has its own mythology – although Meese currently lives in Berlin and Ahrensburg, he was born in Tokyo.
In his work, Meese moves with equal deftness between painting, sculpture, installation, set-design, performance and theatre. He conjures up a whole world of images in which seemingly unshakable values, assumptions and stereotypes are challenged in a space that is saturated with humour and irony, and confronts us with the modern-day socio-political process and often absurd facets of our conventional views. With his works, Meese constantly challenges himself and our preconceived notions about art, its goals and its responsibilities, and the tools used to achieve them.
The only thing that is constant about the image of Jonathan Meese is the Adidas tracksuit top which he seemingly never takes off, and is, of course, wearing during our conversation.
How did Dr. Mabuse – a criminal mastermind from the silent 1920s movies by Fritz Lang, and who is present in your exhibition at Gallerie Krinzinger – come across your way? Why did you turn your attention towards him? How does he fit into today's world?
I just always look for characters of this kind. In a way, Dr. Mabuse is a prototype of a criminal – very interesting and very psychological. I’ve now watched all of those films by Fritz Lang, and I'm totally thrilled. I think his films are absolutely wonderful, and we can learn so much from them. They are really precise and very strong.
The figure of Dr. Mabuse is interesting because he wanted a government of criminals, as I want a government of art. And he was also fighting reality. Of course, he's a film figure, like Doctor No or Goldfinger or Lolita. She is also a film figure – controversial, very powerful, but she doesn’t realise that she has this power.
Jonathan Meese. DIE DR. MABUSENLOLITA. Installation view, Galerie Krinzinger. Courtesy Galerie Krinzinger and the artist. Photo: Anna Lott Donadel
And you decided to put them together, at least for this show – Dr. Mabuse and Lolita.
Yes; I put them together to mould them and then see if something else comes up. Maybe MabuseLolita or LolotaMaduse, or LoliMa, MaLoli, BuseLoli...whatever. We will see. Maybe a new creature comes into the world.
In the films, Dr. Mabuse uses hypnosis and other such techniques of mind alteration. Are you familiar with them in your own life as well?
I think all those phenomena that became so popular in the 20th century – hypnosis sessions, psychoanalysis, fortune tellers – are very interesting, and we have to dig into it to come to new conclusions. When you think about all these manipulations, it leads us to Lolita and also to Doctor No, and then you come to Hitler, or you can also come to an image of father, Daddy Cool, or to the mother and, in a way, to the role of the artist. What is stronger – art or reality? Why are politics still in power and not art? This is, for me, a very important question. I think art is what survives; art is the strongest, so it should be in power.
What is stronger – art or reality? Why are politics still in power and not art? This is, for me, a very important question. I think art is what survives; art is the strongest, so it should be in power.
I don't like politics; I'm not interested in it. And Lolitas are not electable – you cannot vote them in. To vote in the result always means average and average is not future. I'm very skeptical about voting because what is wrong is always voted in. We need something new. I think we need love. You cannot vote in love. We need friendship, but we cannot vote it in. It comes. It conquers us. And art should conquer the world. Like, the country you live in should be the Gesamtkunstwerk, and Austria should be the Gesamtkunstwerk, Germany should be the Gesamtkunstwerk.
It's really something one should work on, because it's so good. Because everything can be combined and new powers can come up, without ideology. Not politics, not religion; a new and positive potential.
I believe that art is the strongest energy that ever existed. Art is love, and love is the future. Only art produces the future and the future is art. In German, you say, Kunst ist Zukunft, Zukunft ist Kunst. Without art, there is no future. That's why I'm totally against censorship. Everything has to be allowed in art. We have to be free!
Without art, there is no future. That’s why I’m totally against censorship. Everything has to be allowed. We have to be free!
That’s for sure. The official press announcement of your exhibition says: “The question is rather, what can painting set against the image of film, where does it have better means of telling a story? Or how does history change in painting?” Do you believe that it is possible to change history? And if so, how?
I think this is a super fantastic aspect that you're talking about, and I’ve thought a lot about it. That's why I love Fritz Lang – because he also uses art and painting in his films and stimulates me to think about how I can use film to make paintings and then painting to make film. And then we come to Dario Argento and Stanley Kubrick. Film is a painting; it's an extended painting. Of course, when it's a good film. And film is very important; it's a part of the Gesamtkunstwerk, and it can, should be and is stronger than reality. So this is what it is about: How to to transform filmic aspects into my painting. I don't know how this will develop, but I want to do it. I think I’ve actually already started to work on it in this show. It's like a film set. Especially one of the rooms; it's like a Dr. Mabuse film set.
You talk a lot about love, but in the meantime, the narrative of your art is concentrated around something very different – let’s say, evil spirits or villains. What is the main message behind their images? Why are you interested in them? Dr. Mabuse is just one of them, along with Hitler, Stalin, etc. Are you not afraid that having a connection to them could poison you as well a little bit, and that it could take you away from love?
I think we need to put these figures into art, not into reality. We have to illuminate them because we all have demons in us. Film can make that visible, particularly such as those made by Robert Wiene (Caligari) and Fritz Lang in Weimar Germany. We all have evil aspects. And we have to put them into art – into theatre, opera, paintings, books, films; we have to deal with these demons. With our own demons, and also with the demons from reality, or even the demons that are invented. It's within us – we just have to put them into the rooms where they belong.
But I also deal with very positive figures, like the Moomins, Pippi Longstocking, Karl May, Wally Whyton... Richard Wagner, a controversial figure, but he also placed everything on stage: drama and hate, love, killing, death… And this is what we should do. Everything that is very negative, we should put into books, theatre, music. That's why it's there. I mean, that's why we have detective stories.
We have evil aspects. And we have to put them into art – into theatre, opera, paintings, books, films; we have to deal with these demons.
We need these boxes where we can put all this shit in. To watch a crime on television, that's no problem. To produce a real crime – that is a problem. To have criminal ideas is reality. I mean, everyone has thought to themselves: Oh, I want to kill this person...Oh, I would love to do this and that. But you never do it. It's just a thought. And thoughts should never be censored. Your thoughts are free. You can think what you want.
We now live in these times where there are so many scissors in our brains: Oh, I cannot do this; I'm not allowed to do that. In the meantime, the reality is very bad. So the art should be stronger than reality, and it should be telling reality what to do, not the other way around. Politicians are not allowed to tell me what to do, or religious people. I do what I want and future does what it wants. And if a politician tells me: Hey, you are not allowed to do this and that, I will do it immediately. And censorship is also in the art scene itself. That is very sad. Many artists are so frustrated; they censor themselves before they do something.
You are allowed to paint what you want. You are allowed to use the costume you want. You’re allowed to be whatever you want.
You are allowed to paint what you want. You are allowed to use the costume you want. You're allowed to be whatever you want. Sometimes I want to be a woman, sometimes I want to be a man, sometimes a baby, sometimes a zombie. Sometimes I want to be Richard Wagner, sometimes Stalin, sometimes Hitler, sometimes Pippi Longstocking or a Moomin, sometimes an animal, sometimes a volcano. My fantasy is free; I'm allowed to be whatever I want to be. I can be an alien, I can be 1000 years old, I can be Japanese, I can be an African, I can be a German, I can be an Englishman, I can be an American if I want to. I can be an Egyptian pharaoh, I can be an Aztec...that's why I do theatre. I love to disguise myself and to play roles.
We are not playing anymore. We are so afraid of playing. And that also comes from the politicians. They say: Don't play. Take it seriously; everything is serious. No. We are allowed to laugh at ourselves, to laugh about politics, about everything. The fantastic thing about artists is that we can sit on a tree and cut away the branches. And we fall, but softly, because art can carry us. We can make fun of ourselves. Politicians cannot do that. Then they are not reelected. In art, it doesn't matter. You can make a fool out of yourself. I always make a fool out of myself. I'm a fool on the hill, like The Beatles’ song. That's the role of the artist.
The fantastic thing about artists is that we can sit on a tree and cut away the branches. And we fall, but softly, because art can carry us.
And this is why you became an artist – to enjoy this freedom and to bring those villains out into the light so as to help people get rid of them.
Yeah, just put them where they belong. But we also have to examine them; we really have to cut them up to see what is inside – what is in this villain’s brain. What is there? What are the differences? And then we have to really try to understand what it is that makes crime happen in reality. We have to document it. Everything's allowed. We have to deal with the past much freer than we do now. By playing with it, I decontaminate its symbols and overcome its references to things. This is an important task of art, which is allowed to do everything.
Also, no censorship in thinking about the past. I mean, everything is open – we are allowed to conquer everything, criticise everything, we're allowed to go on and on and on. That's our way of entering the future – by going on, not keeping the status quo. Not saying: Oh, the recipe of 100 years ago was good. No, it was bad and also ultimately arbitrary. We need a new recipe to survive and to go on. We need new governments. We need new concepts. Not these old farts ruling us. No, thank you! I'm not interested in them. I'm not interested in these political parties or political power. I reject it. I don't see the sense in it. I want the power of love, the power of freedom. The power of going on like children, children that do what they want to.
I believe in the total power of art. I trust it because it always survives. And it is not female nor male. It is more like a child. For me, even Richard Wagner was a woman, as was Klaus Kinski.
I don't see these concepts anymore. I don't understand them anymore. I'm a child. That's it. And I want to stay a child. Forever.
We need a new recipe to survive and to go on. We need new governments. We need new concepts. Not these old farts ruling us. No, thank you!
I know you have quite a special relationship with the works of Nietzsche. You first read Nietzsche at the age of twelve. What did you understand about Nietzsche back then? Have Nietzsche’s works had an impact in your evolution as an artist? What interests you most in his works now?
I think Nietzsche was in part a child. And he was experimenting all the time. I think of his concept of the Übermensch [Superman]; I think he just meant the child within us. It's not what people made out of it; I think it's just the child that goes on and plays with words, with ideologies, and with religion. And by playing with these things, he makes the future happen.
I believe that Nietzsche was a very sweet man. And that he only wanted sweetness. And he used powerful words because this is always nicer, and therefore you can make it clearer, but what he wanted was freedom. I am totally sure about that. Unfortunately, many people misunderstood him. And also his appearance. Literally, you could laugh about him because he looked so strange. And I think he wanted to look strange. Like, I want to look strange; I like it when people laugh.
I always felt very close to this guy. When I’m in Switzerland, I often stay in a hotel close to Nietzsche's house. I also had an exhibition there. I always give respect to him. I think Nietzsche just gave everything he had; that's why he spent ten years in bed in the end. He had to sleep. He gave so much energy that he was emptied out.
Jonathan Meese. DIE DR. MABUSENLOLITA. Installation view, Galerie Krinzinger. Courtesy Galerie Krinzinger and the artist. Photo: Anna Lott Donadel
You are known for the use of challenging gestures and provocative tools. The most talked about of all is the “Nazi salute” – something that is deeply connected with the darkest time of the 20th century. Is there something driving you to cross publicly accepted lines? What do you want to say through that? I assume that before presenting it, you already knew the reactions it would evoke.
I knew a little bit about the reaction. But in fact, I just did it to give a big statement on censorship because I think the gestures and books – all of this – should never be forbidden. I did this salute, the “Hitler salute” (or “the Meese salute”, which is how I called it) in many countries. In Japan, in America, everywhere. And then, after a few years, in Kassel, they suddenly wanted to take me to court for doing it [Meese was accused in court of twice making a Nazi salute at an event called Megalomania In the Art World at Kassel University in June 2013 – Ed.]. You know, somebody in Germany just said, Hey, this is not allowed. I even didn't expect that something like this could happen anymore.
And then I had to go to court to explain that this is a gesture of art and freedom, and I do it on stage, not out in the general public. I was acquitted, so there are no charges against me anymore. I won the case.
I just wanted to empty this gesture and put it into a new combination, into a new context. I wanted to say, hey, how can a gesture be bad? It’s like, how can a knife be bad? It’s an object.
I just wanted to empty this gesture and put it into a new combination, into a new context. I wanted to say, hey, how can a gesture be bad? It's like, how can a knife be bad? It's an object. So the object is never bad. It's how we use it, how we put it into the world, what we wanted to say with it.
I wanted to show respect in terms of art and I wanted to decontaminate and free the symbol. Like the swastika – it's a very old symbol and you can fill it with good things or bad things. The object itself is not bad. Because when we think that objects are bad, we are entering the territory of voodoo, and this is more like religion. I'm not religious. I don't believe in this. I don't believe that water, or a snake, or an animal, or a mushroom are bad. You have mushrooms that you eat and you’ll die, but that doesn't mean that the mushroom is bad. It's just the nature of it.
So I just played with this “Hitler salute” to make it into “the Meese salute.” I wanted to make a contribution to the freedom of art. Here you can use everything – you can do everything – as long as it's not reality. I'm not allowed to kill a person on stage. I can pretend, but I'm not allowed to harm people in real life. I can use dolls, I can draw a criminal scene. When I draw or paint a criminal scene, I'm not a criminal. I'm not a criminal when I write a book, like Edgar Wallace or Agatha Christie did. In fairy tales, a lot of crazy things happen. The wolf eats the grandmother. Nowadays, you would say that the wolf is bad. No, it's a story. No wolf is bad – it's his nature.
I mean, when I was in court, my mother was very fearful. She was like, Oh, my son is in court, and they want to put him into jail or whatever. And I said, Do not worry, I will win this. Today, maybe I would not win. Times are harder. Ten, fifteen years ago, it was more playful; now it's very fierce.
What is an act of creation, of making? What is happening at that moment? What is happening when you create? You’ve said that you only rely on your instincts, and not even on creativity: “creativity comes too much out of your head, whereas you use your instincts like an animal and they are connected to your body.” We are animals, yet isn’t that something that we would rather not think about – and are even ashamed of?
Absolutely. We want to make “creativity” the word that is most important, but I think our instinct is quicker. Creativity means: oh, I think a lot and then I produce. With me, it's different – I produce, and then I think, well, is it good or not? I don't want to be slow. I want to be fast, like a flash, and then see what happens. This has always been my way. Because we don't know what the future is. We cannot blackmail it. We cannot say: hey, this will be the future tomorrow. We don't know. Maybe a meteorite is heading our way. Maybe we will be dead. You never know.
We want to make “creativity” the word that is most important, but I think our instinct is quicker.
Religious people and political people always say: We know the future. But they don't because they don't even want to know it. They want to use recipes from the past and then they want other people to live like that. In art, it's Überraschung – a surprise. What happens tomorrow is a surprise, and it should be a surprise; and it should not be a fearful surprise – it should be something positive.
People nowadays are afraid: Oh, the future will be so bad. And now with coronavirus, everything is so bad, everything is so much worse, the children will have a horrible time. No, the children have to have a super time, the future has to be super! And this is what we have to say – always! Even if it's not true, we have to build this dream, we have to build this passion of something super. Otherwise, we are not being nice to our descendants, to the people who will come after us.
We are temporary guests on this planet. But things should be good for the next 500, 1000, and 2000 years as well. I won’t be here anymore, but I'm not cynical. I don't want to act as if no one will have a good life in the future. I hate this attitude. It should be super for the children.
I always say that everything is changeable. You can change everything. The “Hitler salute” can be changed into whatever you want to, but you have to be able and ready to change things. Sometimes it takes a long time. Sometimes it's very quick. But there are always people who say: Oh, you are not allowed to do this, etc. And when you have such an attitude, it will be difficult.
Instead of “no”, I always say “yes”. And it is always the singular person that changes the world. The singular person says: computer, and all the others say: no, it’s not possible. It's always the same – with the diesel motor, with electricity, with the Earth being round, etc. In the beginning, people always say: no, no, no, no, no, no. And then, after a while, they understand. And this is, for me, a very strange thing to accept – the majority is never right. The majority is mostly very afraid, and wants to eliminate progress and development. They want to live in the soup that they cooked years before. No; we have to be able to jump into another field. With love and passion, and with the idea that it will be better. The promise of art is that it will be better. And it will be better.
Jonathan Meese. DIE DR. MABUSENLOLITA. Installation view, Galerie Krinzinger. Courtesy Galerie Krinzinger and the artist. Photo: Anna Lott Donadel
We need this shift of consciousness on a global scale, and maybe art is one of the tools that could help us do that. And also by pushing us even more out of our comfort zone.
Absolutely. 100 percent. Art is the driving force. And that's why politicians and religious people are so afraid of art. They don't understand it. I mean, not to understand something is also something very positive, because then you have the possibility to learn. But they don't want to learn; they are so afraid. They see that from the past, only art survives. Why is art so strong? We have to keep it down. Then all these restrictions come in.
Look at history – most all tyrants were very afraid of art. Except for maybe Nero and Akhenaten – they loved it. I mean, we don't really know; maybe that's just a legend and not true.
Normally, politicians hate art. Because it's the unknown. It's something they cannot control. Art is so strong and it always creeps into everything. You cannot put it aside, it will always conquer. And that's why we have to make art stronger, stronger and stronger – against all these horrible people who want to rule over us or want to rule over art. Starting with Germany, America, Russia, England...I do not want them. I want to play. My authority is my mother, art, and my friends.
Speaking about your mother, Brigitte Meese, she has played a very important role in your life – not just as a parent but almost as an advisor and mentor. Your relationship is something more than the regular intimacy between son and mother; she has been a kind of “brother in arms” to you – she featured in one of your videos (Industry of Nature), and you worked together on several collage books, etc. In the broadest sense of the word, what is the role of “mother”, her power?
I think mother is Mother Nature. I didn't elect her. She is just there; she produced me, she brought me into the world. I didn't want that. She just did it. And I think it's lovely to have a good relationship with one’s parents. Sometimes that doesn't happen. My mother is 91 now; she's still so curious. She wants the future. And she's also so angry about politics, and about what is happening in Germany, in Europe, and wherever. She says, What are these people doing? This is horrible. Why don't they progress? Why don't they develop? Why don't they just free themselves?
She's interested in art and young people. She is here, somewhere in the gallery; she talks with people, and she knows so much. She's more or less an object of art; she's a toy of art, like me. I'm a toy. And I want to be a toy of art. That means that I can play as a toy into the future. And I love my mother, she's so great. We quarrel a lot, we scream at each other. She has a different opinion about history than me. She has lived so long and she has had so many experiences. For me, history is something to play with, whereas she, of course, lived it. So she has a different attitude. But she understands that I have to be different than her because I'm younger. The young generation now, they have to somehow conquer the world in a different way. It's a development.
I'm a toy. And I want to be a toy of art. That means that I can play as a toy into the future.
You were born in Japan and call yourself not only “a toy of art” but also “the samurai of art.” As we know, besides theatricality and costuming, rigorous training is needed to master the technical and mental virtuosity of the samurai. A samurai and his sword is one, or in other words – the sword is an extension of him/his body. What does it mean to be a samurai of art?
It's more like what you said – you are prepared, you are there. You have a position in something; you have a love. I don't like the reality of samurai. I only like the image. For me, it's just a dream concept of something. The samurai have a certain codex, which I think is also interesting. But, of course, if they take it too seriously then that’s not interesting. I mean, to be an object, to be the sword or the extension of the sword – this is something that is super. I'm the extension of the brush, or the brush is the extension of me.
When I do a painting and it's ready, I always think: Oh, somebody else did it. I don’t have much connection to it. It's fluid. It just came out of me, but I don't take too much care. It's my duty; I do something that's necessary. That's what, maybe, the samurai also think – they do what is necessary.
For me, a samurai is an image. They look like comics. I love comics. I love manga. I love these comic figures of things, like Dr. Mabuse is from a comic, Lolita is a comic. If you put enough pressure on something for long enough, like on carbon to make a diamond, then the Lolita comes, the Mabuse comes, the samurai comes. Stalin, Hitler comes, whatever... it's just a question of pressure. How long do you apply the pressure? How powerful must the pressure be? The volcano explodes not because it wants to. It has to. It's not a question of wanting. We also want too much. In German, we say: Es sollte einfach passieren. It should just happen when you are ready. Just let it flow.
You recently had the exhibition Erzceramics De Large (Aber Bitte Mit Sahne) at Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp. It was devoted to masks, to the masks without which we are totally helpless in dealing with reality. How many different masks do you have in your everyday artistic and social menu? What kind of mask are you wearing at the moment, and why do you need it?
I have endless masks – every second of every day there’s a new one. I love masks, I need them; it's a form of protection. Not only in Corona times, but also in general times. Masks are so essential to survive this shitty reality.
I mean, when I'm with my mother, I have a different mask than when I am with you or with my friends, or when I'm sleeping or eating, or when I'm in the gallery. But it's always a respectful mask, and it's also a mask to keep a certain distance in order to survive. I'm open enough that many people try to put knives into my heart, and this hurts a lot. So sometimes I need a mask, like Parsifal or Pippi Longstocking. Michael Jackson had a mask, he was so sensitive. Or Madonna, or David Bowie, they all have masks. I love this. It is kind of creating a new image of yourself. I mean, my image is mainly the same because it's always this uniform, which makes it easy for me to go on. But, of course, I have a certain mask all the time. In fact, other people should tell me which mask it is.
I think the whole body is a mask. Look at a chameleon – just like the military camouflage, it uses and adopts colours so that you cannot see it. I’m a camouflage artist. Like snakes or snails, we have a naked skin, we are quite unprotected. So we need something that protects us not only against war, the cold and the heat, but also against different influences and other things.
You freely move between painting, sculpture, installation, set-design, performance, theatre. Do you believe it’s important for artists to come out of the box, to act in a wider space?
I think it depends on what you want or what is good for you. I think some Gesamtkunstwerk is always the best. That means you should do everything that is needed. I love to expand – I would love to do ballet, or films. That is something I have in mind. I love to conquer new fields, to do the new media and use new things. I just did some music with DJ Hell, one of the coolest DJs in the world I know.
But it's also super if you meet people who are just doing paintings or drawings – it's their decision. It is how they can give their contribution to what is happening and what is necessary.
But nevertheless, I think it's super if you do everything because an artist can do everything. When you go on with the idea of art, you can run a bank, you can drive a bus; it's just a question of how you approach what you are doing.
Art means not average, not being durchschnittlich. That is all. Art means you do what you do with love and not with ideology; you do it with another attitude. You don't want to please too much, you just want to do your thing. And everybody can do that. I believe in the singular person and not in the majority. I don't even believe in minorities; I just believe in the singular who does what is necessary. And doing it in the direction of the future.
So we have to broaden also this idea of what art is. For many people art is just a decoration – for politics, for the rich, for religion... No, politics is more or less the decoration of art. Politics, and also religion, should be in a museum; art is the driving force bringing us onward.
Art means you do what you do with love and not with ideology; you do it with another attitude. You don’t want to please too much, you just want to do your thing.
Do you agree that we, as a civilization, have reached the critical point of our human evolution and are now facing the risk of extinction? How does it happen that, from time to time, evil becomes the world's leading force? Is it evolution that helps us to understand what our weaknesses are so that we can become progressively smarter? Or are we even becoming smarter?
I think we have a great opportunity to change everything now. Because the evil ones shout so loud, that means they are very weak, in fact, and they need majorities. That's why in German, they say zusammenwachsen; they put themselves together to be stronger. But they are even weaker. And we will overcome this – they will all disappear. These evil forces have no chance at surviving.
Art is the thing that brings us into the future, and they will all go away and art will survive. 100 percent. 1000 percent
These evil forces have no chance at surviving. Art is the thing that brings us into the future, and they will all go away and art will survive. 100 percent. 1000 percent.
Jonathan Meese. Courtesy Galerie Krinzinger and the artist. Photo: Anna Lott Donadel
Have you managed to find out who you are? What does it mean to be human and alive? And could one find the answer to this most important question through art?
Every day I am something new. And I am, of course, a playing child, or as we say in German, a Spielkind. The thing that makes us alive is playing. That is the only thing that we have; we can play into the future, or we can decide to stop playing and then we are in the past. Politicians never play – they cannot. They have to be elected, and that's why they cannot have the time to play. They always have to please a certain group; in art you play and play and play. And then the future comes and comes and comes. And this is what I am. I am a play. I'm a game. I'm an object of the game of art, of a dictatorship of art. I am part of the future because I want it to come. And I am not telling the future what it should be. I just want to be surprised. I just want to see it. I just want to see something new. Also, technically everything is possible. There is no such thing: Oh, this is not possible. No, the future is possible. It is there, it is right behind that door. You just have to go there. Not always wait for it, but just go on – step by step, step by step, step by step. And when there comes a door, you open it, and then the next door comes.
We should not be afraid of the future. There is no problem in the future. The problem is the past and our fear. These evil forces make so much fear, they make so much noise. But the noise means nothing. It's like the Wizard of Oz. It's nothing. The evil ones are so weak, in fact, and that's ourchance. We, the people who play and love art are the strongest. We give the red card to all ideologies. Art will conquer the world.
Title image: Jonathan Meese. Courtesy Galerie Krinzinger and the artist. Photo: Anna Lott Donadel
