Moot Alternative Xmas List

MONDAY, 18th of  November, 2013

Xmas is coming and alot of people will be splashing their cash out on stuff for loved ones. As a considered alternative to all the mass produced shite usually bought we recommend buying something with more an Intrinsic value like a piece of art made by someone with hands and feet and noses, a human. So here we compiled a list of 5 good wholesome places and artists to buy things off of via the Intenet. Enjoy

1. RE:SURGO

An amazing collection of prints and zines very reasonably priced and beautiful to hold and look at.

About:
Swedish-French artist duo Anna Hellsgård and Christian “Meeloo” Gfeller, now based in Berlin, have been working together since 2001, creating and producing prints, artists’ books, sculptures, zines and more in their print studio Re:Surgo!, cementing their reputation as master silkscreeners and innovators of the medium with every new project. Christian’s incessant artistic output began in 1995, making punk zines under the name Bongoût. From day one, Hellsgård and Gfeller have placed as strong an emphasis on intuition and skill as on DIY ethics and communal practice, in frequent collaborations with other artists on print projects, organizing exhibitions and opening their independent artist space and retail store in Berlin to international artists and musicians.
Perfectionists in terms of technique, their sought-after limited edition prints are meticulously produced from start to finish. Throughout the years, their desire to never repeat themselves and to pursue formal innovation and challenging visual content have animated every project and inspired further experiments. In their quest to constantly test and push the boundaries of the medium, they have begun to deconstruct its conventions, techniques and formal structures. Their series of monoprints Bad Printing illustrates this intention to question the familiarity of the silkscreening process, as it consciously highlights – and celebrates – its idiosyncrasies. Across the intentional overlaps, smudges, bleeding, glitches and transparencies we can recognize, in the two dimensions, a temporal axis as well, a decidedly analogue visual chronology of becoming. As such, each unique print is conceived like an experimental painting, in which accidents and errors play an important part. This resonates with one of their favorites, German painter Georg Baselitz, who described his approach as a struggle, a taming, a negotiation with the image in becoming: “I begin with an idea, but as I work, the picture takes over. Then there is the struggle between the idea I preconceived... and the picture that fights for its own life.”
Experimentation can never be about control. For Hellsgård and Gfeller, it is also, importantly, about un-learning. Chance is given a new prominence in the Bad Printing series. Using investigations into different intensities of abstraction and aleatory geometry, more intuitive than mathematical, these prints create an evocative fractal landscape of shapes, colors and depth. With their series of unique books, such as The Idiot, The Stranger or The Prince, Hellsgård and Gfeller have also re-thought the format of the book. Each of the books in this series is titled after a canonic literary work, and, with its solemn cover and precious binding, like a unique manuscript, prompts to rethink the understanding of what a book is, how it is made, how it circulates as a material object and how it mediates its content. Each page is a unique print, and on each, the pictorial references and figurative elements disintegrate and realign into an abstract composition across the multiple planes of the image. Echoing its literary namesake, a dense visual narrative emerges across the pages of each book.
- nine yamamoto masson

Re:Surgo! / Gfeller & Hellsgård's works have been exhibited worldwide and are in numerous museums and collections such as the MoMA NY, MoMA SF, Stanford Art Library, Harvard University's Fine Art Library, the State Museum of Berlin's Art Library, the Yale University Art Collection and many more.
The Collection of the University of Minnesota recently bought the complete silk-screened artists' book archive of Bongoût (1995-2012).

WEBSITE HERE

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2. DAVID BALFE

Student of Fine art printmaking In NCAD. Currently studying In Khib In Bergen, Norway.

David Balfe Is an artist we met In Dublin. He make some wonderful lithograph prints of UFC fighters which are available from his big cartel website here

3. ANNE VAN DER LINDEN - Chéri je t'aime

This is a wonderful screen printed book of Anne Van Der Lindens amazing drawings. Buy here

2011-36 p. - 22.5 x 30 
recent Drawings 
boards silkscreened in black 
felt marker on Gross natural Centaur 
Dress double flaps 
on structured wood Savanna Wood 
silkscreened black and silver 
450 copies numbered from 1 to 450 
editions Bibliophile Popular Workshop 
- 25 euros (including shipping)

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Moot Alternative Xmas List (page 2)

4. UNITED DEAD ARTISTS

An amazing collections of toys, books, zines and cards. I recommend the Dead Panini Club here
and Laurent Lolmède 'Gross Comix' here but browse through the whole website to uncover a vast array of amazing products here.

United Dead Artists is a French Publishing house mainly dedicated to editing images for adults (but not only) books.

Publications of United Dead Artists reflect the eclectic and unique tastes of its editor  : the designer Stephane Blanquet . 

Worn by the pleasure of surprise, United Artist Dead often proceeds by enigma (title and publication without apparent texts).

The publishing house was founded in 2000 by Stéphane Blanquet , Olive and Omer Pesquer.

An important date in the life Editions United Dead Artists is the first issue of Muscle Rifle in 2007 1 , 

video review to 30x40cm format. Follow several works of artists in the same format (indicated below by reference FMC).

In 2012 (September 7 to October 6), the Arts Factory Gallery presents the exhibition 

"United Dead Artists / 400 drawings alive!"

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5. CONSTELLATION RECORDS

Constellation Records make records for some amazing artists as well as that they have a wonderful sense of

tactility and design when it comes to making each record, each one is beautifully screen printed with

unique sleeves and printed inlays with some lovely artwork as well as a personal touch. Visit their website here

You can listen to alot of the records via their artist pages on the constellation records website. We would recommend the recent re-issue of Do Make Say Thinks Self-Titled Debut, have a look HERE or Sandro Perris 'Impossible Spaces' LP which comes with a really nice print, both look beautiful.

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Thats enough there. Merry Xmas.

Stephen.

Gregory Jacobsen : Sweety Piles

SUNDAY, 13th of October, 2013

Stephen Morton reflects over the work of artist Gregory Jacobsen

Triumphant (2010)

It was when we first got the internet installed in our home that i first came across the artwork of Gregory Jacobsen. At the time I was in my mid teens and other than the art books my Father had left around the house I had not been exposed to alot of art (that is artwork that I had found out of my own accord). The platform that the Internet provided allowed me to dig through various obscene searches to find new artists of interest and further more artists my insecure spotty self could relate to, this new cybernetic ritual proved to be quite the revelation.

Looking back In hindsight finding Gregory’s website felt illegal, it was themed with a sickly pink provoking a visceral reaction you'd get from stumbling onto a porn site at 14.  I wouldn't say I was appreciating Gregory’s work on the same level as online porn but his work did offer something that lived up to and in a way transcended those early fleshy cravings with images that incorporated the vitality of flesh which come's with the mashing of human genitals. For me Gregory's work cultivated these carnal desires and helped alleviate the intensity of the initial post-pubescent lust flow that was stewing in me by opening up an unconventional beauty.

Short Stabbing - Gregory Jacobsen

One of the first things that stood out to me about Gregory’s work was the sickly bile soaked colors he used in his toxic environments that were transfused into a mise en scene of fleshy blood cum filled wrinkled childhood endeavour. I love his early acrylic paintings because this is where these colors are most prominent. The characters in his paintings are often set in these woodland areas which are saturated by an unhealthy glow which can be contributed to the disposing of uranium ore found in his home town in New Jersey which Gregory cites as an influence on the work. When you invest time in Gregory's work you start to set out on a trail through his woodlands where you meet a host of his meaty inhabitants and mounds of glutonous fruity piles. The environment is drenched in an overt sense of optimistic lunacy that never makes you feel uneasy and it is often quite easy to warm to the demented faces and strange abnormal happenings that are always a joy to encounter.

Gregory’s more recent work has seen him move onto oil paintings, a progress of his fleshy constructs, the colors are now more of an artificially glazed sweet much like that of a phallically fruity shaped jolly rancher lathered in a sticky sweet and stinking perfume dew, this and a new emphasis on portraiture paintings of neatly wrapped faces, some direct from life with some having mild deformations and contortions . These paintings still conjures up notions of a sugary gross childhood and early adolescence although less crass in their content than his earlier work it instead reeks itself of a different kind of vitality. It is through his most recent work that once again we see Gregory Jacobsens art maintain to be a masterclass in making the seemingly unsavoury becoming massively delectable. Tasty Jellybeans and all.

Blustering Bullies - Gregory Jacobsen

Grandmas Bathroom (2011)

Picnic Princess (2005)

Stephen Morton - 13/10/13

All images courtesy of Zg Gallery, Chicago & Gregory Jacobsen.

Being Irish

FRIDAY, 6th of SEPTEMBER, 2013

Illustration by Stephen Morton

Dermot Tobin takes a look at some of the aspects that mould the stereotypes associated with being Irish. 

Stereotypes are not normally my weapon of choice. Like any good liberal, I consider them skewed, unreliable and dangerous. But I'm not so naive to think that they are without a semblance of truth. In fact, the only way to invoke stereotypes without projecting spiteful prejudice is to do so in reference to whatever race, nationality or sect that you yourself illustrate.

It's from that shaky platform that I commence this brief dissection of Irishness. And therein lies the first shortcoming of stereotype. What does it mean to be Irish? When I worked in a Montreal restaurant a few years ago, my boss often joked about how he couldn't leave me alone around alcohol. Too often, drunkenness colours how the rest of the world, and we ourselves, understand Ireland.

The Irish obsession with drink needs no further analysis. For me, it concludes with the assertion that our psyche is tormented by a discomfort with sober reality. Our relationship with alcohol might therefore be seen as a continuous attempt to escape. This helps explain why the Irish funeral often reaches the same alcoholic intensity as the Irish wedding. Or why winning and losing at our favourite sports often yields a similar degree of intoxication. It seems anything that solicits higher emotional levels than normal requires the treatment of drink.

So it's our emotions that we are running from? This sounds valid enough. After all, we have only recently discovered that an earnest engagement with the mind can take place outside the confessional box. Catholicism, of course, is another great expression of the Irish character. But its fixation on guilt has probably caused much strife in our minds. The sentiment that Catholics' ritualistic obsession with the crucifixion encourages self-criticism is hardly weak. I don't remember learning about the death of Christ; rather, it feels almost innate. The routine exposure to an ancient preacher dying a painful death to divinely legislate for human wrongdoing is the backdrop to many an Irish childhood, when more intricate falsehoods about ourselves formulate regardless.

A less explored explanation for uneasiness in Irish people comes from our turbulent history. It's still less than two hundred years since the island underwent the devastation of a famine that decimated the island's population. I'm not sure what the psychological effect of being in the perpetual state of having nothing to eat has on a people, but I suspect it's quite profound. That's not to suggest that the Irish condition was more content before the 1840's, but the sheer magnitude of the Famine underlines it as probably the most unforgettable episode in Irish history. The transfer of this trauma from generation to generation is likely to have diluted over time, but its impact must somewhere endure.

Songs, stories and commemorations might be an obvious manifestation, but discontent with our national selves could also play out in proclaiming our “pride” in being Irish. Here we sometimes drift into embarrassingly murky waters of tediously claiming common heritage with whatever we deem as success. Dabbling in this kind of nonsense means subscribing to the notion that Irish people have "that little bit more about them". What else could propel the notion that Barack Obama, a symbol of African-American emancipation, is actually from County Offaly?

Not so long ago, a friend of mine recounted an experience he'd had while studying in Italy. As he related another merit to Irishness, a Turkish classmate interrupted him: "Yes Yes Yes. We get it. Everyone's fucking Irish!". Shocked and appalled, the Irishman asked his fellow student to elaborate. It was then that he became aware of his habitual invoking an Irish person's involvement in human achievements they commonly discussed. While listening, I remembered how I once told a pair of English girls that Irish writers were “the greatest of them all”. That might not have been such an absurd statement had I actually read authors from every other country, analysed accordingly and generally had a semblance of an idea of what I was talking about. Instead, I readily repeated a lazy quasi-racist mantra veneering as "national pride".

In Ireland itself, feeling such greatness is a lot less likely. Contrarily, the traditional Irish community tends to view pride as a taboo. It's not that we are unwilling to recognise achievement, it's just we feel we really shouldn't recognise it in ourselves. Nobody wants to be thought of as "having notions" about themselves.

The paradox of proclaiming Ireland's greatness to others while frowning on individual pride at home is interesting. It suggests that being Irish only contributes to excellence when it happens in the world's view. It's probably more accurate to say that it doesn't contribute at all, that any Irish person who achieves does so because of themselves alone. In reality, it has nothing to do with the other 4.5 million people who call themselves Irish.

It may seem self-deprecating to raise these problems with being Irish. So it's worth pointing out that there are plenty of things about Ireland that I enjoy and adore. But it would be so much healthier if this could happen because of proximity to them, as opposed to frivolous association with them. Constantly referring to Irishness is actually a laboured assertion of self-superiority. That it's most proudly proclaimed under a tirade of alcohol is evidence enough that it's just an expression of fundamental insecurity. The fatalist in me concedes that this is the inevitable nationalism of a formerly oppressed country. But as an idealist, I'd like to think being Irish doesn't need to come across as so utterly mindless.

Dermot Tobin
Friday, August 23, 2013
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For more writing by Dermot Tobin visit his blog here

Trumpets of Jericho: It was pure love at first sight, like.

WEDNESDAY, 17th of JULY, 2013

Trumpets Of Jericho In Galway (unknown year)

Just a few weeks ago we were hit with the very sad news that Trumpets Of Jericho had disbanded (they were scheduled to play The Moot Art Music Night on July 12th). Peter Lawlor lays down some clay and petals in reflection to a much loved and loving band of lads.

I don’t listen to a lot of bands anymore. I’m not entirely sure why this is. It’s partly due to my stubborn opinion of what a band should do to garner my attention, and also due to dance music/ electronic music taking over my ears in recent years. I find it really difficult to get excited about bands, in particular Irish bands. A lot of their music comes across as an exercise in what is cool, or perceived to be cool by the Irish public.

Trumpets Of Jericho Poster (2010)

For example, the first time I saw Adebisi Shank in a modestly attended Cleere’s Theatre when they had just brought out their first EP is one of the few times in recent memory where a band completely blew me away. I had no expectations but they sounded like nothing I heard before and to experience live when Lar’s guitar nearly knocks you out numerous times is a thing of wonder. Since then everyone and their granny was starting an instrumental “math-rock”(genre names are silly, that’s one of the silliest) band. And as a result the whole thing got tired and boring very quickly. (Not Adebisi Shank though, they’re still consistently brilliant)

Trumpets of Jericho were a band. They were a really good band. I was lucky enough to see them progress from a band who were experimenting in their early gigs to try and find what type of band they were, to a band full of confidence who knew exactly who they were. They genuinely got better every time I saw them play live. The band is made up of close friends of mine, so to a certain degree I might be showing some bias. I don’t really care though. They were brilliant and I was committed to telling everyone how good they were, and now I’m going to tell you.

There was no fear of ToJ being accused of trying to be cool, or part of any scene that was seen as cool. Just look at ANY of their self-made videos promoting gigs, or their quite brilliant tour diary series. They made music that didn’t sound like anyone else on the Island, which is a complete and utter rarity. This is probably the main reason why they appealed to me. You can point to a litany of influences, but they digested these influences and regurgitated them out onto the listener in a way that was was something quite unique and endearing. Tom’s lyrics are distinctly Irish and how he sung them was distinctly Irish, or Corkonian. He sang about Ireland, and everything thing that was wrong with it. They were angry, but the type of anger that would end in a kiss rather than a clenched fist.

toilets (unknown year)

So if they were this good why don’t more people know about them, why didn’t more blogs write about them and why didn’t more bookers book them, not just here in Ireland but further afield? Well these are questions that I’ve always asked myself, and questions that I find more salient now as ToJ are no more. Simply more people didn’t know about them because of their lack of online presence, which seems to be nearly as important as having good tunes, which they had in abundance. It could be that they were in the wrong country/county. It’s a simple fact that the majority of the bands popular in Ireland today are from/based in Dublin. That doesn’t mean that the best bands are in Dublin, but it does mean that a lot of bands/artists feel pressure to have a strong presence in the capital. For whatever reason ToJ were not nearly as popular as they should have been, and now they’re broken up. People should care, but they won’t. The world will keep turning, The Corona’s will still sell out the o2, Halves will still make music where how they recorded it is more interesting to how it sounds, ASIWYFA will still be the least subtle/imaginative post-rock –by-numbers band around. But, they will ALL still be more popular and more appreciated than Trumpets of Jericho ever will be, which is just pathetic. But who am I to say what’s pathetic? By ToJ standards this article and myself are one big mass of pathetic.

“Can’t take much more of this

Vicarious nostalgic.

Pining for sweeter days,

It’s not romantic.

It’s just pathetic.”

Well call me pathetic but soon enough I’m going to be pining for the days when one of the best bands this country has produced in recent were not left to be an unfairly small footnote on the Irish music scene.

Peter Lawlor 17/7/13

video by HOB JUNKER


Listen to more here

The Moot Art and Music Festival

SUNDAY, 7th of JULY, 2013

FILM TRAILERS

WEDNESDAY, 2nd MAY, 2013

TheMootArtGallery.org presents 'The Moot Art and Music Festival'.

On July 12th & 13th, Parliament Street, Kilkenny In the Rep of Ireland, Kilkenny Themootartgallery.org presents The Moot Art And Music Festival. An alternative festival of the arts transpiring in the ancient Medieval Town of Kilkenny. This warm and friendly festival will be ripe with artistic endeavours from many of Kilkennys Artistic inhabitants as well as creativity from those further abroad in other places. Working in conjunction with our favorite little den of iniquity Cleeres Theatre and The Upstairs Gallery, The Moot Art Gallery(.org) hope to bring something uniquely unique to the people of Kilkenny and those further abroad from other places.

12th
Starting off the festival on the 12th of July at 6pm In The Upstairs Gallery we have the Grand Opening of ‘UMPLEK’ an exhibition of wholesome joyous artworks from Scottish Artist Bobby Nixon and Irish Artist Stephen Morton. The exhibition brings together these two young creative delinquents under the roof of The Upstairs Gallery to set up and display a series of creative pieces centred around themes of apocalypse, sexual abuse, extremism, murder, rape and incest that will be rendered tightly for your satisfaction.
Later on over In Cleeres Theatre we have ‘The Moot Film Night’, debuting a host of films by 3 Kilkenny artist and 1 Cork based artist. We have the Kilkenny World Premiere of David O’Reilly’s ‘The External World’ projected onto a screen. An amazing piece of work from one of the worlds most Innovative animators of our times, The External World tells the tale of a boy learning to play piano. One of the main centre pieces of the festival is the premiere of ‘Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep’ a feature length film by Michael Higgins another one of Kilkenny’s great creative practitioners of the arts, the film looks at three character and the thing that makes them one. Then we have the Kilkenny Premiere of Nigel Farrelly’s ‘The Cook’ shot on location In Berlin. Also and then we have Kilkennys Premiere of Kilkenny based artist Stephen Morton and his short film ‘The Kingdom Of Choke’ written and drawn on location In Edinburgh, Scotland and assembled In Kilkenny, Rep of Ireland.

13th
On the 13th of July, the second day of The Moot Art and Music Festival we present ‘The Moot Music Night’ In Cleeres Theatre set in the ancient backdrop of Kilkenny. Headlining the night we have a mysterious duo of creative visual and audio artists who go down under the guise of The Blackheart Nightclub, a wave of dancy fun music and mental quirky visuals ‘The Blackheart Nightclub’ offers something unique and special for the punters to enjoy. Then we have Trumpets Of Jericho, A group of Cork/Kilkenny musicians and rockers who will be belting out a barrage of post punk with a smiggin of 70’s west coast pop and a dollop of attitude. And then also we have Strawk, a set of pulsating scream throws of dilapidated misery set in a mushy quagmire of profoundly riveting wakes. And then also again we have the Kilkenny debut of ‘Replies’ the music of Nigel Farrelly.

Each Night is 5 euros In and the exhibit is free to see.

Visit themootartgallery.org for further information.

Veronica Chang 21/5/13

Enchanted Gardens

WEDNESDAY, 12TH MARCH, 2013 

The Moot Art Gallery looks at the work of Reinhard Scheibner

The Clearing (2005)

Today in the world there are many billions of people trundling away In their various different environments and habitats. All these people have their own mushy quagmire of views on how they see and feel the world. These views can be influenced by religious, political and economic systems as well as internal, familial and social factors resulting in each person having their own unique concoction of brain stew from which they perceive the world around them.

We will evidently go through our lives with just our own melanising perspective whilst meeting, communicating and fucking different people with perspectives of their own. Many of these people you may not agree with, for instance you may have a fully fledged racist who sees the world as a death trap of hostile paranoia in contention with an evangelical Christian who likes the thought of fucking children; You may also be a strong headed rebellious activist screaming out at some domineering fuck witted fascist, you may even be one of those domineering fuck witted fascists. It is not a matter of these people being right or wrong it is that there is much to be gained from knowing that all these amazing, sometimes baffling perspectives no matter how mundane or exciting a person’s life may seem do exist and that they are all connected to the fact that they are all the perspectives of other human beings, our fellow brothers, sisters and fuckwits. There are worlds looming about in people heads, planted in there, ever shifting and festering away slowly as ones we may love or hate but other than our own will never get to fully experience or feel. This notion can fill one with a throbbing wonder as to what it is like to see into the minds of other humans.

It is through the divine majesty of art that a window is provided to see into the minds of other humans. By looking at the solitary artistic fruit a human can conjure up we can observe their own worlds of experience both of the conscious and subconscious and likewise realise ripe worlds of our own by using our brain, hands and tools of our choosing. Engaging with art can give us something to do, something to look at outside or own monotonous experiences and subsequently give us some meaning in an otherwise meaningless universe. Art allows us to search deep into to ourselves and spit out a powerful form of dialogue to present gapingly and open for others to view. Art can be wroth with purity and truth so immediate and without words it lets out a quite roar that soars through its engaging viewer and when you like it you want more of it, it becomes your lover, your buddy, your breeding ground. To this extent, every once in awhile you will find something or someone on these plains of demise who will resonates with your being. In a similar frame to a lover with their moist flesh, pungent smell, contorted form, maniacal mannerisms and fiendish sound that makes you wet and full of desperate spunk, certain artists and art works possess similar qualities that squirt out of the woodwork and away from all the heinous things you don’t desire, leaving you dripping and foaming in a lathery comfort.

It is such a joy then to see someone’s perspective so tantalisingly erect and effectively portrayed for your own delectation and it is why we focus on artist Reinhard Scheibners work as such a delightfully palatable example of someone with such an appealing platter of art workings.

Otto Dix - Wounded Soldier (1924)

Working from his studio in Berlin, Reinhard is found squelching out some beautifully immaculate pieces in the form of drawings, etchings, woodprints, paintings and many other excretions. The images meander in and out of conjoining realities sometimes creating a fleshy cosmos ripe in joyous endeavour other times making reflections on our shit filled society and also on such seismic events as the Holocaust. Reinhard’s range of work is so raw and varied that it would be a shame to pair him up too close with other artists. There are faint whiffs that mirror the fantastical worlds of Henry Darger in some of his drawings, especially some of his drawings from the mid 90’s; Some of his etchings of concentration camps maybe found to have a similar intensity to Otto Dix’s ‘Der Krieg’ etchings depicting the horrors of war but saying all this we find most of Reinhards work is indicative of his own unique personal tastes, flavours and idiosyncrasies. Reinhard is not too afraid of experimenting within his mediums either, we sometimes find him drawing with his weaker hand or completely blind, sometimes by smearing human excrement onto a canvas like a regular day Bobby Sands to give his work that little something special. However, concentrating on his more fantastical pieces we see some of Reinhards strongest portrayals.

Enchanted Garden (1996)

In his drawing ‘Enchanted Garden’ (1996), Reinhard depicts an ethereal playground of prepubescent joy. There is a wonderful vitality of youth in this piece that Reinhard manages to capture so well. The drawing brings back memories of the divine stink of young flesh where the lips whack of fresh weed, plopped out little turds are dispersed by arsehole plants that dot the little poos around the garden which fills the air with soothing warmth; then there is the bell ends! Let us not forget the bell ends as they sting the nasal passages with a milky zest and urine after burn. The enchanted garden we find has a truly intoxicating pang set about the place that eases the viewer into its melancholic habitat to be a washed in its fleshy haze.  In the enchanted garden the colours are ripe with fleshy hues. The tanning of skin and the ripe pinkness of cock tips bringing you down to a recently shaved pubic base that must feel wonderful on the bare feet of the enchanted gardens young inhabitants. The fine organically phallic shaped greenery sprouts up from the ground like fleshy warts; they are then wanked off into wholesome blue and white milkmaid jugs by young nymphs to be brought home and consumed with the evening’s supper. The sun is going down and work about the place is bountiful with baskets full of lobbed off cockplants and jugs brimming with semen. There is also two dogs fucking and drinking. Everybody is happy in the enchanted garden; it is full of a loving, wholesome and joyous spirit that resonates deep inside its viewer. The enchanted garden is happy, really happy, almost overtly happy, so much so that it could be viewed as unnervingly happy, sickly even, a thought that may leave some viewers nauseous and strange to such a depiction. Lots of young children lobbing off cockplants, wanking off cockplants, what’s going on here? This then opens up a whole new avenue of questioning about the enchanted garden that will not be pursued as of now. For now we bask in the camaraderie of this delightful scenario and enjoy a glimpse into Reinhards fantastical creation.

The Milkmaid (1996)

Bamberger Hornla (1997)

As we look on into Reinhards portfolio of work we step out of the fantastical joys and tasty endeavour the enchanted garden has to offer and into a horrifying Nazi Death Camp where our playful nymphs and wholesome vibrant friends are replaced with brutish lads clad in leather uniform and the dieing corpses of  the camps prisoners . We are now no longer hoisting our noses up at the divine smells of the enchanted garden but instead we are now met with the grave stench of death that hangs in the air like the nooses that plague the gallows, the smell of decomposing bodies, burning flesh and sweaty tourists now consumes the nostrils. These intensely executed and well considered etchings of concentration camps are probably some of Reinhards most powerful pieces. In these etching of the concentration camps Reinhard fills the gaps in time between the tourist attraction of now and the horrifying death fest of then.  

In Stock Condition(2003)we find an image that it is ripe with demonic and terrifying action, tourists shuffle along with backpacks filled with touristy treats in salami sandwiches, lemon pop and potatoe crisps whilst observing the caranage that lay around them. Likewise, nazi lads tip around the camp in a similar vein, enjoying each others stern company. A big black nurse can be seen wheeling some old fucker around in the background, he seems to have a rye smile as as he looks on at a stack of corpses trudging along in a rot iron trolley. We see corpses hang from pillars in a most discomforting fashion whilst been knawed at by hungry ravenous dogs. Dispite the obvious horrors Reinhard still manages to maintain a comedic touch by placing what looks like a burleseque dancer below one of the gallows, a humorous insertion in leiu of the horrifying events unfolding.

Stock Condition (2003)

Reinhard guides us ever further on into the series as we go into the part of the camp where they threw in the bodies to burn, the Crematorium (2003). From the rafters human bodies hang, some of them not wearing pants. Decomposing bodies lay in wait before the incinerators. In the forground we see an onslaught of tourists. One woman with her jacket in hand looks as disinterested as her son. One woman in high heels looks up at the rafters as  if contemplating whether the ‘concentration camp look’ will go well in her new home. Some cunt is listening to his walkman and some ould bitch is taking a photograph as yet another stern looking gaurd looks on with callous flare.

Crematorium (2003) 

As Reinhards tour of the concentration camp continues we find ourselves back outside in the yard. The School Trip (2003) shows a flock of school kids and teachers gather around a grueling scene of torture. We see a man strapped to a device which is holding him in place bent over with his arse held up bare. Two officers stand over the man, one is throwing a bucket of what appears to be a scorching liquid as his eyes begin to melt from the boiling exposure. From behind the man another Nazi guard is whipping severe lacerations onto the mans ass cheeks, it appears to be sexy as the man is dressed up in a leather uniform like that of a true sadomasochist domineering spank master. The tourists look on as voyeurs to the grisly and disconcerting scenes, each one of them conveying a range of different emotions. One girl doesn't seem to know what make of the scenario, her finger pressed to her lip as she contemplates the unfolding events in her human brain. Some of the school kids look pissed off, whether its because of what is been spelled out in front of them our a rebellious indifference it is hard to tell. The teachers look more shocked than the kids, perhaps wondering if the scenes are traumatising their fragile young brains but alias there is no escaping the horrifying reality that lays before them. In the background we see a man in the midst of electrocution against a highly charged death fence after a possible vein attempt to escape or perhaps a blatant throw to suicide, its hard to tell. The forced dance routines in the yard shows another form of torture where the usually quite pleasant act of dancing is turned into a grimacing ordeal of imposed agony by the nazi lads.

School Trip (2003)

Essentially we find in these pieces that Reinhard is giving us his own unique tour of the concentration camp. Looking at these pieces the viewer becomes another voyeur, another tourist forced to look into the empathetic stares and blackhearts of mankind. We see two aspects of human endeavor come into focus, both the committing of these atrocities and then a reflection on the atrocities, these two aspects both mirroring each other like some deathly twins both spitting and crying at each other in agonizing pain for all eternity.

Through examples of his work Reinhard gives us an insight into his own delectable fantasies and observations that shows us a refreshing perspective that can fill ones head with titillating wonder as well as soul crushing despair. Reinhards artwork is an example of what kind of glorious concoctions a human brain can let boil up and rise to the surface like ploppy little turds, leaving us with baited anticipation for more delightful excretions.

B.F WILTON 12/3/13

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For more on Reinhard Scheibners work visit his website here

The Artist and the Prostitute.

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