Todeskino completed the handpainted film "Chromophonie VIII - Pinturas negras". By using a similar palette of earthy and blue-greyish hues dominating, the work is referring to the series of paintings that the late Francisco Goya (1746-1828) painted on the walls of his house "La quinta del sordo" between 1819 and 1823. Red only appears occasionally when blood is shed. Retiring to the countryside after an eventful artist life as a painter for the spanish court, the deaf Goya painted this cycle of pictures just for himself. With this inner directed late style of his and the drab, gloomy, existential sujets haunting like nightmares or expressive visions, he became one of the forefathers of modernity.
Todeskino is now in a situation where this reference is helpful, because all new film or video works will be released very selectively into the contemporary forms of art presentation and not uploaded to the internet any more.
(The art of classical chinese shadow and puppet theatre for instance, is not performed for humans but as an offering for the gods. That left an important mark on my/our own understanding, hearing and witnessing this recently in Paris, that's what was always the case with my/our art too, and here I/we felt reminded again and overcame the sickness all these years regarding the worlds of the contemporary art scenes - my/our films are not made or shown for the people, but for MANCREATED GODS.)*
As a soundtrack we chose ancient greek music from Gregorio Paniagua's singular recording that presented the only surviving fragments on inscriptions, papyri etc. The second piece we used is a transcription of the beginning of Pindar's first pythic ode by Athanasius Kircher. In greek mythology Apollon, although god of light and guide of the muses and artists, also had a byname "the black" (mélanos). Like with his egyptian pendant Horus the luciferian gift of light is also surmounted essentially by a certain darkness.
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| still from "Chromophonie VIII - Pinturas negras" by Todeskino |
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| the sabbath scene from Goya's cycle |
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| floating haggish fates |
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| la "quinta del sordo"
*Auch die unabhängige amerikanische Generation der sog. "Abstrakten Expressionisten" produzierte nicht von ungefähr eine Reihe von "Black Paintings". Einige Aussagen des eigenbrötlerischen, cézannenesken Clyfford Still stehen hier, auch im Hinblick auf Goya, für mich/uns Pate:
Bilder seien nicht nur dazu da in Schulen eingeteilt, in Museen präsentiert zu werden, Päpste und Könige zu glorifizieren und die Wände der Reichen zu schmücken, so Still. "Man gewöhnt sich daran, allein zu sein, ohne es zu merken. Ich habe meine eigene Art der Emanzipation geschaffen." Still sprach davon, daß er "alle kulturellen Opiate der Vergangenheit und der Gegenwart zu durchbrechen und ein direktes, unmittelbares, wirklich freies Sehen zu erreichen suche." Sowohl für Rothko als auch für Still war die Malerei keine rein ästhetische Disziplin mehr, sondern ein "Instrument" des Menschen, mittels dessen er sich unbeirrt einen Freiraum zur persönlichen Emanzipation schaffen konnte, damit "der ganze Mensch ohne kulturelle Verstellung existieren kann." Malen drückte etwas aus bzw. schuf etwas, was außerhalb von Geschichte und Gesellschaft stand.
mit Veränderungen zitiert nach Breslin, Mark Rothko, Eine Biographie, Ritter Klagenfurt, S. 288ff.
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