Page 92 - The MoMA/ Guggenheim issue of World of Art magazine (2003)

nIkOLAuS-OTTO kRuCh AbSTRACT/AbSTRuSE

the anatomy of anguish

by

Coriolan Babeti

i think there are fictions that an author has to ask
forgiveness for. for those that are improbable.
for example, the one i am labouring under: the
final judgement of modern critical judgement,
the judgement of judges, shocked at discovering
that all the painted canvases of the world are
nothing other than brushstrokes put there by a
“much larger” painter… and that, all together, they
form a “much larger” painting, a galactic canvas
depicting the grimace of terrestrial civilisation, a
cosmic scream painted by an “ecorche” forced to
undergo an inhuman dissection, a canvas whose
chronicle we critics have ourselves adulterated
through our eulogistic tone.

A canvas exhibited in the astral ether depicting
the explosion of a supernova; the supernova of
the history of planet Earth in the age of Kali,
the last cycle of styles cut adrift. few, very few,
“brushtrokes” would be found in this galactic
canvas apart from the angel of death, the scream
of each ego-atom, prisoners of the “ladle” of
forms, freed from the metaphors of the gutteral,
thundering voices of the Ego.

Very few flashes of light in this chiaroscuro.

“The dark monster” of youthful vehemence is
made clear in the early ‘80s, when the young
came together in febrile, provocative exhibitions
pitted against the comfortable armchairs of
preceding artistic techniques and genres, the
sedentary iconographies set up on the four
pillars of official salons: painting, graphic art,
sculpture and decorative arts.

T h e D a n t e s q u e B i e n n a l e i n R a v e n n a , w h i c h
nikolaus-otto kruch
Women and Fish has set a difficult exercise (providing a three-
2001 Bronze dimensional illustration for a terzina, or stanza,
h.43,5 x w.24,5 x d.9 cm. of the Divine comedy) gave vent to the exquisite
h.17½ x w.10 x d.3½ in. mastery of European artists’ ability to model
clay. One of these was nikolaus-Otto Kruch,
who had often won this competititon. His italain
voyages have enriched his visual scope, which,
in its senstivity, includes artists that go from
Donatello to Manzu.

90 WORLD of ART