We are in the exhibition of Christoph Liedtke's "Das Mal" (The Mark/Spot). Alongside his sculptural and painterly works, Christoph Liedtke confronts us this time with a title worth pondering.
At first, I had difficulties with the title. I found it too grand, and initially, I couldn't connect the term "Das Mal" with Christoph's works. After a few lengthy conversations with the artist and some lines he sent me via email, my skepticism hadn't dissolved, but some of the tangible fascination Christoph has for this term had also gripped me.
The first explanation Christoph sent me was an excerpt from an etymological dictionary, according to which the following terms are related to the word "Mal": Merkmal (feature), Wundmal (stigma/wound mark), Muttermal (birthmark), Malen (to paint) or also Gemälde (painting). If I delve one etymological level deeper, according to the text excerpt, I land on Old High German, Gothic, or Old English words like: Mael, Mel, or Mol, which are supposed to mean sign, spot, wrinkle, but also shame, sin, and boggy ground. However, the history of the term leads me even further back. An Indo-European root is suspected, namely: Mai, which means to stain.
I get an impression of the depth of the term, even though such an unpicking of words does not bring me joy. I find it almost indecent to splay out words that we use, as if I could behave completely harmlessly towards them. Christoph, of course, works with this term; he does not dissect it. But when I approach it linguistically, as I am doing at the moment because of his email, I feel like I am in Schrödinger's cat thought experiment. If I look under the surface or into the box, the magic is lost, and I no longer understand anything.
Fortunately, Christoph sent me another text, an excerpt from the book "Denken in Farbe" (Thinking in Color) by Ludger Schwarte. Here, I believe, the author follows a sweet temptation inherent in this term "Mal." Here I can rejoin. Here the term is used. Namely, as a possible salvation of painting from the swamp of images that surrounds us modern humans. This idea of salvation is based on a clever distinction between a painting in the sense of a mark and an image.
A quote from the book:
"The mark (Mal) inherent in painting is an indelible trace of suffering, a scar, a sign of excitement or shame, like a blush."
End of quote.
And I understand: only a human can leave this trace. Because he is this marked body that he cannot get rid of, that is so inextricably linked to him and yet not quite himself. This probably causes shame, this "not quite." But how does the mark now get into the painting?
Schwarte writes about the material. In the text, there is talk of the dirt of the art kitchen: i.e., of the paint stain, of the drip, of the crack in the surface, of the wrinkles in the clay. All that corresponds to the physical human being. Liquids that have solidified, solidified things that crack and disintegrate, transience, in short. And in contrast to this, Schwarte sees the depicted, i.e., flowers, for example, or a waterfall, figures, conceptual images, notions, terminologies. But what is peculiar to the painting, to which Schwarte and perhaps Christoph want to direct my sympathy, is precisely the mark (Mal) in the painting, which manifests itself in the material, in what Schwarte calls: 'low materialism'.
And of course, the word "low" is in quotation marks, which means as much as: wrongly called low. And the word materialism once again lashes out with full force against the depicted, the spiritual, and makes it unmistakably clear that the human body demands its share. Yes, and here we are at the revolt, at the insurgent, which I believe grips and interests Christoph, and not only Christoph.
The paintings thus cause a veritable revolt against the images they represent, because behind the representation, behind the scenes, the figurations, the forms, they make visible what they originate from, namely the dirty boggy ground of a bodily existence. So I understood this: paintings, or let's say good paintings, are images that revolt against themselves, that therefore at least do not deny the boggy ground from which they originate.
Good. But now come the questions: Is the revolt in the painting not experienced more strongly the greater the power of the representation it storms against? And if that is true: Do we therefore need more obedient images to experience the revolt again? And what about all the paintings that don't want to represent anything at all? Is there no more revolt in them? Or have they become completely revolt, in which low materialism has completely displaced the depicted? But what are they still revolting against then? And a last question: Why do we, why do I no longer use the word painting? Because it has something antiquated about it? Because I've grown tired of the revolt? Or because I might be afraid of exactly what the mark in the painting does to me if I let it.
Christoph Liedtke not only paints, but he sculpts, he writes poetry, he makes music, and he lets himself be gripped by such concepts. He lets himself be drawn down or up by them, to levels where one should not move carelessly, I think. And today he lets us participate in this again. But we may also measure him against it with benevolence. So, in this exhibition, are we dealing with images or with paintings?