Lot 65: JOHANNES KAHRS

Senseless Apparition of Love Taking Hold of C. Ghilglieno
Signed and dated "Johannes Kahrs 1998" on the reverse of the drawing.

Dimensions variable. Installation approximately: 118 x 157 x 45 in. (299.7 x 398.8 x 114.3 cm); Drawing: 59 1/8 x 157 1/2 in. (150.2 x 400.1 cm)

charcoal on paper, metal clips, radio with cassette player, cassette tape, spotlight

1998

Serre di Rapolano, <em>Indoor</em>, Centro Civico per l'Arte Contemporanea, 18 July- 20 September 1998
Bremen, <em>Johannes Kahrs: Why Don't You Paint My Portrait</em>, Gesellschaft f&#252;r Aktuelle Kunst, 27 November 1998- 31 January 1999
Lyon, <em>Indoor, </em>Mus&#233;e d'Art Contemporain Lyon, 4 June- 5 September 1999

Raspail, Thierry, Jan Hoet, Anne Bertrand, Andreas Lindermayr, and Marianna Neri. <em>Indoor</em>. Milan: Charta, 1999. pp. 122-123. (Illustrated)
Schmidt, Eva, Ami Barak, Jimmie Durham, Monica Bonvicini, and Frederic Fournier. <em>Johannes Kahrs : Why Don't You Paint My Portrait?.</em> Bremen: Gesellschaft Fu¨r Aktuelle Kunst, 1999. pp. 61-63. (Illustrated)

Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin
Private collection, Germany
Private collection

Johannes Kahrs' large-scale work appropriates imagery from popular culture and media, such as cinema, music, television and current events, isolating them from their original contexts and infusing them with deep psychological allusions and mystery. The visual effect is that of a blurry,labyrinthine aesthetic, which challenges and limits the images'familiar sources. The present lot is a celebrated example of Kahr's innate talent for darktheatricality and psychological drama.The workis comprised of a black and white drawing depicting the body of Carlo Chiglieno, an executive of the Italian car company Fiat, who was killed by a far-left organization in 1979. Adjacent to the drawing viewers will find an audio cassette player playing the song "Manina Morta", which translates to "dead hand". A spotlight installed above the drawing shines downward, unsure of what it is meant to illuminate.

Kahrs stated that Michelangelo Antonioni's <em>La Notte</em> and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's <em>Katzelmacher</em> partly inspired his approach to this work: "Both films mark breaking points in Italian and German post-war history, eventually culminating in terroristic action in the late seventies- The Red Brigades, RAF. But again, both the RAF and The Red Brigades have become historical phenomena, like film, images, stages, and spotlights. The song "Manina Morta" is not related to these incidents, but I was interested in the somehow horrifying image of a dead hand knocking on a door, separated from its body..." (Kahrs quoted in Raspail, Thierry, Jan Hoet, Anne Bertrand, Andreas Lindermayr, and Marianna Neri. <em>Indoor</em>. Milan: Charta, 1999. pp. 122.)