The B-W Bank invited me to propose a set of six new works for the atrium of the newly renovated headquarters in Stuttgart. The jury, including Prof. Christian von Holst of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Christoph Becker of the Kunsthaus Zurich, and Dr. Franck Heintzler, Chairman of the Board of the bank supported my proposal.
The Portraits
In the catalog to the current exhibition at the Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, Curator Renate Heidt Heller wrote:
Ralf Christofori >>
Kevin Clarke, Portrait of Friedrich von Schiller,Photo collage, 2001.
After thoroughly getting to know a person, he discovers a motif he connects with this person's mental and physical environment. By overlapping several positive and negative films and reproducing the image on color reversal film, Clarke transforms it into a room of visual color, with associative qualities, which he uses as metaphor for the person. He lets his own artistic subjectivity influence the image and then projects an objective portrayal of the person onto the picture — his individual genetic DNA code, distinguishing him from all other persons. The individual sequences of the basic pattern are produced in scientific labs, using a blood sample from the subject, and depicted by a series of four letters and four graphic curves.
The Persons
I would like to thank those persons who allowed me to make their portrait for this project.
The following comments regarding the persons portrayed are intended to place this focus squarely where it belongs, on the subjects.
Friedrich Schiller
One could argue that without robbers, the need for banks might never have arisen. I associated Schiller, with his boundless optimism with the Ode to Joy, rather than with Die Raueber.
As Schiller had been born and educated in the region, I began to search for traces of him, and soon came to the Schiller National Museum in Marbach am Neckar. J.F. von Berg had paved the way, and a meeting was quickly scheduled. Dr. Davidis answered my request for a hair sample from Schiller with enthusiasm, and searched the collection for a suitably documented hair. Schiller’s son had collected a lock, and preserved it in a sealed locket, a hair from an heir.
Schiller had spent time in a number of local spots: his birthplace, the wine fields in Marbach, the location of the former Caserne where Schiller had worked as a military Doctor, places Schiller was known to have spent time. From these locations I photographed clouds, later choosing, composing, and changing the colors of the clouds which appealed to me.
Schiller’s hereditary material was sequenced from one of the hairs by the Berlin genetics firm Agowa, AG, a procedure that required months of testing and preparation. The letters which make up Schiller’s DNA sequence were copied from the original manuscript from The Graf of Habsburg, and as such appear in his own hand.
Schiller’s contemporaries sensed that he was an innocent, a person who lived by the hand of god. This notion of optimistic innocence appealed to me, particularly as it is a characteristic seldom cultivated in bankers, who are known for their caution and pragmatism. Their daily exposure to difficult and stressful transactions requires the occasional moment when they experience their own Ode to Joy.
Kurt Weidemann
