‘Enfant terrible’ of the contemporary German art scene, who proclaimes ‘the dictatorship of Art’

The Berlin stories for this issue would not be complete if I didn’t include Jonathan Meese. I have met the ‘enfant terrible’ of the contemporary German art scene and his mother Brigitte a couple of times before, high up in the Swiss mountains, but now I had arrived for a private visit to his extraordinary studio in Prenzlauer Berg, which was once a pumping station for the Berlin Waterworks. Jonathan Meese is based in Berlin and Hamburg. His work, some of which is multi- media, includes paintings, sculptures, collages, drawings and writing. His theatre work includes set design and in 2007 he starred in his own play “De Frau: Dr. Poundaddylein - Dr. Ezodysseusszeusuzur at the Volksbühne Theater in Berlin. Meese has energetically developed a unique and independent vocabulary in all his genres and this gives his work variety and a visual energy that is said to emulate Picasso. His work is typified by humour tending towards the grotesque and driven by a powerful creative will. He has a rule he calls ‘the dictatorship of art’ and not surprisingly this can be found running through all his works which together form Jonathan Meese’s concept of Gesamtkunstwerk. He says that “Art is total play”, meaning that it does not have to be explained; it is pure action. With this philosophy in mind, I spent an afternoon at the studio with him and Brigitte, his mum, who has an important role in his creative process. It was a refreshing and spontaneous experience in an art world where today some professionals seem to lack a sense of humour and take themselves a little ‘trop serieux’. Watch out for his next exhibition ‘Selfportrait and Nudes (Gesamtkunstwerk)’ at Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp, 7 April - May 2022.