Chinoiserien is a series of photo collages done with the help of a scanner and Photoshop. Some elements such as the cloth or the flowers were not photographed, but scanned, which gives them a strange kind of three-dimensionality. Others were photos.

The collages were made for the exhibition Windstösse, curated by Christiane Mennicke, in her first show as director of Kunsthaus Dresden. We had talked about the possibility of doing something that would connect to Dresden or connect Dresden to the rest of the world, and I immediately thought about Dresden's famous Porcelain Collection, my favorite museum in town. [1]

My series of Chinoiserien deals with the curious way in which the Baroque taste took to anything Chinese, and the sometimes wonderful clumsiness in which this "exotic" style was copied. By using scanned materials and photos of various sources I tried to imitate this process, the adaptation of foreign ideas about beauty and style as well as the transformation of raw materials into something else.

One of the collages shows myself. Since kindergarten, other kids had always told me that I looked kind of Chinese (no Chinese person that I asked about my face was ever able to see what the German kids meant). In the collage I cut my "foreign" eyes out and stretched them to exaggerate their "Asian" shape.

All the collages make use of scanned chrysanthemum flowers.
I would like to quote a famous poem by Tao Quian:

           Yet hear no sound of passing carts and horses.
           Would you like to know how this could be?
           If the mind's detached, the place will be remote.
           Gathering chrysanthemums by the eastern fence
           I catch sight of South Mountain in the distance;
           The mountain air is lovely as the sun sets
           And flocks of flying birds return together.
           There's an essential meaning in all this-
           I would explain it, but can't find the words. [2]
I took the quote from the study about the use of chrysanthemums as a signifier for the Taoist poet by Susan E. Nelson. [3] She points out that chrysanthemums can have many different layers of meanings, but recurrent are the themes of reclusion, leaving the world behind, growing old–of a Taoist decision to not participate in the political struggles of the world, but instead to choose a life of tranquil contemplation, living poorly in your small house and garden, and writing poems while drinking wine. [4] 
           Rus habent in silva patruus meus; huc mihi saepe
           Mos et abjectis curarum sordibus, et quae
           Excruciant hominem, secedere; ruris amoena
           Herba virens, et silva silens, et spiritus aurae
           Lenis et festivus, et fons in gramine vivus
           Defessam mentem recreant et me mihi redunt,
           et faciunt in me constistere ...                              
                        
                                  Marbod  von Rennes, †1123

The interest in hermits and their huts started with Hütte and reappears in
Die Streife entdeckt die selbstgebaute Hütte eines Landstreichers im Wald nahe der Autobahn.

 

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[1] Chinese porcelain was le dernier cri amongst European Rococo courts, but nobody was as crazy about it as August the Strong of Saxony and Poland. Instead of ruling with the help of a strong army, like neighbouring Prussia, he was so much in love with porcelain that he spent immense sums of money on it, famously trading some of his soldiers for Chinese vases, the so-called “Dragonervasen”. It was on his demand that Johann Friedrich Böttger (whom August had held prisoner until he would prove that he really could make gold, as he had claimed), performed the not quite as alchemistic transformation of clay into porcelain for the first time in Europe, as opposed to the extremely costly import through the Dutch East India Company. In 1710, the first Meissen manufactory was opened. It turned out imitations of Chinaware, which sometimes were hardly distinguishable from the originals that the Chinese had adapted to the European taste for “Chinoiserie”. Böttger kept experimenting with glazes until his early and miserable death, while the artist Johann Joachim Kaendler created a life-size menagerie of baroque animals for August the Strong's Porcelain Palace. See: Janet Gleeson, The Arcanum: The Extraordinary True Story. Warner Books, 1999
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[2] Tao Jingjie ji, 41; trans. Hightower, 130 (with slight modifications). For a study of this poem in connection with the iconography of Mt. Lu, see Susan E. Nelson, Catching Sight of South Mountain, Archives of Asian Art 52 (2000).
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[3] Susan E. Nelson, Revisiting the Eastern Fence: Tao Qian's chrysanthemums. In: The Art Bulletin, Sept, 2001
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[4] This way of living has always had a lot of appeal to me, and while I still went to school, I spent many afternoons in our small garden with some Japanese paper, ink and a brush, trying to imitate the great drunken masters like Qi Baishi and Bada Shanren. I still have some notes that I copied from a book about Chinese painting:
“Bada Shanren ist der rätselhafteste aller Individualisten. Als er um 1625 geboren wurde, herrschten in China chaotische Zustände. Die Mandschus hatten ihre Hauptstadt in Mukden errichtet. 1631 passierten sie die große Mauer. Als sie sich mit dem Kaisertitel in Beijing niederließen, war Bada Shojins jüngster Sohn Mojin keine 20 Jahre alt. Der Tod seines Vaters folgte unmittelbar auf das unglückliche Ereignis. (…) Mit persönlichem Namen hieß der junge Mann Da. Nach der Trauerzeit verließ Zhu Da seine Familie. Er wurde Mönch und nannte sich Schneeflocke, legte sich aber auch noch viele andere Beinamen zu; mit Bada Shanren signierte er seine Bilder. Sein Vater war stumm, und er selbst neigte zum Stottern. Der Tod seines Vaters soll ihn stumm gemacht haben. Als er Mönch war, hatte er viele Schüler und erwarb sich hohes Ansehen als religiöser Lehrer. Wenn er nicht gerade mit jemandem sprach (sic!), war er heiter, trank und lachte gern.

Sein Geist verwirrte sich immer mehr. Eines Abends zerriss Zhu Da seine Kutte, verbrannte sie und begab sich in die Hauptstadt, wo er schreiend durch die Strassen lief. Er hatte den Verstand verloren. Man pflegte ihn, und seine geistige Umnachtung ließ etwas nach. Man gab ihm zu trinken, um ihn zu beruhigen, aber auch, um ihn zum Malen zu bewegen. Hochgestellte Persönlichkeiten erreichten nichts bei ihm und wandten sich deshalb an arme Literaten, an Mönche in Bergklöstern, um ein Bild von seiner Hand zu erhalten. (…) Wenn er schreiben wollte, breitete er die Arme aus, packte seinen Pinsel und stieß die Schreie eines Wahnsinnigen aus. Die Tusche floss in Strömen. (…) Er füllte im Handumdrehen mehrere Blätter Papier und malte Blumen, Bäume, Steine und Vögel in einem skizzenhaften Stil. Dieser öffnete den Raum für alles, was es auf der Welt gibt, nur nicht dem Menschen."Nach der Auskunft eines seiner Biographen trug er eine Last in sich, von der er sich nicht befreien konnte: 'Er glich einer sprudelnden Quelle, die ein mächtiger Stein verstopfte, einem Feuer, das ein feuchter Lappen erstickte.'"

In / Nicole Vandier-Nicolas, Chinesische Malerei und Tradition der Gelehrten, Würzburg 1983.

In James Cahill, Die Chinesische Malerei, Genf 1979, the painter is called Chu Ta or Pa-ta Shan-jen.
“Wenn er schreiben wollte, entblößte er seinen Arm, ergriff den Pinsel und stieß laute Schreie aus wie ein Narr. (…) Oh weh, man kann betrunken sein wie er, aber niemals so verrückt!” (p. 175)
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