"Welcome to the exhibition of Hermann Staudinger in the Jesuit Foyer!
I would like to say something about the objects on display here, as I want to create an environment in which the gold and silver works can truly have their significance.What you see here are works made sing different techniques. Gold works, made with gold leaf or silvered, a silk screen on glass, or the photograph of a drawing.
The gilded or silvered works also show—if you position yourself in such a way that the material shines—figurative representations, i.e., two pre-existing materials are used and blended together: the photographic material, sourced from mundane newspapers, and the gold material.
This is something that also existed in the past—though I mean much further back. I will start with a quote from "The Ottonian Art" by Otto Jantzen. (It should be noted that Jantzen was a significant figure among art historians, particularly dealing with medieval art. He was the one who provided us with a unique insight into Ottonian art — 'Ottonian' refers to around the year 1000):
"Liuthard, the painter of the Aachen Codex, introduced the gold ground in the narrower sense into Western art and thereby bestowed upon the image subject that transcendent quality which remains characteristic of the entire Middle Ages."
That says quite a bit. Liuthard was a painter who illustrated the aforementioned codex, a major work of Ottonian book painting. And it can be said that during this time, the gold ground was invented. This gold ground played a crucial role throughout the Middle Ages — that is, from approximately 1000 to 1500 A.D. — and has remained characteristic of this epoch. It is good to know that the gold surfaces visible here already had a grand, glorious, and wonderful history in the Middle Ages.
One must regard these works – including those in book painting – in such a way that the gold shines. The gold is polished, and it can appear matte or shiny. The shining gold is then not simply a color; it expands into a space, a space of light, and it represents – hence the reference to transcending – a source of things and a future for things; thus, it signifies a space that is different from the physically perceivable one in which we find ourselves. In this respect, gold is always something that is associated with the sacred.
Around 1500, the use of gold backgrounds came to an end, although remnants of it can still be found occasionally in halos. The gold background has persisted in picture frames, which create a kind of aura over the surface of the image. The circles seen here also connect to this – at least in association.
In the 20th century, something peculiar happened: gold was rediscovered in art. This had already occurred in the Baroque period, but there, gold was used to depict highlights. If you visit the Jesuit church one evening, you can see this. During the day, the gold is less present, but at night, when the colors fade, the gold catches the light in the room and creates its own space of light around the one moving within it. Thus, here too, there is something related to transcendence. The space expands into the unfathomable.
In the 20th century, gold was rediscovered; there is an artist, Yves Klein, who often worked with gold. Let me tell you a little story: once, a restorer was engaged at a small convent of Augustinian nuns in Umbria to care for and restore the gold backgrounds of medieval works. This restorer ran out of gold leaf and asked a nun at the convent if, by any chance, there was some gold leaf available somewhere in the convent. The sister thought about it for a moment, and then her face brightened as she remembered something. She asked him to wait a moment and returned shortly with a small box. The box was divided into several compartments, and the restorer recognized a work by Yves Klein in it.
The sisters of the convent had no idea who he was. This was in the 1980s. Yves Klein had come to Umbria in 1961 as a pilgrim to pray to St. Rita of Cascia – the female counterpart of St. Judas Thaddeus – the patron saint for hopeless cases, that is, for what seems impossible, to ask for support. Klein needed help in a crucial situation, and details are unclear; it is only known that he undertook this pilgrimage secretly, and only Tinguely was aware of it.
The sisters, who of course had no knowledge of modern art and particularly of Yves Klein, kept the box because it contained a small gold bar. At that time, Yves Klein had sold immaterial space, and some of the gold bars he acquired from this endeavor he threw into the Seine. He left one for St. Rita of Cascia in this box along with his typical Yves Klein Blue as a gift. That’s the story. Here too, gold is again associated with the sacred, which is evident with an artist like Yves Klein.
Regarding the works exhibited here: in the 20th century, a connection is drawn to medieval gold. Gold is rediscovered as matter, and – as it is here – one must simply take it materially – it is a precious material, whether polished as gold leaf or left in a matte state. Objects are then formed that – one cannot avoid this association – recall frames, but they create a space around something, a field around something, which a frame does as well, but these circles are independent entities that deepen or condense a field through this gradient inward. They are meditation objects, one might say.
The images are an overlay of two materials: the material gold and image material derived from conventional newspapers. These are photographs that were then copied, and thus the rasterization has been preserved. Copied, and in a very laborious process – I believe the artist spends weeks on this – transferred from the paper into the gold. This is done through pencil printing onto the paper, creating the matte spots in the gold leaf. In a sense, they are shadows in the gold leaf – it is perhaps to be seen that way – and the same applies to the silver surfaces.
I believe this is a possible approach. The gold here, in these works, is naturally also connected to the sacred, the spiritual, without being confessionally defined; it is not. The world of modern images that surrounds, envelops, and permeates us is drawn into this gold space, thereby acquiring a very, very special character.
Thank you very much!