In His Ideal...
Christian Rothmaler鈥檚 painting Get Cream in Neom looks like the outsized likeness of a hand. Casting no discernible shadow, the limb hovers at the center of the picture before a bright nonrepresentational background, a compositional template familiar to art historians from depictions of one of Christianity鈥檚 most mysterious relics: the Veil of Veronica. The peculiar sheen of the flesh tones may remind a beholder contemplating the hand of the otherworldly elegance of fourteenth-century frescoes in Italian churches鈥攖his hand, however, boasts seven fingers. The work鈥檚 title makes reference to the smart city Neom, a futuristic metropolis, running entirely on bioenergy and populated by a new and optimized subspecies of humanity, that is projected to rise in the desert of Saudi Arabia. Might the picture show the greeting of an emerging 茅lite, the gesture with which its deity dispenses its blessing, the promulgation of a superior culture to come?
If the hand appears to float on a screen whose brightness setting is turned up too high, the effect is in part due to the luminous yellowish-white grid background. It is a nod to a technical imaging procedure that is emblematic of the objective and accurate recording, transmission, and production of reality. In the history of art, it has become a theme in its own right鈥攕ee, for instance, D眉rer鈥檚 Draftsman Drawing a Reclining Nude, which conveys the artist鈥檚 conviction that his work carried the authority of a scientific practice. Today鈥檚 users can rely on online tutorials to teach them all they need to know about 3D rendering software and the creation of animated characters and virtual spaces. Avatars can be assembled from individual perfectly shaped body parts; failed species filter back through the virtual biotopes of pluridimensional gaming universes into our realities. A two-dimensional version鈥攁 mere outline鈥攐f a dinosaur comes into view under the title Guess Who鈥檚 Back. Jil Lahr lets the figure sprawl over almost the entire large-format canvas and eschews any suggestion of spatial depth. A sweeping green line activates the picture as a whole. Only upon closer examination do we realize that it is a retroactive simulation of a spontaneous remark: the line is not in fact an improvisation but a formal element that was digitally generated, tested, and only then transferred in halting brushstrokes onto the canvas. The meticulously balanced composition leaves no room for coincidence, expressiveness, or painterly gesture. Like Rothmaler鈥檚 hovering hand, the dinosaur does not cast a shadow. All in all, it resembles a pictogram rendered in isolation rather than a physical body convincingly integrated into, and interacting with, its surroundings.
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Christian Rothmaler鈥檚 painting Get Cream in Neom looks like the outsized likeness of a hand. Casting no discernible shadow, the limb hovers at the center of the picture before a bright nonrepresentational background, a compositional template familiar to art historians from depictions of one of Christianity鈥檚 most mysterious relics: the Veil of Veronica. The peculiar sheen of the flesh tones may remind a beholder contemplating the hand of the otherworldly elegance of fourteenth-century frescoes in Italian churches鈥攖his hand, however, boasts seven fingers. The work鈥檚 title makes reference to the smart city Neom, a futuristic metropolis, running entirely on bioenergy and populated by a new and optimized subspecies of humanity, that is projected to rise in the desert of Saudi Arabia. Might the picture show the greeting of an emerging 茅lite, the gesture with which its deity dispenses its blessing, the promulgation of a superior culture to come?
If the hand appears to float on a screen whose brightness setting is turned up too high, the effect is in part due to the luminous yellowish-white grid background. It is a nod to a technical imaging procedure that is emblematic of the objective and accurate recording, transmission, and production of reality. In the history of art, it has become a theme in its own right鈥攕ee, for instance, D眉rer鈥檚 Draftsman Drawing a Reclining Nude, which conveys the artist鈥檚 conviction that his work carried the authority of a scientific practice. Today鈥檚 users can rely on online tutorials to teach them all they need to know about 3D rendering software and the creation of animated characters and virtual spaces. Avatars can be assembled from individual perfectly shaped body parts; failed species filter back through the virtual biotopes of pluridimensional gaming universes into our realities. A two-dimensional version鈥攁 mere outline鈥攐f a dinosaur comes into view under the title Guess Who鈥檚 Back. Jil Lahr lets the figure sprawl over almost the entire large-format canvas and eschews any suggestion of spatial depth. A sweeping green line activates the picture as a whole. Only upon closer examination do we realize that it is a retroactive simulation of a spontaneous remark: the line is not in fact an improvisation but a formal element that was digitally generated, tested, and only then transferred in halting brushstrokes onto the canvas. The meticulously balanced composition leaves no room for coincidence, expressiveness, or painterly gesture. Like Rothmaler鈥檚 hovering hand, the dinosaur does not cast a shadow. All in all, it resembles a pictogram rendered in isolation rather than a physical body convincingly integrated into, and interacting with, its surroundings.
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