Theatrum
Mundi:
On
the
Works
of
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias
In recent
years,
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias’ work
has increasingly
attracted
the
attention and
interest
of
the
art
world.
The
two
twin
brothers,
born
in
1973
in
Romania,
have
been
working
as
a
team
ever
since
they
were
students
at
the
Hochschule
für
Bildende
Künste
in
Brunswick.
So
far,
they
have
realised
an
impressive
series
of
exhibitions
with
stops
from
New
York
to
Vienna. Above all their large colour woodcuts contributed decisively to their fame and
determined
the
perception
of
their
art.
The
artistic
universe
of
those
two,
however,
is
much
more
complex.
In
addition
to
the
woodcuts,
it
also
contains
collages,
typewriter
drawings,
sculptures,
books,
and
murals,
which
stand
in
a
fruitful
mutual
interdependence.
Drawings
and
Collages
The
foundation
of
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias’
oeuvre
are
drawings
and
collages,
which
stand
at
the
centre
of
their
experimentation
with
and
development
of
a
figural
vocabulary
that
grows
further
from
this
foundation
into
all
the
other
techniques
they
employ.
The
effect
of
the
smaller
works
on
paper
is
determined
mainly
by
the
layers
of
acryl
paints
which
are
applied
in
various
densities,
watered,
and
washed
off
the
paper
again,
until
the
desired
result
of
an
atmospherically dense state of differentiated and oscillating colour shades is achieved.
Translucent areas stand next to saturated, opaque zones, watercolour delicacy next to
strongly over‐painted and opaque areas. This background is a stage for a panorama of
whimsical creatures whose bodies and faces are literally scratched into the paper with
ballpoint
pens,
pencils,
or
crayons.
Whimsical
figures
with
stringy
hair,
overly
long
necks
and
vase‐like bodies, next to them hybrid creatures of man and animal. A visual cosmos
originating
from
an
unbridled
artistic
imagination,
paired
with
loans
from
older
and
more
recent
art
history
as
well
as
references
to
Eastern
European
folk
art.
Comparable
to
a
capriccio
by
Goya
or
Emil
Nolde’s
grotesque
encounters,
the
two
brothers
create
in
a
continuous
figurative
metamorphosis
an
ensemble
of
actors
and
figures
who
keep
appearing
from
the
grounding
of
the
paper
in
always
varying
constellations.
Here
an
affective
model
pose,
taken
from
the
fashion
magazine Vogue,
there
two
portraits
that
grin
at
us
frontally,
in
a
challenging
manner.
They
move
like
old
acquaintances
from
one
work
to
the
next,
to
settle
next
to
a
friend
from
another
drawing
or
to
pose
alone.
But
usually
we
look
in
vain for a narrative thread or a plot, rather we get a play made of indeterminate
1
interpersonal
situations,
a
floating
state
of
vagueness
that
leaves
space
for
our
own
thoughts
and
stimulates
the
mind
to
think.
Like in a
dream, the levels of the real and the imagined
mix,
and heterogeneous visual
objects form ever‐changing structures, resulting in the impression of incoherence and
ambiguity.
This
impression
is
enhanced
by
alien
materials
that
are
mixed
in
between
the
delicately
painted
and
drawn
areas.
These
are
cutouts
from
magazines
and
books,
among
them
arms,
legs,
heads
of
birds,
and
tops
of
church
towers.
Since
the
dada
and
surrealist
movements,
the
collage
has
become
an
artistic
principle
that
stands
almost
prototypically
for
the
connection
of
unrelated
elements,
is
supposed
to
create
ruptures
between
layers
of
meaning, and alienate perception. At the same time, the difference of the materials
sensitizes
the
eye
to
the
structures
of
the
paintings
and
drawings
that
offset
the
elements
that
are
glued
in
so
interestingly.
Their
use
also
adds
an
ironic
twist
to
the
scenes
and
takes
back
the
overly
serious
undertones
that
one
might
perceive
in
the
sometimes
rather
dark
scenes.
We
quickly
develop
quite
a
bit
of
affection
for
these
figures
whose
humorous
and
playful
aspects
moves
increasingly
to
the
foreground.
While
in
the
collages,
individual
letters
and
punctuation
marks
from
the
alphabet
of
the
typewriter
may
appear,
at
the
same
time
the
artists
make
drawings
entirely
in
this
rather
unorthodox medium.
From their enthusiasm for visual and concrete poetry,
which
takes
words
from
the
context
of
language
and
turns
them
into
images,
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias
have
created
a
graphically
reduced
counterpart
to
the
painted
works
on
paper:
the
work
group
of
typewriter
drawings.
Full
stops,
commas,
Xs
and
Os,
plus
and
minus
signs
are
arranged
into
figures,
text
blocks,
or
constructive
towers.
Using
just
a
few
signs,
the
brothers
succeed
in
capturing
facial
expressions
and
emotions
with
a
very
sparse
visual
vocabulary.
Despite
the
reduced graphic means, they create exceptionally complex motifs with an emblematic
dynamics
that
is
alien
to
the
medium,
the
result
of
inserting
the
paper
into
the
typewriter
both
horizontally
and
vertically,
continuously
changing
the
direction,
and
mutual
permeation
and
overlaying
of
the
typewriter
print.
The
use
of
differently
saturated
colour
ribbons
makes
it possible to create intermediate colour shades that place individual elements into the
foreground
or
background,
giving
the
works
an
unusual
spatial
dimension.
The
result
is
a
highly differentiated typeface that in its geometric structure is reminiscent of the grid
systems
of
knitting
patterns.
2
In
their
technical
variety,
both
groups
of
works are
the
result
of
a
slow
and
processural
development
consisting
of
revisions
and
a
continous
exchange
of
two
artistic
imaginations.
At
art
school,
Gert
and
Uwe
discovered
that
they
can
mutually
support
and
inspire
each
other
in their
art.
Thus the works on
paper,
of
which
usually
ten
or fifteen
are created
simultaneously
in
this
process,
are
discussed
and
developed
until
a
poised
state
between
sketch
and
perfection
is
reached
that
satisfies
both
artists.
The
works
are
characterised
by
a
great
homogeneity
of
a
unique
visual
language that
is
evident
in
all
areas
of
their
oeuvre.
The
drawings
play
a
central
role
in
the
development
of
this
visual
vocabulary.
They
are
both
autonomous
groups
of
works
and
an
artistic
laboratory
for experimentation. Here, the figures’ potential for the prints are tested, various
constellations
are
played
out,
in
order
to
reach
memorable
motifs.
Woodcuts
In
contrast
to
drawing,
the
rougher
technique
of
woodcut
calls
for
a
clear,
form‐tied
and
two‐
dimensionally
reduced
composition.
From
the
painterly
works
on
paper
in
acryl
paints
to
the
typewriter
drawings,
the
representations
already
undergo
a
process
of
increasing
reduction
and graphic simplification, which is necessary for the woodcut. Afterwards, motifs and
structures
from
the
drawings
are
scanned
and
further
processed
on
the
computer,
and
thus
tested
for
their
suitability
for
the
transformation
into
the
medium
of
printing.
The
colour
woodcuts
thus
consist
initially
only
of
a
basic
vocabulary
of
circles,
rectangles,
and
trapezes
which
are
complicated
structures
are
added
later.
Larger
than
life‐sized
and
composed
into
works
of
sometimes
more
than
twelve
meters,
the
individual
components
must
live
up
to
their
translation
into
the
huge
formats
and
into
the
reduced
formal
vocabulary.
The
figures
developed
by
the
brothers
thus
are
highly
concentrated
and
expressive,
which
would
not
be
achievable
by
changing
the
scale,
by
a
simple
blowing
up.
Rather,
this
process
requires
a
good
sensibility
for
the
nature
and
effect
of
the
composition
in
a
large
format,
as
well
as
the
ability
of
condensing
every
visual
element
to
its
very
essence.
Typical
is
the
stage‐like
character
of
many
of
the
works,
which
makes
the
bodies
of
the
figures
appear
like
actors
in
a
theatre,
which
turn
in
strict
frontality
and
a
demanding
manner
to
the
audience.
In
front
of
the
dark
backgrounds,
they
achieve
an
impressive
presence,
3
sometimes
appearing
laden
and
heavy,
sometimes
floating
and
light,
like
dancers:
a
triadic
ballet
in
the
woodcut.
The
modular
system
of
their
creation,
moreover,
enables
the
artists
to
generate
an
endless
variety
of
types
that
keep
changing,
and
that
in
spite
of
their
abstraction
have
a
high
emotional
impact.
Recently,
the
artists
developed
a
series
of
close‐up
portraits
that
cannot
deny
their
origin
from
the
figure
variations
of
the
drawings.
The
collaged
lace
bonnet,
however,
is
replaced
in
the
woodcut
by
tent‐like
flat
structure
which
with
its
many
facets
can
be
read
as
a
reference
to
French
cubism.
Parodising
elements
like
the
huge
ear
and
the
dripping
nose
prevent
the
image,
which
presents
itself
as
the
consistent
development
of
the
types
of
figures
already
familiar,
from
becoming
too
serious.
Even
more
than
the
drawings,
the
prints
are
reminiscent
of
the
products
of
eastern
European
folk art, traditional folk costumes, embroidery, and carnival costumes, whose stylistic
principles
are
a
constant
source
of
inspiration
in
the
works
of
these
artists,
and
which
have
repeatedly
been
linked
to
their
Romanian
origins.
Gert
and
Uwe
grew
up
as
members
of
a
German
minority
on
a
farm
in
Transylvania;
they
only
went
to
Germany
when
they
were
twelve. In their twenties, they went back, and since then, a penchant for the folklore
traditions
and
the
artistic
heritage
of
their
old
home
country
is
visible
in
their
work.
They
seek
inspiration
from
reading
about
Transylvanian‐Saxon
embroidery
to
Polish
folk
art,
from
Romanian
ceramics
to
ornament
primers
and
pattern
books.
The
directness
and
heightened
expressivity
of
Slavic
folk
art,
with
its
typical
simplifications,
the bright colours before melancholic dark backgrounds, as well as the tendency to
geometrical
ornamentation
has,
however,
independently
of
the
country
of
their
birth,
held
a
strong attraction for generations of artists before them, and especially in the twentieth
century
can
be
seen
as
a
key
impulse
on
the
path
to
a
more
abstract
art
of
heightened
expressivity.
By
turning
away
from
a
mimetic
representation
of
reality,
artists
of
the
Russian
avant‐garde
and
German
expressionism
discovered
reverse
glass
paintings,
embroidery,
and
fabric patterns that accommodated their desire for a simplification of forms and the
valorisation
of
pure
colour
values.
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias
found
inspiration
in
these
folkloristic
elements, which they transformed and translated into their own formal vocabulary. In
consequence,
they
appear
in
different
media
throughout
their
entire
artistic
oeuvre.
4
Not
infrequently,
they
invoked
the
myth
of
Dracula
of
their
birthplace,
which
gained
eerie
fame
as Transylvania
and
which
in
this
form
exists more
in
the
heads
of
people
than
in
reality.
‘Come
and
see
before
the
Tourists
will
do
–
The
Mystery
of
Transylvania’
one
of
their
work
groups
of
woodcuts
and
typewriter
drawings
started
in
2004
is
entitled,
where
they
engage
playfully
with
the
various
clichés
about
vampirism
and
Transylvania.
Titles
of
low‐
budget vampire films like Dracula’s Dog, I Married A Vampire
and The Addiction
are
supposed
to
further
inspire
the
beholders’
associative
powers,
but
also
reveal
a
distanced
relationship
to
this
kind
of
kitschy
myth
formation,
which
is
to
be
taken
with
a
grain
of
salt.
The
figurative
colour
woodcuts
discussed
so
far
stand
equal
next
to
purely
geometric
and
richly
orchestrated
compositions
that
expand
in
all
directions
and
put
the
image
area
in
a
state
of
dynamic
vibrancy
of
movement.
Like
a
score
of
horizontally
oriented
line
systems,
the artists arrange circles, squares, spirals, and triangles into complexly nuanced woven
structures whose extremely light rhythms are reminiscent of Paul Klee. Through their
engagement
with
embroidery
patterns
of
folk
art,
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias
also
discovered
the
square
grid
as
a
medium
for
structuring
areas.
The
rigorous
rapport
structure,
however,
is
interrupted
by
letters
and
punctuation
marks
to
make
us
think
of
faces,
which
turn
out
to
be
ideal
counterparts
to
the
large
portrait
heads.
In
this
polarity
between
abstracted
figuration
and
figurally
legible
abstraction,
which
is
always
negotiated
by
them,
lies
the
great
quality
of
their
work
–
in
the
dialectic
of
these
groups
of
works,
which
have
equal
standing,
lies
the
true
key
to
their
art.
In
recent
years,
the
woodcuts
by
the
Tobias
brothers
have
been
regarded
as
a
prime
example
for
the
revival
of
a
technique
that
had
not
received
much
attention
after
the
Second
World
War. Whereas the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had experienced the
valorisation
of
the
woodcut
from
a
medium
of
reproduction
to
an
individually
created
artist
print
with
low
edition,
the
spearheads
of
the
movement,
Paul
Gauguin,
Edvard
Munch,
and
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner were not really present after 1945. Only with a wave of
neoexpressionist
art
at
the
end
of
the
1970s,
with
Georg
Baselitz
and
A.
R.
Penck,
did
the
woodcut
move
once
more
to
the
centre
of
artistic
attention,
since
the
raw
and
expressive
material
character
of
this
technique
seemed
the
ideal
counterpart
to
a
style
of
painting
that
wanted
to
come
across
as
both
direct
and
unbridled.
5
However,
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias’
colour
woodcuts
can
hardly
be
compared
with
the
edgy
and
splintery
prints
of
Penck,
who
used
an
electric
saw
to
cut
the
motif
roughly
and
seemingly
without
much
control
from
a
continuous
woodblock,
until
the
composition
stood
out
like
a
relief
from
the
material.
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias,
in
contrast,
use
the
woodcut
purely
as
a
flat
print,
which
is
created
by
using
individual
plates
of
soft
poplar
wood
which
are
individually
inked and then put together for the print. This process, also known as puzzle printing,
enables
the
two
to
create
compositions
of
any
size,
which
are
printed
by
hand,
without
a
press; only two copies are made. Before a dark background, the bright colours, which
however
are
usually
mixed,
gain
a
dull,
fresco‐like
quality
which
is
the
result
of
the
irregular
pressure
on
the
individual
plates.
Moreover,
layering
different
colours
on
top
of
each
other,
as
well
as
the
overlapping
the
printing
blocks
create
mixed
or
in‐between
shades
that
further
enrich
the
chromatic
spectrum
of
the
composition
and
give
each
woodcut
the
significance
and
character
of
an
original,
one‐of‐a‐kind
work.
Sculptures
In
addition
to
drawings
and
woodcuts,
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias
also
make
sculptures.
The
bases
for these sculptures are often the seemingly surrealistic assemblages of found objects,
sometimes
all
sorts
of
trouvailles,
which
they
find
when
roaming
flee
markets
in
the
search
for
typewriter
ribbons
for
their
typewriter
drawings.
Bellied
bottles,
flowerpots,
plates,
or
vases
form
the
body
on
which
ceramic
figures
are
placed.
The
gnome‐like
heads
and
figures,
sometimes colourfully glazed, have a dynamic form which is quickly and expressively
modelled from soft clay, and their chapped surface stands in a tense contrast to the
smoothness of the support materials. In their combination, they are the sculptural
equivalent
of
the
woodcuts.
Often
the
figures
resemble
one
another,
although
the
freedom
of
the
plastic
modelling,
especially
the
work
with
the
flexible
clay,
establishes
ties
back
to
the
drawings.
Being
tied
to
the
form
is
contrasted
with
an
openness
in
finding
a
form.
Sometimes
the
brothers
make
do
without
readymades
in
their
sculptures,
letting
the
ceramics
stand
entirely
for
themselves.
They
are
amorphous,
overly
long
creatures,
twisted,
both
rough
and
resonating,
and
bizarrely
attractive.
Figurative
associations,
which
are
always
present,
here
take a backseat to the fascination of the joy of autonomous creative energy and the
sensitivity
for
the
material.
Interaction
6
In
the
exhibitions
of
the
Tobias
brothers,
the
link
and
formal
interdependence
of
the
various
artistic
techniques
becomes
especially
clear;
there,
drawings,
collages,
sculptures,
and
books
enter
a
fruitful
conversation.
The
prelude
of
every
exhibition
is
a
poster,
made
especially
for
the occasion, stating the title, place, and time. Held together by a constructive mural,
adapted
to
the
specific
spatial
situation,
all
exhibits
form
a
whole
harmony
which
makes
the
continuous circling and exploring of a motif graspable for the beholder. The creative
expansion
in
the
form
of
an
installation
turns
out
to
be
a
further
touchstone
for
the
quality
of
the
work,
which
must
stand
up
to
the
spatial
constellation.
In
this
web
of
relations,
taking
its
cue
from
the
idea
of
the
gesamtkunstwerk,
the
various
artistic
techniques
do
not
confront
each other in a hierarchical competition, but rather exhibit an artistic autonomy which
approach representation in different ways and skilfully takes advantage of the specific
qualities
and
expressive
potential
of
the
various
media.
In
this,
it
is
not
at
all
unlikely
that
the
search
for
images
comes
full
circle
and
the
figures
from
the
woodcuts
undergo
once
again
a
process that rejuvenates them creatively, and re‐invents them. In
the fusion of folk art,
traditional
iconography,
and
popular
culture,
combined
with
numerous
highly
individually
used
artistic
techniques,
Gert
and
Uwe
Tobias
have
created
an
impressive
kaleidoscope
if
figurative
and
abstract
works
which
offers in
its
wealth
of relations and
reference many
points
of
departure
for
further
development.
Alexander
Eiling
Translation:
Wilhelm
Werthern,
www.zweisprachkunst.de
7