Der Schädelforscher "Narsato": Im Insektenbuch des Volkstribuneroz "Gnaeus". 2002.
Mixed media on canvas.
Lower left signed and dated. Verso multiply signed, dated, titled, as well as inscribed "rechts" uad "links". Stretcher several times inscribed with the work number "MEE 601" by a hand other than that of the artist. 210 x 420 cm (82.6 x 165.3 in).
Verso with various paper collages. [AW].
• Shown in the artist's first grand museum solo show ("Mama Johnny", Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 2006).
• Characteristic combination of painting, text and collage
• Impressive three piece work in a remarkable size.
• Meese's works are at, among others, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich.

We are grateful to the Bureau Jonathan Meese, Berlin, for the kind support in cataloging this lot.

PROVENANCE: Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (with label and gallery stamps on the stretcher).
Private collection Hamburg (acquired from the above).
Ever since family-owned.

EXHIBITION: Jonathan Meese. Mama Johnny, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, April 30 - September 3, 2006 / Magasin, Centre National d'Art Contemporain, Grenoble, 15.10.2006-7.1.2007, p. 214-215 (with illu.)
Partisanen der Utopie. Joseph Beuys - Heiner Müller, Stiftung Schloss Neuhardenberg, March 28 - July 4, 2004, cat. no. 153 (with illu.).

"When I say 'I don't make art', all that really means is that I don't have any recipes on how to make it. I have no idea, no justification for how to behave, I don't know what leads to creating art. I don't believe in creativity, nor in imagination, at least not as a guarantor of art production - it's a mysterious process for which we have no words. I believe that art creates itself and then decides for itself what it is."
Jonathan Meese, quoted from: Artist. Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, Munich 2006, p. 3.