JOHANNES WOHNSEIFER
HONEY AND MONEY

KÖNIG BERLIN
5 JUNE – 4 JULY 2015

The six-part Colony Collapse Disorder explicitly addresses the epidemic of beehives dying out. The words MONEY, HONEY, MOMONEY, MOHONEY, LOTSOFMONEY, and LOTSOFHONEY appear in the pictures; rather than being painted into them, they were generated by removing paint by means of laser marking. Each picture is composed of a variety of materials such as canvas, felt, and printed fabrics and held by a stainless-steel frame whose interior faces are mirror-polished to reveal the picture’s painted edges. These frames prominently delimit the pictures, some of which recognizably allude to landscapes, horizons, and seascapes, while others demonstratively elaborate on the words.

The three pictures in the Megayacht Paintings consist of powder-coated aluminum profiles. Their overall look plays on the design of the enormous luxury yachts that cruise the Mediterranean Sea in the summer months and put in at exclusive coastal resorts. In the past several years, Johannes Wohnseifer has often resorted to the mode of industrial painting, usually selecting powder-coated aluminum elements, as in the Lightweight paintings (2005–), the Beyoncé pictures (2007–2009), Close Call (2008), the Container pictures (2008–), Shutter Stutter (2009), and the Nisennenmondai series (2015–). He uses these industrially manufactured elements without reworking them, but combines them with wall paintings, prints, or pictures on canvas. In this instance, they appear in isolation, forming schematic profiles of the ships. Austerely formalist, the pictures deliberately mimic luxurious minimalist design and may be read both as scale models of the originals and as templates for large-format paintings.