"It's as if we grew up in the same house. And one day he went out the back door and I went out the front." Truman Capote
Bikers, serial killers, hillbillies, prostitutes, escapologists and elephant men, curiosities and rarities - the injured and maltreated are the actors in the disturbing image worlds of the American artist Joe Coleman. Firmly rooted in the underground, he brings the American nightmare, the dark sides of human existence and opens up the abysmal realm from which we ourselves are merely a tiny step away. Allusions to icon painting, sumptuous details, and references from all areas of pop and pulp culture in his works are condensed to an obsessive image universe.
The exhibition Internal Digging shows for the first time in Germany panel paintings and drawings, films and performances, as well as large parts of Joe Coleman's "Odditorium," a cabinet of curiosities built up over decades filled with relics, specimens, documents, and oddities.
Internal Digging runs at Berlin's KW Institute For Contemporary Art until August 12, 2007. |
