Dignity of Man

A piece for 3-channel moving canvas and sound.

Dignity of Man is a tribute to a young man who, at the age of 24, in 1486/87, wanted to invite scholars from European universities to discuss human freedom: Pico della Mirandola (1463 – 1494. His opening speech “Oration on the Dignity of Man” was never given by him, but today it is one of the most famous texts of the Renaissance.

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Moving Canvas | DvD-version

1_channel, 29′ 48” | Spoken Words: Amy Evans

Dignty of Man | Anatomisches Theater,Berlin

The piece was premiered as a 1-channel video installation in cooperation with the Laptoporchester Berlin on July 12, 2006 at the Anatomisches Theater (Langhansbau) in Berlin.
Review: Berliner Zeitung | Feuilleton (german)
Text: Civilized Meditation | Angelika Sommer (german)

Stream | The Return of Responsibility

Design for a light/sound installation: The sound environment deals with the text from the speech by Pico della Mirandola, “Dignity of Man”, is rather quiet in character and will be arranged in such a way that the beginning and end merge smoothly into one another.

The Need for Renewal

wallapplication: oil, stone tape, net material on canvas, approx. 260 cm x 220 cm | 1000 photos

Transnaissance_no.1

exhibition views | Andreas Reinsch Project, Berlin

Indeterminate Image

digital print, acrylic paint, foil, tape, mirror, 110 cm x 420 cm

More images from the exhibition “Transnaissance_No.2” here as PDF-View

from the Series: Dignty of Man

Collages on Paper (mixed media), each: 70 cm x 50 cm

Secureness is cristall clear

oil, polaroid-foto, digital print, tape, bed sheet on alu di bond, 200 cm x 360 cm

Enhanced Performance | Preacher

butterfly box, digital prints, silkscreen print on glass, acrylic paint, dissecting needles, 36 cm x 48 cm x 5 cm

Enhanced Performance

Studio View | l: Enhanced Performance | r: Beautiful Hands | each: silkscreen printig, foils, woodden frame, laquer on canvas, approx. 140 cm x 210 cm

Mannequin | Quid Tum?

Studio View | each: silkscreen printig, foils, woodden frame, laquer on canvas, approx. 140 cm x 210 cm

From their mother’s womb | What ever form

each: silkscreen printing, oil, foil on canvas, approx. 220 cm x 140 cm

Skin

Design for an interactive video-sound installation that develops and changes acoustically with the movements of the visitors. Hanging on the walls are 10 video paintings (the number varies depending on the room ratio): real, natural images of the sky (differentiated shades of blue). The location and date of the image are displayed at the bottom of the screen. The visitor enters the room. As they walk through the room, invisible sound zones pass by. The sound space refers synchronously to the locations of the projected sky recordings on the walls (quiet).

DIGNITY

wallapplication: oil, graphite, Voalstoff on canvas, approx. 220 cm x 280 cm

-> other works from Futur II (Dignity of Man).pdf

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The Mirandola Series

each: transparent paper, wax, acrylic paint on canvas, 42 cm x 29,7 cm – 2019

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The Doubling of Vision

Moodboard, 200 cm x 300 cm

Modern man is an invention – an invention that has its origins in the early Renaissance, around 1420-1500. However, the beginnings of this way of thinking can be traced back further to Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337), who is now regarded as the founder of Renaissance painting, and Petrarch (1304-1374), who is considered a co-founder of humanism. Around 100 years later, Pico della Mirandola wrote his speech “De hominis dignitate (The dignity of man-1486)”, in which he describes man as a wondrous “chameleon”.

Today, some 700 years later, man is in the process of reinventing himself. Man is discovering himself as operable. This radically new era reaches all areas of science and society: biology, biochemistry and genetics, medicine, pharmacology and psychopharmacology, psychology, sociology and politics.

Detlef Günther wants to remind us of a social turning point in the 13th century, when a new image of man was invented in Europe, which coincided with the invention of virtual space: In Giotto’s frescoes (Capella Scrovegni – Padua/Italy), landscape and body are geometrized. These frescoes also depict everyday details for the first time: Sheep, lambs, trees … and the first portrait of modern times (Enrico Scrovegni presenting a model of the chapel to the angels). This is the beginning of a new view of the world, a new image of man, which in its further development today presents itself in a morality of the “self-referential ego” and features concepts of patchwork identity and the malleable body and mind. Against this historical background, the exhibition juxtaposes details from Giotto’s frescoes in the Capella Scrovegni with contemporary images from advertising, science and everyday life. The symbol of the halo is often placed on the works, most of which were produced as individual screen-printed pieces, either as an integral detail or across different formats. In Günther’s works, this symbol of the halo takes on the significance of a placeholder that raises questions about the current position of man and his vitality.

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from the series: Human Image

each: silksreen print, oil on canvas, 220 cm x 180 cm / silkscreen print on paper, 100 cm x 70 cm

Exhibition views

Andreas Reinsch Project, Berlin 2017

Last Judgement

l: silkscreen printing, watercolor glaze on canvas (diff. sizes)
r: LED-lightbox, digital print, lacquer (front – diff. sizes | draft)

Golden Gate

l: silkscreen printing, watercolor glaze on canvas (diff. sizes)
r: LED-lightbox, digital print, goldleaf (back – diff. sizes | draft)

Deep Time

silkscreen printing, acrylic painting on paper (diff. sizes)

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… the ten paintings are still portraits, however strange that sounds. They thematize, they allegorize man as pure potentiality, as that which remains of him if one removes all narcissism, …

Christian Kupke: The „Grund“ picture cycle by Detlef Günther, Berlin, March 2017 – Read the entire text HERE.

Grund 1 | 2 | 3

each: oil on canvas, 220 cm x 180 cm

Grund 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

each: oil on canvas, 160 cm x 120 cm

Grund 10 | The Power to Believe

Christian Kupke, Versionen des Denkens. Version I: Enttäuschendes Denken – Berlin 2021, S. 99-101
Read the excerpt from the text (german/english) HERE

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