Nakedness knows no Stipulation.

triptycon: l+r, each: acrylic paint on canvas, 50 cm x 40 cm / m: acrylic paint on canvas, 220 cm x 180 cm, 2025

Book recommendation: Cynthia Fleury | La clinique de la dignité (The Dignity Clinic), Seuil 2023)
Drawing on the writings of James Baldwin, theories of care, and postcolonial approaches, French philosopher and psychoanalyst Cynthia Fleury urges us not to resign ourselves to inaction and to rethink the concept of dignity from its margins. In the interplay of psychoanalysis, literature, and social science, the demand for dignity in the age of the Anthropocene regains its full radicalism.

Excerpt: Theologians have always advocated a concept of human dignity that is inextricably linked to the idea of man as a creature made in God’s image, and whose value is based precisely on this ancestry. In the period before the Enlightenment, human dignity in man’s dialogue with God was irreducible: it could not be taken away from him because he was a divine creature. … Among the philosophers of the Enlightenment, the character of inviolability persists, but it refers not to the status of the creature, but to that of the “person” – who can never be regarded by others as a “means.” … Between these two approaches, that of the theologians and that of the Enlightenment, Pico della Mirandola made a grandiose turn in the 15th century by both the historical period that precedes it and depicts humans as divine creatures, and the future period that elevates them to subjects capable of inventing their own form. This conception of dignity, which assumes the plasticity of humans—in the sense that they are the ones who perfect their form—cannot be equated with the conception of transhumanist thinkers, who caricature the term by alienating it from any idea of limits and symbolic sublimation. In Pico, as in the philosophers of the Enlightenment, humans seek to assert their freedom while at the same time being aware of their ontological limits (finitude) and their moral, symbolic obligation to overcome them, if only by refusing to associate them with nihilism. Humans are the guarantors that the physical integrity of every human being is respected, that their bodies, like those of others, are not violated. In contrast, transhumanists are no longer concerned with the symbolic, but with technology, and formal plasticity gives way to material plasticity, which is geared toward quantitative increase (and not toward qualitative perfection, which is close to the heart of the Enlightenment). Therefore, the “dignity” of human beings would consist precisely in being able to detach themselves from a definition of humanity that, as transhumanists believe, is too deeply rooted in their physical and legal attributes.

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Nakedness knows no Stipulation.

left and right table – each: acrylic paint on canvas, 50 cm x 40 cm, 2025

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)

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

Preacher

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

Beautiful Hands

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

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

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

Stream

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.

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The Doubling of Vision

Moodboard, 200 cm x 300 cm

Adjustment Formats

pigment printings

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 a pioneer of perspective and virtual space, 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”. I want to remind us of a social turning point in the 13th century, when a new, …

.. humanistic image of man was invented in Europe, which emphasizes the dignity and uniqueness of each person as well as their ability to self-determination and development. An image of man, which in its further development presents itself in a morality of the “selfreferential ego” and features concepts of patchwork identity and the malleable body. 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. Late modern societies stage the optimized creature and celebrate the singular.

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.(DG)

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from the series: Human Image (Loving the Alien)

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

Time Collapse

oil, silkscreen print on paper, 70 cm x 50 cm | from the series: Human Image (Loving the Alien)

from the series: Human Image (Loving the Alien)

each: silksreen print, oil, tape on paper, 70 cm x 50 cm

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)

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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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