Series
Gut behütet
8 works
Echter Sturmhut
Tutulus
Crapaud Couronné
Kapitell
Capital (Lat. capitellum ‘little head’), c. have long been known, among others, in ancient Ind. as well as Assyr. and Pers. hat fashion. Among the Greeks a distinction is made between: Dor. capital (with cushion [echinus] and cover slab [abacus]), Ion. c. (volute c.) and Corinth. capital (acanthus c.), from which the Romans formed the composite c. Later the capital was adopted by Greek architecture as the uppermost member (head) of columns, piers and pilasters, as the link between support and load. The capital is the forerunner of the → top hat – see illustration.
Perruque à Crinière
Print with chine-collé, mixed media
Private collection, Milan
The series ‘Gut behütet’ is a tribute to the extravagant world of French court fashion, in particular to the adventurous hairstyles and wigs of the 18th century as they were worn in the days of Marie Antoinette.
In my offset lithographs the hair grows into fantastical structures: insects and frogs populate the coiffures, another turns into an architectural capital, yet another carries an owl with countless eyes. The boundaries between hairstyle, headdress and fantastical construction dissolve.
The series was made during my studies in the 1990s. Besides the decorative charm of the drawings, I enjoyed inventing nonsense texts in the style of an encyclopaedia.