Lot 502 R

'Heads have been dominating Antes' works for years. Men's heads, hardly any juvenile ones, mostly middle-aged and elderly ones. The superior power of the heads. Beside them, there is little space for anything else. But this small space is important.
The heads are in the centre of the image field, monumental, filling it right up to the top and lateral margins. Antes says he paints from the centre of the picture towards the margins. Painting outwards from the core. The heads' expansion out to the margin underlines their exclusiveness, their superior power, their superiority. A sovereignty of the heads.
What is the head? The mind, the essential. The mind is the hightening of the head to the sublime. The headman. […]
Everything about the head is important. Everything happens via the head, through the head, in the head. I have a great mind. I am headstrong. I beat my head against a brick wall. I put things together in my head. I'll keep it in mind. The brainworker. To shake one's head. To hang one's head. […] The head has a lot to do with life. It is life. Behead: to take someone's life. To chew off someone's head. Sometimes heads roll. Mindlessness.' (Willy Rotzler, Notizen vor Bildern von Antes, in: Horst Antes, exhib.cat. Gimple & Hanover Galerie, Zurich 1976, n.pag.).