Lot 187 Dα

While a religious, Christological theme surprisingly appears here in Goller's late work, in a painting that could function like an image for meditation symbolically pointing towards transcendence, other subtle layers of meaning are nonetheless inserted, produced through formal artistic aspects inherent to Goller's singular oeuvre as a whole. In this work, Goller seems to demonstrate conclusively and in a serious as well as playfull manner that if successful, his art and his artistic arrangement is hieratic, similar to an icon. In this case, the artist has literally appropriated and submitted himself to the magic of the sign of the cross. The approach of integrating letters and words into the compostion in such a way that they become a defining formal and thematic element and are to be read together with the visual elements is particularly remarkable. As in the case of a rebus, this is not a narrative illustration but an intellectually and formally abstract, open principle that is broken back down again when the content of the picture and the title of the picture are identically designated. Werner Schmalenbach has spoken about the importance of our „point of view“ on Goller's oeuvre. Although we are tempted to bring structuralist theorems and the semiotics of the 1980s into play, things may yet be entirely different. After all, Goller developped a saying for himself: when he wished to cautionsly extract his art from the broader connections made by art historians and to defend himself from them, then, as Volker Kahmen has recounted, he would introduce statements into conversations along the lines of „Yes, that is indeed Cubism, but one from Gummersbach“ or „Egypt, yes, but in Gummersbach“, referring to the town where he was born. Here we now have his cross, the cross - no, rather, with a nod of reverence, Goller has made it paradoxically indefinite and unambigous: „Ein - Kreuz - Aus Jerusalem“.