Lot 60 D

The volcano of Mount Etna on Sicily became a central theme for Gerhard Hoehme in 1980. The artist explored the mountain, steeped in history and shrouded in myth, with the support of a research enterprise funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which resulted in, amongst other things, the creation of the fourteen-part Etna cycle. “The key word mythology now begins to dominate, after having occasionally appeared in the years before […] Compared to the interest in the living world, the state of civilization, society and history, this means a new terrain. Heohme begins to recognise the actuality of mythological memory, seeks to make its presence. Etna was particularly suitable for this. It was, as it were, physically accessible mythological ground, not only in the sense of an archaeological site, but of an archaic laboratory still in operation today.” (Gottfried Boehm, Der Maler Gerhard Hoehme, in: Margarete Hoehme et.al., Gerhard Hoehme, Catalogue Raisonné, Ostfildern-Ruit 1998, p. 39)
With artistic means, Hoehme translates his impressions of the rugged volcanic landscape - both its impressive topographical features and its seemingly mystical elemental forces that were involved in its creation.
“On the path to the primordial substances, in the midst of the metamorphosis of earth, fire, water and air, he once again experiences himself in that existential relationship whose transmission has always been his artistic mission:
“How small I am in your fissures,
How tall when you quicken my fantasy,
How my eye is compelled to seek your colours,
When you free me from the veil of my blindness”.
(Hans Peter Thurn, Notizen zu Werk, Zeit und Person, in: Giulio Carlo Argan and Hans Peter Thurn, Gerhard Hoehme, Werk und Zeit 1948-1983, Stuttgart 1983, p. 265).