Antarctic
Panorama Penguinsby
OTGO acryl on canvas 300
cm x 900 cm 2015-2016
National Art Museum, Moldova OTGO ANTARCTIC PANORAMA PENGUINS The opening: May 18, 2016 OTGO
Otgonbayar Ershuu - Solo Exhibition
MUZEUL
NAŢIONAL de ARTĂ al MOLDOVEI Bulevardul
Ștefan cel Mare și Sfînt,
Chișinău, Republik Moldau www.mnam.md
MNAM, Secţia Relaţii Publice şi Expoziţii. Tel.: 022-24-13-12
A memorial for the world’s
slaughtered penguins ....
„The climate change sets off the
extinction of plant and animal species, which disappear as the first victims of human
wrongdoing. However, humans’ existence is also endangered. With the ice, it, too, will gradually
melt away. It pains me to see how nature suffers and this is the story my Antarctic-Panorama reveals. I
have been touched greatly by the fate of the penguins. There is something genuinely human about
their fate … We have to do something for the penguins! The Antarctic Panorama is a highly
critical and sorrowful picture. The colors are weeping, the ice and snow is melting away with
the penguins.“
(Otgonbayar
Ershuu)
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins
Otgonbayar
Ershuu was born 18th January 1981 in Ulaanbaatar/Mongolia. His great
talent for drawing and
painting was recognized early and by the age of 15 he had his first
solo exhibition. From 1998
to 2001 OTGO studied in Utaanbaatar traditional Mongolian painting.
After graduation,
he participated as a painter and restorer on several research trips to
historical sites in Mongolia.
In the Buddhist-Lamaist monasteries he studied different techniques,
the iconography of the
miniature painting as well as their spiritual backgrounds. Since
2005 he lives and works in Berlin. 2007-2010 he studied at the
Institute for Art in Context, Faculty of
Fine Arts, University of Arts in Berlin and graduated in 2010 as Master
of Arts. His international
exhibitions began in 2001. OTGO’S first major group of works are the
Thangkas, i.e.
Miniature paintings whose contents are derived from the gods worlds of
Shamanism, Buddhism
and Tengriasm, which applies the artist without a sketch directly onto
a specially primed
canvas. The primer of screens consists of a mixture of carbon black,
chalk and milk vodka or
brandy. Pigments from minerals or plants are added. Finally, the
mixture is bound with glue from
Yakskin and applied to both sides of the canvas. Using the special
technique developed
by OTGO and the state of highest concentration caused about 600
Thangkas. Striking is the
mostly eroticized representation of the subjects. A guiding principle
of the Mongolian belief is
to achieve the “All - unit” by overcoming all of the real world
phenomenon. A second working
group consists of approximately 600 pages of comic-like illustrations
of the “Secret History of
the Mongols” which was written about 800 years ago. It is the oldest
and most important
literary works of the Mongols, myth, epic and history at the same time.
With its miniature
illustrations OTGO wanted to do this important work easier to read for
all ages of its culture.
His
third and most recent group of works, starting with the large-scale
painting “HUN” (2010- 2012), we
could entitle as “Paradise Paintings.” “HUN” is an all-over painting of
approximately 12000
people and animals interwoven and designed to a condensed
panorama-like, vibrant microcosm.
Humans and animals are drawn as miniature-like, individual elements,
merge in the picture,
however, in a colorful motion-suggestive overall composition similar to
a mirror image of the
oriented harmony Mongolian culture. Through their pictorially
expressive language, OTGO’s
pictures palpably evoke an image of man and nature in unison, in a
world which has been left
partially untouched by civilization. Now
OTGO sees this originally paradisiac world extremely endangered. In his
newer works his “paradise
paintings” have started to transform into “allegories of a lost
paradise,” warning imageries
of a once natural cosmos, which is now about to turn into its opposite,
a world determined
by destruction and sadness. For OTGO, the penguins act as symbolic
figures of an endangered
wildlife and are ambassadors of his commitment, emphasizing the
necessity for a more
conscious and careful approach towards environmental pollution and
global warming. „The ice on the Antarctic
peninsula is melting away from under the penguins’ feet. Some
colonies
have diminished 60% of their original size. In some places of the
Antarctic the earth is heating up five times more than the planet’s
average. It has even become warmer in 3000 meters depth.”
One
of the central pieces among his recent working series is called "Antarctic Panorama" and depicts
a penguin colony of around 20.000 animals in their Antarctic habitat,
once termed “the eternal
ice.” The 300 by 900 cm tall panorama painting consists of 12
equal-sized single paintings,
each measuring 150 by 150 cm. In comparison to his previous works,
which were characterized
mostly by a high precision of single images, a virtually moving
composition and a coloristic
rich-in-contrast structure of forms, his “Antarctic Panorama” reveals
that its compositional
focus is based on the behavioral structures of the penguins: individual
behavior, family
formations, mass gatherings, migration and formations of movement. OTGO
has intensively
studied the behavior and brutal decimation of the penguin population in
the period of industrialization
and is now combining his experiences and subjective sentiments with a
socio-political
message in his large-format work. The
size of the painting refers to the scope of meaning the topic has
acquired for the artist. In contrast
to his earlier animal drawings, the detailed drawings of the penguins
appear softer and increasingly
pictorial as they evince a kind of “anthropomorphism.” The icescape’s
white conglomerates
with the penguins’ white bellies which have been tinged yellow by the
sun light and thereby
make up an impressionist composition that in turn celebrates the
harmonious interplay
between natural elements and the animals. To express his sadness OTGO
finally covered the
canvas with vertically flowing white lines, which overlay the whole
creation as a reticular
veil of tears. With
“Antarctic Panorama” OTGO has created an oeuvre which symbolically
expresses a highly sensitive
social topic through its virtuosic painting. Due to the artist’s
typical combination of graphic,
pictorial and coloristic media in combination with its large format, we
may speak of this painting as
a modern memorial for the preservation of nature.
Translation
from German to English by Elisa Kohl-Garrity
J.
Erdenetsetseg Newspaper
Unuudur („Today“) in Mongolia of 22. December 2015 The
Artist E.
Otgonbayar,
who is a resident of Germany, raised his voice against global climate
change and brought back to life 20 000 penguins with the stroke of his
brush. He comments on his nine meter broad and three meter
tall
painting: “Climate change causes the extinction of plant and animal
species on earth, as the first victims of human misconduct.
However, the existence of humanity is endangered as well; together with
the ice, it too, will melt away. It pains me to see how
nature
suffers and my Antarctic-Panorama speaks of this pain.
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins
I
have largely completed work on this picture, which I started in May
2015. I had informed myself about climate change rather
intensely, but never really intended to paint something like this. The
penguins caused me to paint this picture. Their story is so tragic that
it can only be depicted in black shades.
In
the past two hundred years the population of penguins have decimated
dramatically. Statistics tell us that there are only around forty
colonies of emperor penguins left worldwide, of which each counts
around one hundred to one thousand members. And so one day I
came
up with the idea to create another colony of emperor penguins, the
forty-first. It would be comprised of 20 000 members.
Humanity
has committed great sins against penguins. At the beginning and
mid-19th century seals, wales, elephant seals and similar animals were
hunted on great scale. The massacres of these animals could almost be
compared to the tragedies of the first and second world war. Initially
the penguins went unnoticed, for their meat was considered inedible and
their skin was too hard for processing. Nevertheless, when man realized
that their grease did not congeal, much like that of the common lamp
oil, they literally squeezed the poor animals, or they were burned
alive for fuel. The
heavy loaded ships carrying thousands of slain seals, wales, etc.
consumed vast amounts of coal. Not only was this very expensive, but
the coal-fired ships were also much too slow. Firing the furnaces with
penguins, not only provided good fuel, but also saved coal. Officers
and sailors reported that they burned around 700 animals per day on
their ships. One of these reports reads: “The penguins cause a lot of
clamor anyway. Whenever we threw one of them into the fire alive, it
screamed miserably for about a quarter of an hour until it was dead.
Then we threw the next one into the furnace.“ It
got even worse when someone came up with the idea to use penguin grease
as lamp oil. The Macquarie-Islands mainly processed royal penguins. A
royal penguin could deliver 250g of grease. 4.000 animals delivered a
ton of grease, which was traded at eight-teen pounds sterling only. As
one of the reports reveals the poor animals were driven over a ramp
screaming miserably and fell into a cauldron of boiling oil. This is
where they were boiled alive. According to reports, this is how 4.000
to 6.000 penguins were used daily. The animals added up to around
150.000 per season for a period of 70 years. Faced with these
numbers we realize the measure of human wrongdoing. Eventually, animal
rights activists put an end to these cruelties and the factory was
closed in 1918.
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins
This
is the true history of penguins which were doomed to light up our dark
Europe –as living torches so to say. Like it or not, these animals
arouse compassion, one feels the need to help them, do something for
them. The Antarctic-Panorama was created out of this deep
compassion. Today, I was invited to a conversation with the Ms. S. Oyuun,
a member of the Mongolian parliament. We will discuss how
artists
can be heard in the struggle against climate change through their
medium of art.
I still remember the day when I first read about the
fate of the penguins. I was captured by their story and when I suddenly
heard some kind of noise behind me I got terribly scared. It was then
when I realized that I was crying. I was haunted by nightmares for
three nights. It is really such a terribly sad story, the fate of the
penguins.”
Translation
from German to English by Elisa Kohl-Garrity
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins
Gallery
Studio OTGO II Berlin - Video work in progress:
Gallery
Studio OTGO II Berlin - Video work
in progress:
detail: Antarctic Panorama Penguins
