Jochen Klein

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Untitled 1 (2007)
40cm x 50cm C-print

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We know that many of Friedrich´s pictures were not drawn from life but constructed in his mind.
One might even say that he followed his own metaphorical advice to painters and closed his eyes
before he began to paint.
(C. Rosen/H.ZernerCaspar David Friedrich and the language of landscape)

The landscape genre, captured between – and associated with – kitsch on the one hand,
and metaphysics on the other, is at the centre of my interest.

The invention of this genre by the romantics, who for the first time gave landscape depiction a right
in itself, has established a cultural tradition of nature perception in the arts and beyond art. This tradition
is ongoing and perhaps kept alive by a permanent transformation and challenge through artists.

This tradition has changed and influenced our understanding of nature which has become culturally
conditioned and art related. The symbolism and metaphorical language established by the romantics
is common place now and at the same time it created such a heavy impact that we struggle to find
answers if our response to nature is learnt or instinctive and if it is possible to experience nature
without pre-fabricated ideas and concepts. Artists, confronted with those ideas, often describe their
relationship with nature as failing or even inauthentic. They are left with the impact of tradition
and all that seems possible is to re-use, challenge and transform those art historical fragments and play
with a tradition that cannot be escaped. It seems as if represented nature has formed our understanding
of nature, with landscape imagery as a substitute for a direct contact with nature itself - instead, nature
experienced on the gallery wall.

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