BERLIN.- We do not know what is going on inside of them. The other side of nudity and of the pose will be empty, as if they had given everything. The gaze glides over her skin, uncomfortably close, but the creepy remains invisible. It is getting lonely. No more physical contact. Besides the destructive. The battered carpet, the black holes, the dildo amid pathetic chains and Tiger Balm, who by itself speaks of pain and consolation, the poor taste in furniture, the slit orange with its juice, dropped nearby - pictures that mirror the violence, the emptiness and especially loneliness.
The women do not conceal their destruction. It is theirs. The broken nose, the slit arms, the pierced nipple, wounds of violence. They display them matter-of-factly, they need no hiding place, because they have no longer a secret. Their souls have long since vanished. It lacks the feeling that goes with it, it lacks the pain - the pain is aimed at the viewer: Dread. One wouldn’t want to hug them and comfort them. They will not cry. They have lost their tears. Life has lost them. Not even nudity will bring them back to life. They will no longer despair, they have set up shop inside despair. Violence becomes the longed-for vessel through which to feel themselves again.
The handcuffs with their illuminated tip, the masturbating hand's pointy fingernails, the defiant resistance out of submission, the provocative posing, aimed at the male gaze - all remain lonely attempts of love. Destruction is the only connection to oneself, the only form of touch. This touch happens within pain, and the attempt to fight against this pain, to resist it becomes their identity. The audience is lured into this violence, into this horror. They will then move on and lift their heads in pride, showing that humiliation too, has its dignity. They will smoke their cigarettes and the cold smoke will take the last bit of romanticization. The object aestheticizes its destruction, thereby trying to become the subject. The access to the world remains lost, their hands are tied to themselves, tied to destruction, to the cigarette, or are powerlessly folded in the lap. It is only in their destruction that they are alive. And yet, is not the destruction that is most terrifying, but the fact that the destruction is the only thing that makes them alive.
It is as if the women are seeking their lives within their self-destruction. Roses and cotton: the essence of the photo series. The illuminated rose draws our attention to the lifeless, the artificial, the false, our gaze barely touches the dead rose, it bothers us. There is no dying here - eternity is celebrated, the resilience of the lifeless. A slight glow of cotton, its seed fibers, a promising return of life - but they too will be collecting dust.
Hans Peter Riegel studied visual communication, photography and art history. He was long-time assistant, photographic documentarian and project partner of Jörg Immendorff. After a successful career in the private sector, namely in advertising and as a media developer, he concentrates exclusively on art and literature from 2000 on. He was one of the first artists to critically deal with the internet. His biography of Beuys is one of the most talked-about books of its kind in German-language literature.
