Thursday, February 16, 2012

Sonnenschein















Getting My German On

This is a new-or more aptly-recently finished-series. They are silkscreens with a linocut and oil pastel and pencil and stamping and more silkscreens. Each one is 22" x 30".

The image is a portrait of Marilyn Chambers. I did a drawing from the poster of Behind The Green Door a few years back. I did a fairly straight forward 2 color silkscreen version in the 13 Altars series. Then collages. And more screens made from collages. The black and white version in the Hex Opera series is called Marilyn Venus.

I've had a longstanding appreciation and fondness for the sense of mystery the words Green Door evoke. A pre-adolescent fascination with newspaper ads for the film. The Cramps cover version. The NYC party... 

I generally think of series in terms of books, or records. This one is a book. The scientist in me really likes to title things. These are the titles from top to bottom:
Prolog
Chapter 1: New Ancestors
Chapter 2: Hex Berlin
Chapter 3: Hidden Upside Down Tree
Chapter 4: Half Scorpio
Chapter 5: Boreas
Chapter 6: Witch Behind The Door
Chapter 7: The Thief
Chapter 8: Der Blaue Engel
Chapter 9: Erdschatten
Chapter 10: Donna Hure
Chapter 11: Set Fire To The Air
Chapter 12: Der Immergeist
Chapter 13: The Serpent In The Soul Of The Serpent
Epilog

 When I was in Berlin with the Goldmine Shithouse back in 2007, Sabrina Calmels-who was filming a documentary about us-had a shirt that simply said Sonnenschein (sunshine) on it. In a beautiful san serif font. We printed a Leila Wadell face on her shirt at the silkscreen party. Still think about that shirt. I thought the word sunshine struck a nice balance with the all the darkness.

The Serpent In The Soul Of The Serpent is an episode title from Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz.