Art historical expertise
The author
Gabriela Szafarska, graduated with honors from the famous University of Warsaw with her master’s degree in art history. She gained her experience on the art market in well-known German and European art houses and galleries. She lives and works in Dusseldorf.
Divine guys, divine art
and its trans-avant-garde mysticism
The world-famous writer and literary scholar Vladimir Nabokov used to say: “Art is a divine game, since the artist, while creating it, approaches God directly as a true creator.”
Iven Orx & Aaron Vinn are a Cologne-based artist duo who are creators of their own transcendental reality. Since 2005 they have been working together in their studio in Cologne, creating paintings, sculptures and art installations. In doing so, they try to “bring a piece of heaven to earth” every day. Their artistic path has undergone many transformations, but has always remained a process aimed at revealing a piece of mysticism.
The Expressionist Paintings
Herbert Kühn wrote 1919, in connection with expressionism: “In expressionism, the represented and the object fall far apart. The represented begins behind the painting. The work no longer contemplates external reality, but proposes another reality, that of the artist.”
In the book ‘The Hero in a Thousand Forms’, Joseph Campell describes that challenges in life always come to us when we are ready for them. It was at such that moment when Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn first met. Both artists are deeply rooted in expressionism, they share a similar aesthetic sensibility, way of representing realities and work ethos.
Arts and energy have much in common, moreover, both are eternal. The energy that an artist manifests and captures in his or her work is transmitted to the viewer and indexes innumerable interpretations and meanings in him or her. This phenomenon can be named in different ways, for example Marshall McLuhan uses the term “electricity”, an element that generates strong aesthetic sensations in the viewer. For him, it is equivalent to the energy of language. This aforementioned “electricity of expression” is the fascinating and hypnotically captivating element that distinguishes the Expressionist works of Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn and makes them special in today’s art market.
Contemporary art has re-evaluated the language of form. Accordingly, one can talk about a deconstruction of the artwork in the classical sense. Jacques Derrida wrote that “there is nothing outside the text itself”, by paraphrasing we can conclude that likewise “there is nothing else but the work of art itself.” Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn go beyond the framing convention, their artworks are not about the search for a single discourse. For them, the artwork itself is the form that represents the only true reality. A reality that reflects positive experiences, pleasure and generally the affirmation of life.
Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn are constantly exploring new and unexpected fields to expand their horizons of both formal and thematic abilities. They tirelessly sound out their own synthesis of possibilities. Thanks to the artists, new paths open up for us to request and to recreate our own meaning.
Herwarth Walden, the founder of the magazine “Der Sturm”, wrote in 1927: “…the painter presents what he sees in the deepest layers of his consciousness. He expresses himself, the fading reality is merely a symbol for him. He engages in the process of his own self, the outside world carries records into his consciousness, he again brings them to the outside for expression.”
Thus, the art of Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn impresses with an extraordinary form and complexity that allows each of us to generate our own meanings.
For the artist duo, the creative process is just as important as the result itself. Their art is created with a focus on every detail, sometimes even appearing more “as written” than painted, which makes it unique and one of a kind. The purity of light and the affirmation of color as well as form, surreal representations of reality and also puristic combinations of pure form are to be perceived. All these elements combine to form a new language that is characteristic of ‘Neue Wilde’. Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn reduce the figurative elements to a minimum and interweave them with Gerhard Richter’s monochromatic understanding of color. In this way they want to create an ideal, a pure and perfect work of art, which is immaculate and not burdened by art movements, currents or theories. Her way of thinking and the interpretation of her art belongs to the transavant-garde. It is characterized by an emotional expression, as well as an intuitive transfer of the form into a stylistic or formal connection, which in summary strengthens the emotional means of expression.
Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn are always exploring new and unknown areas and expanding their horizons of formal as well as content-related skills. They tirelessly explore their own synthesis of possibilities. Thanks to artists, new avenues open up for us to question and shape our own meaning.
Herwarth Walden, founder of Der Sturm magazine, wrote in 1927: “…the painter presents what he sees in the deepest layers of his consciousness. He expresses himself, the ephemeral reality is only a symbol for him. He engages in the process of his own self, the outside world carries notes into his consciousness, he in turn expresses them to the outside.
The art of Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn impresses with an extraordinary form and complexity, which allows each of us to generate our own meaning.
The Divine Art
The divine has its own genesis at Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn.
Cologne, a city associated with pilgrimages among other things, is a major influence. Because of its large number of sacred objects (buildings, monuments, works of art and relics) the city is a synonym for gold and splendour. It amazes and astonishes at the same time, it has kept its mystical face for centuries. The relics of the Three Kings were brought here from Vercelli (near Milan). Thus Cologne, like Cologne Cathedral, has attracted pilgrims from all over the world from the Middle Ages to the present day.
The skull often appears in the art of “The Divine”. For them, it is an important symbol of the boundary between what is human and what is divine, between this world and the hereafter. In Christianity, the skull is the attribute of the saints, as well as the essence of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes by Solomon: “Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas” (Vanity of the vanities, everything is vanity). The vanitas motif of the skull has been traditionally used for millennia in literature, visual art, theatre and music to symbolise the beauty, decay and transience of everything earthly.
Iven Orx & Aaron Vinn explore and exaggerate the mystical, almost sacred tradition of medieval art. It was one of the factors that shaped their art, but not the only one. They also met many inspiring personalities along the way.
She was also closely associated with Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Niki de Saint Phall and Jean Tinguely. Her unsurpassable role model, however, was Marcel Duchamp throughout her life.
For “The Divines”, the encounter with Bauermeister was a decisive turning point. With her they traversed the artistic path of the Avantgarde and in the process they created their own Transavantgarde, by breaking what they regarded as the dusty dogmas of art.
Indeed, “transformation” is the key word for them. Transformare (Latin for transformation) means transformation, deformation, transmutation and is a synonym for change and movement. In their art, the processes of change were dynamic and their path always aimed at reaching the unattainable and touching the untouchable.
“The Divines” underwent their own transformations, so that the thematic diversity of their artworks knows no bounds. Their spectrum includes historical and occult, religious as well as completely surrealistic as well as fantastic or even futuristic visions of universal themes. Often the forms of representation are reminiscent of those of the ancient gods of the Romans, Egyptians and Mayans or those of Catholic saints.
Bauermeister implanted in “The Divines” the need to rethink aspects of their sense of art and awakened their interest in the art of Duchamp. It was precisely he who rejected the visual appeal reserved only for high art. In “Idea ready made” or “objet trouvé”, an art object or its part is created from everyday objects. The aim here is to transfer the meaning from the object to the subject.
She was also closely associated with Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Niki de Saint Phall and Jean Tinguely. Her unsurpassable role model, however, was Marcel Duchamp throughout her life.
For “The Divines”, the encounter with Bauermeister was a decisive turning point. With her they traversed the artistic path of the Avantgarde and in the process they created their own Transavantgarde, by breaking what they regarded as the dusty dogmas of art.
Indeed, “transformation” is the key word for them. Transformare (Latin for transformation) means transformation, deformation, transmutation and is a synonym for change and movement. In their art, the processes of change were dynamic and their path always aimed at reaching the unattainable and touching the untouchable.
“The Divines” underwent their own transformations, so that the thematic diversity of their artworks knows no bounds. Their spectrum includes historical and occult, religious as well as completely surrealistic as well as fantastic or even futuristic visions of universal themes. Often the forms of representation are reminiscent of those of the ancient gods of the Romans, Egyptians and Mayans or those of Catholic saints.
Bauermeister implanted in “The Divines” the need to rethink aspects of their sense of art and awakened their interest in the art of Duchamp. It was precisely he who rejected the visual appeal reserved only for high art. In “Idea ready made” or “objet trouvé”, an art object or its part is created from everyday objects. The aim here is to transfer the meaning from the object to the subject.
In analysing their art, it is hard to avoid the analogy with Susan Sontag’s mid-1960s essay, “Notes on Camp”. Sontag defines camp as “a failed, disappointed earnestness”. She lets the air out of a balloon inflated with patos of serious art, which has as its mission: docere, movere, delectare (to teach – to persuade – to convince). One of her most important views on this, she rejects the categorisation of seeing something as “good” or “bad”. Camp is sometimes oversaturated, kitschy and exaggerated in its expression, but it is certainly a kind of sensibility in art. Therefore, the “camp art” of Iven Orx & Aaron Vinn is the acceptance and affirmation of any form that escapes their classical understanding.
The Transavangarde
The term “Transavangarde” also Italian “Transavanguardia” (beyond the avant-garde) was first mentioned in 1979 by the Roman art critic Achille Bonito Oliva and has mainly emerged from Italian Arte Povera.
The art of Iven Orx and Aaron Vinn fits the definition of the transavangarde, mainly by rejecting the imperative of novelty. Past themes, motifs and ways of making art are reclaimed with ironic detachment, making it difficult to distinguish what it is, a joke or a serious statement, beauty or kitsch. The transavantgarde also means the use of art in its traditional mind, namely the combination of different styles and techniques.
In times when art is supposed to have already said the last word and form as well as content seems to be completely exhausted, the artists want the viewer to take part in the infinite creative process of meanings. For “The Divines”, this actual creative process itself is extremely significant, as the resulting art is for them their way of communication between the artist and the viewer. It has the task of creating the missing transcendental element between what is divine and what is earthly.
Their work effectively fills the gap between the often utopian assumptions of contemporary artists and the current prevailing aesthetic. They belong to the new generation that has to deal with a viewer who has already been confronted with a multitude of daily implied images.
Nevertheless, their way of working remains “transavangardistic”, filled with an unusual form that allows each of us to generate our own meanings. Thus, they contribute to the transavantgarde way of thinking about art and are characterised by an emotive expression as well as an intuitive form of representation. In doing so, they consciously use various art forms that are intended to serve emotional transmission.
The Divines say of themselves that their role is to “bring a piece of heaven to earth” and therefore they imbue each of their works with a divine soul of transcendental, supernatural mysticism.
They see their profession as a kind of mission. Each of their artworks is supposed to possess qualities to transform our reality into a supernatural state. Their lives are determined by the daily search for transavantgarde mysticism.
Düsseldorf, Germany, 2018
