“Jesus says: Those who seek should not stop looking until they find. And if they find they will be dismayed. And when they are dismayed, they will be amazed.”
Gospel of Thomas, Logion 2
“One no longer becometh poor or rich; both are too burdensome. Who still wanteth to rule? Who still wanteth to obey? Both are too burdensome. […] They have their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night, but they have a regard for health. ‘We have discovered happiness,’ – say the last men, and blink thereby.”
Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spoke Zarathustra
“To live means to believe: at least I believe that.”
Marcel Duchamp
Nachricht vom letzten Menschen [Message from the Last Man] is an exhibition and a parable about the relationship between faith and freedom.
The tension builds up between two characters from Michal Martychowiec’s new mythology. In the two-work series The incredulity of Saint Thomas and Everything about the contemporary is panda, Jesus’s disciple Thomas and the panda face each other. Thomas is a symbol of the believing doubter, the panda embodies the last man in Martychowiec’s work.
These figures are located in the exhibition space in two clearly separated spheres: above and below. The ‘Sphere of Thomas’ and the ‘Sphere of the Panda’. The visitors in their physicality inhabit both spheres.
Materials and texts on the exhibition
Here you can find the floor plan of the exhibition.
Here you can download the press release of the exhibition.
Here you will find an introduction to the exhibition cycle Mythopoesis
Here is the gallery and mediation platform Bublitz Objects. On this platform you can find detailed information about all works of art in the exhibition and purchase ones that are still available.
Photos © Stefan Hähnel