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The complex paintings of Harding Meyer build time and again constellations among each other, with the larger-than-life faces of pictures of smaller format and the almost overwhelmingly large faces of adults.
To cover the range of possibilities, two of these paintings deserve to be singled out in this context. One of these two paintings (Abbildungshinweis) shows a youth leaning on a wall in a room aligning towards the back. It is not only the room that distinguishes this painting from the other paintings, which do not offer a contextual hint at their surroundings. If the faces are not originally extreme close-ups or if they have a neutral background, Harding Meyer removes the details. However, in this painting the room and the otherwise invisible body from the neck downwards are present: only the head is missing and therefore the face! This missing head is thought-provoking when a painter is otherwise so intensively preoccupied with the face. The picture could be seen as an experiment which underlines the significance of head and face for the identification of a human figure, even if physique, gestures and posture do take characteristic forms in different people and thus allow conclusions. Also the painting reminds us that in the first place it is not about the motif but about a visible conflict in painting. But with regard to the near impossibility of identifying the young man in this not unusual but strange room, it has to be said that the faces in the other paintings also remain the faces of strangers, and the lack of titles serves this purpose. Even if single faces can be identified as those of famous actors, this does not mean that the person is being recognised. Eventually the portraits of famous persons, though in some cases even characteristic, join the community of the nameless who embrace the names among them with their anonymity and, as it were, include them in their collective.
One title, or rather a name, leads to the second painting: Dieter. Why does the painting - unlike the others - have a title, who is Dieter, and is Dieter�s name really Dieter? All these are banal but important questions, and basically here, too, just like in the case of the headless young man, the identity is in question. Would the viewers really know more about the faces, respectively the persons behind them, if they were given names? Names and titles can be meaningful and meaning-giving additions. On the other hand they always bear the risk of simply banning the unknown in the magical act of naming, and losing sight of the essential point - that one does not really know who the other is and that the other can only lead a liveable existence if he can indefinitely change instead of being the same person all the time. Part of leaving things open in this way is to over and over obtain a new picture of the other and to take a lot of time for this process, in particular when using canvas and oil paint.
Thomas W. Kuhn
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Galerie Voss, D�sseldorf
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